The Tesla Crash in Texas Was Not Caused by Autopilot

By now, every Tesla aficionado has heard about the Tesla that crashed in Texas, supposedly while on Autopilot.

The car was thought to be on Autopilot because no one was found in the driver's seat after the battery fire was extinguished. One man was in the front passenger seat, and the other was in a back seat. The article doesn't specify which back seat. The article makes the point that Sandy Munro, an engineer who often comments on Teslas and other electric cars, says that the odds are still in favor of people who use Autopilot since they have fewer accidents than people who don't use it. However, in this case, Autopilot, a standard feature in this Tesla, was not engaged.

It's not clear how a Tesla with no one in the driver's seat can even move. My Tesla can move without a driver only with smart summon, but that's a feature of FSD (full self-driving). The car that crashed in Texas didn't have FSD. And if it did, the smart summon feature is limited to such slow speeds that this kind of accident couldn't be fatal. Sadly, the accident in Texas was fatal to the two men found in the car. I offer condolences to the family

There's going to be an investigation. Thinking about the situation, I see only two possible causes for this accident. The men were in a Tesla with plain old ordinary Autopilot, not the beta version that most of us are still eagerly awaiting. The one where you get to push a button, promise to keep paying attention to the road and get the advanced version.

But Autopilot wasn't engaged. The article points out that the car failed to negotiate a turn and crashed into a tree. The thing is, no Tesla driver expects Autopilot to properly negotiate a sharp curve or turn a corner properly. It didn't take me very long to figure that out. I knew it by the time I'd driven home from the Tesla store, a ten-minute drive. But, again, Autopilot wasn't engaged. To me that means that either there was a driver who escaped the car after the accident, or, more ominously, the driver thought he had engaged Autopilot, and then climbed into either the front passenger seat or the rear seat while the car was moving. That would have been unwise. It's still puzzling though. If the car is in regenerative mode, it starts to slow down, and then stops, once the foot is no longer depressing the accelerator once Autopilot is no longer engaged. There is a mode where the car keeps rolling along though. Sometimes, Autopilot disengages with an audible alarm, but cruise control keeps the car moving until the brake is tapped. You can't press the brake if you're sitting in the back or in the right front seat.

Plain old ordinary Autopilot doesn't do sharp curves all by itself. But what Autopilot does do is check to see if the driver is exerting some force on the steering wheel every ten seconds or so. If no such force is felt, there's an audible alarm and a visible notation on the touch screen. If that's ignored, Autopilot shuts off and the driver needs to start steering the car. At that point, if the driver isn't paying attention to the road, or isn't even in the driver's seat, the car might well crash into something. Autopilot definitely needs driver intervention at times. There are plenty of videos showing that.

There's one particular YouTube guy who makes excellent videos on the beta version of FSD. He goes by the name of Dirty Tesla. Apparently, that name refers to the fact that he lives on a dirt road, and he doesn't wash his Tesla very often. But he does a great job of making videos of himself letting his Tesla drive itself most of the time, but intervening when necessary. And that's with the beta version of FSD. Even that needs driver intervention occasionally. Go to YouTube and search on DirtyTesla.

Elon Musk has been promising to put a button in the Service section of the menu that will cause the beta version to be downloaded. The problem is, he keeps putting off the time when the button will appear. Musk has said that for those who didn't buy FSD (full self-driving), there will be a subscription to FSD starting in May.

My recommendation on this is that Autopilot without FSD is standard equipment and is probably just fine until the beta version of FSD is available. I don't recommend subscribing to FSD or even buying it, until you can get the beta version. I find it frustrating that I bought FSD last June, and I don't get much benefit from it. So new buyers, vote with your wallet. Don't get FSD until you can get the one that works on local streets and makes sharp turns safely.

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Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

Not a Tesla App

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.

Not a Tesla App

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

Not a Tesla App

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

Not a Tesla App

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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