Tesla Features in Development: Karaoke 'Recording Studio,' New Trip Planner and Trailer Estimate Improvements

Tesla's version of karaoke is named Caraoke

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As Tesla rolls out update 2024.20 with adaptive headlight support in the U.S. and Canada, as well as improvements to adaptive headlights in Europe, it’s also testing out some things under the hood.

Every release includes other smaller changes that go unlisted. In addition, there are sometimes other code additions or features that aren’t active yet or development is still ongoing.

Shadow Mode

Sometimes Tesla runs changes in shadow mode, meaning that the change is in the software, but it’s running in the background. This is often useful if you have a working version of a feature, but are planning to replace it with an updated or improved version.

A good example is when Tesla started rolling out Park Assist for vehicles without ultrasonic sensors. For months, Tesla was running the updated Tesla Vision system in shadow mode and comparing its output to the values provided by ultrasonic sensors. By using the ultrasonic sensors as the “truth,” Tesla was able to constantly improve its vision-based replacement before finally rolling it out to users.

In update 2024.20, Tesla has several changes happening under the hood. Some of them are likely gathering data and others running may be running in shadow mode.

New “Voyage” Trip Planner

Tesla’s trip planner received a big update in December of 2022 and has been exceptionally performant. It provides accurate trip data, calculating in Supercharger stops – including wait times and station closures, and factors in elevation, user driving style, and traffic all into one package.

However, it has been a while since Tesla has made updates to the trip planner. Tesla hacker Greentheonly dug deep into 2024.20.1 and found a new trip planner called “Voyage” hidden in the update. It seems to be a full rewrite of the trip planner functionality.

At this point, no further details are available, but it could be integrated with 8/8’s Robotaxi announcement. It may be running in shadow mode now, letting Tesla gather data and compare it to the current implementation.

Updates to Maps & Towing

It looks like Tesla is also making some updates to maps, according to Green. He noticed that Tesla is using a new Google Places API that is used for points of interest.

There are also towing changes in this update, but don’t appear to be activated yet. They could provide more accurate range estimates. Previously, users would have to take into account the impact on range from trailer towing on their own. In the future, Tesla may be taking your trailer load into account when determining your range.

Caraoke to Gain Recording Mode

Caraoke, Tesla’s version of Karaoke, is also expected to gain a new recording mode according to Green. He spotted references to a new “Recording Studio”, enabling you to record your karaoke session. It would also give you the ability to add special effects to the recording. When Tesla adds this functionality, we could see it come with an export option that would let you save it onto a USB drive, letting you share it with friends on social media.

It’d be fun if Tesla also incorporated the cabin camera so that the recording featured everyone singing as well, but we may just have to wait and see how Tesla plans to incorporate changes to its Caraoke service.

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Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

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Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6

— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer. 

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips. 

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.

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Is Tesla Close to Licensing FSD? GM Quits Cruise, BMW Praises Tesla

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In a relatively surprising move, GM announced that it is realigning its autonomy strategy and prioritizing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) over fully autonomous vehicles.

GM is effectively closing Cruise (autonomous) and focusing on its Super Cruise (ADAS) feature. The engineering teams at Cruise will join the GM teams working on Super Cruise, effectively shuttering the fully autonomous vehicle business.

End of Cruise

GM cites that “an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” and “considerable time and resources” are required for scaling the business to a profitable level. Essentially - they’re unable to keep up with competitors at current funding and research levels, putting them further and further behind.

Cruise has been offering driverless rides in several cities, using HD mapping of cities alongside vehicles equipped with a dazzling array of over 40 sensors. That means that each cruise vehicle is essentially a massive investment and does not turn a profit while collecting data to work towards Autonomy.

Cruise has definitely been on the back burner for a while, and a quick glance at their website - since it's still up for now - shows the last time they officially released any sort of major news packet was back in 2019. 

Competition is Killer

Their current direct competitor - Waymo, is funded by Google, which maintains a direct interest in ensuring they have a play in the AI and autonomy space.

Interestingly, this news comes just a month after Tesla’s We, Robot event, where they showed off the Cybercab and the Robotaxi network, as well as plans to begin deployment of the network and Unsupervised FSD sometime in 2025. Tesla is already in talks with some cities in California and Texas to launch Robotaxi in 2025.

GM Admits Tesla Has the Right Strategy

As part of the business call following the announcement, GM admitted that Tesla’s end-to-end and Vision-based approach towards autonomy is the right strategy. While they say Cruise started down that path, they’re putting aside their goals towards fully autonomous vehicles for now and focusing on introducing that tech in Super Cruise instead.

NEWS: GM just admitted that @Tesla’s end-to-end approach to autonomy is the right strategy.

“That’s where the industry is pivoting. Cruise had already started making headway down that path. We are moving to a foundation model and end-to-end approach going forward.” pic.twitter.com/ACs5SFKUc3

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2024

With GM now focusing on Super Cruise, they’ll put aside autonomy and instead focus solely on ADAS features to relieve driver stress and improve safety. While those are positive goals that will benefit all road users, full autonomy is really the key to removing the massive impact that vehicle accidents have on society today.

In addition, Super Cruise is extremely limited, cannot brake for traffic controls, and doesn’t work in adverse conditions - even rain. It can only function when lane markings are clear, there are no construction zones, and there is a functional web connection. 

The final key to the picture is that the vehicle has to be on an HD-mapped and compatible highway - essentially locking Super Cruise to wherever GM has time to spend mapping, rather than being functional anywhere in a general sense, like FSD or Autopilot.

Others Impressed - Licensing FSD

Interestingly, some other manufacturers have also weighed into the demise of Cruise. BMW, in a now-deleted post, said that a demo of Tesla’s FSD is “very impressive.” There’s a distinct chance that BMW and other manufacturers are looking to see what Tesla does next. 

BMW chimes in on a now-deleted post. The Internet is forever, BMW!

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It seems that FSD has caught their eyes after We, Robot - and that the demonstrations of FSD V13.2 online seem to be the pivot point. At the 2024 Shareholder Meeting earlier in the year, Elon shared the fact that several manufacturers had reached out, looking to understand what was required to license FSD from Tesla.

There is a good chance 2025 will be the year we’ll see announcements of the adoption of FSD by legacy manufacturers - similar to how we saw the surprise announcements of the adoption of the NACS charging standard.

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