Tesla's 'Auto Cancel' Turn Signals and How They Work

Tesla's Auto Cancel turn signals

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Tesla introduced Auto Cancel turn signals with update 2021.36 on their refreshed Model S and Model X vehicles. This feature makes using the new yoke steering wheel easier since the yoke uses touch-sensitive buttons for turn signals instead of a stalk.

Supported Models

In Tesla’s holiday update, version 2022.44.25, Tesla added the Auto Cancel turn signals feature to all Model 3 and Model Ys that have FSD hardware 3.0. It’s currently not available for legacy Model S and X vehicles and cars that have FSD hardware 2.5 or lower.

How to Enable Auto Cancel Turn Signals

Tesla’s Auto Cancel feature is turned off by default. To enable it, go to Controls > Lights > and toggle Turn Signals to "Auto Cancel." This setting is saved per profile, letting each driver choose their preference. It is also synced to your Tesla profile so that it's available across all vehicles you rent or own.

Behavior Without Auto Cancel

The Model 3 and Model Y currently have two ways to use the blinkers. The first is a soft press, which causes the blinker to flash three times before turning itself off. This is great for when you’re quickly switching lanes on the highway. The firm press, or click, activates the blinker until the wheel is returned back to center. This is ideal for stop signs and other longer events where you may need your turn signal on for longer than three flashes.

Behavior with Auto Cancel

When Tesla's Auto Cancel feature is enabled, the distinction between the soft press and click practically disappears. Tesla will now manage when to turn off your turn signals based on Tesla Vision. The turn signals will turn off only after a turn is completed, regardless of how many times the signal blinks. This is a much more functional (and safer) way to drive since the blinker will only turn off once the turn is completed. This could be as simple as changing lanes on the highway or making a complete left turn at an intersection.

It’s worth noting, though, that the signals will also turn off if the steering wheel is returned to the center, regardless of your setting. The vehicle is also intelligent enough to not turn the turn signal off after a lane change if there is an upcoming turn.

As previously mentioned, the Auto Cancel feature is not yet available to legacy Model S and Model X vehicles. But we’re anticipating Tesla will enable it in a future update.

Auto Shift in Model S and Model X

Tesla’s refreshed Model S and Model X vehicles have garnered a lot of adoration for their design, technology, and safety. To add to the “cool factor” of the vehicles, they come with the ability to automatically shift into park, reverse, and drive.

For example, if you are grocery shopping and your vehicle is pulled up to a wall, the vehicle will know that it can’t go forward; therefore, it needs to reverse and automatically shift into reverse.

Tesla can accomplish this by using its proprietary Tesla Vision, an advanced hardware and software functionality that only uses cameras to make decisions. The goal of Tesla Vision is to resemble human driving and make it safer.

Last year, Elon said the Auto Shift feature will come to all Teslas. With Auto Cancel functionality now being brought to the Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla may be looking to add Auto Shift next.

Tesla is currently testing hardware 4.0 internally, which is expected to be released with vehicles sometime next year. The Model 3 is also expected to be 'revamped' in the next three to six months.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

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Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.

Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.

Steam Launch

When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.

In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.

However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.

SteamOS Update

The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.

Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.

Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles

Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.

AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.

While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.

The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.

Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?

The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.

While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.

We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

Robert Rosenfeld / YouTube

As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.

However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.

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Weather At Destination

When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.

Note the weather under the arrival time

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You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.

You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.

And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.

Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.

The weather pop-up above the ETA

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One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.

Weather Radar Overlay

As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.

You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.

Requirements / Data

Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.

As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

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