Tesla Update 2023.12 Contains Many Smaller Enhancements. Are You Aware of Them All?

Tesla's 2023.12 update is full of small enhancements

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Tesla's 2023.12 software update brings many new features and improvements, but the undocumented changes are some of the most intriguing. These minor, lesser-known updates enhance the user experience and showcase Tesla's commitment to continuous innovation. So far, we have spotted ten undocumented changes in the latest build.

Automatic Emergency Braking

Automatic Emergency Braking has been improved and will now stop for vehicles traveling perpendicularly and supports higher speeds, up to 124 mph (200 km/h). It also has limited support while traveling in reverse.

Reverse Camera

Tesla has updated the reverse camera app slightly, there is now a separate button on the top right corner to show or hide your repeater cameras. Hiding and showing your repeater cameras previously required swiping up or down on the reverse camera feed.

Parked Visualization

The vehicle visualization that appears when parked can now be rotated for different viewing angles. This one doesn't have any real world use, but it's fun to view all the details Tesla has put into the visualization.

Nav Improvements

Each search result will now display the distance from your current location

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When you're searching for a destination, each search results will now display the distance from your current location. Tesla has also made the pin look more like a button, to make it clear that it's a separate button. Tapping on the name will route directly to the destination, while tapping the pin will bring up more detail about the destination, including reviews, phone number and photos.

Rename Vehicle in App

You can now rename your vehicle from the app

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Owners can now rename their vehicles directly through the Tesla app. Simply tap the current name, input the new one, and press "OK."

Speedometer Font

The speedometer is now more visible

KyleCoolky

The font of the speedometer has a little more weight to it, making it more visible at a glance.

Wiper Speed Adjustment

You can finally adjust your windshield wipers without having to go through menus

LexBarker

Drivers can adjust wiper speed without touching the touchscreen at all. On a Model 3 or Y, you'll need to tap the button at the end of the left stalk. This will wipe the windshield once and bring up the wiper controls on screen. You can then tilt the steering wheel's left scroll wheel to cycle through the various wiper speeds.

Air Suspension

Users have more control over air suspension settings, including toggling height and speed adjustments on and off for a given location.

Music Favoriting

A plus sign (+) icon replaces the heart for favoriting songs. Same functionality, but for some reason Tesla felt a plus sign worked better across the various music services.

Tesla Theater Icons

Tesla Theater icons are now square, app-like icons instead of horizontal logos, which happen to match the WeChat apps Tesla released in China. Could this mean something more?

App Drawer

When you open the app drawer by tapping on the ellipsis in the launcher, all available options are now displayed. A Customize button is also included at the top for easy access.

Updated Charging Screen

The charging menu has been revamped

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The charging menu in Controls > Charging has also been given a facelift. The unneeded vehicle visualization is now gone, which makes the battery slider much larger and easier to use. It's also much more fluid than in previous versions.

New Labels

You've likely already noticed this one, but Tesla has started to add 'New' labels to each new option or function. Tesla will likely continue to add these labels in future updates to make owners more aware of any changes.

Tesla 2023.12 update has been the largest and most exciting since the 2022 Holiday Update. This update includes the ability to answer your phone with the steering wheel, as well as adjust popular functions such as change acceleration mode and modify the HVAC fan speed, all without touching the screen.

It also included the ability to change the size of text on the screen, which has been a feature that has been requested for quite a while now.

With the 2023.12 update, Tesla continues to enhance the driving experience for its users. Explore the full range of features and undocumented changes of this update by checking out our Tesla release notes for 2023.12.

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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

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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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