Tesla Shows Off How They Monitor Their Supercharger Network

Tesla's Supercharger monitoring system

Not a Tesla App

Setting the pace in an industry defined by relentless innovation, Tesla has again taken a revolutionary step forward. This time to quell a long-standing concern amongst EV drivers: range anxiety.

Tesla revealed a video (shown below) of their unique Supercharger monitoring system, demonstrating how they utilize a specially developed app to track the status of charging stations around the world. The app serves as a vital instrument for managing the Supercharger network, featuring an interactive map that offers a comprehensive view of real-time Supercharger usage, effectively helping to pinpoint and address congestion.

This bird's-eye view can zoom in and out across regions, allowing Tesla's team to pinpoint congestion and effectively plan necessary adjustments. A striking demonstration of the application's efficiency is visible through its dynamic mapping features, providing a seamless overview of Supercharger usage in real time.

Tesla's Supercharger Monitoring System

In the video below, Tesla shares a peek at their Supercharger monitoring system.

Trip Planning and Intelligent Routing

The real magic, however, comes from integrating this real-time Supercharger information into Tesla's navigation system. When a driver inputs a destination, the car calculates the optimal route, identifying uncongested Superchargers along your route and calculating the faster way to your destination. It's like having your personal air traffic control system in your hand.

Tesla's Supercharger monitoring system

Not a Tesla App

This navigation system factors in real-time information from the Supercharger network, along with data such as initial battery pack temperature, forecasted wind speed, and direction. With all these parameters considered, Tesla can provide a highly accurate prediction of energy consumption for the journey ahead.

Beating Range Anxiety with Trip Planner

Tesla's innovative routing system takes charge management to the next level by ensuring you arrive at a charger with a fairly low state of charge, then juice up just enough to get you to the next selected Supercharger. This intelligent process maximizes efficiency and minimizes waiting times at charging stations, a masterstroke in the fight against range anxiety.

Tesla's engineers see this as not just a feature but a solution. "With the Trip Planner, we've solved range anxiety," says Matt, a Tesla System Engineer, in the video. Alejandro, his colleague, also emphasizes the unique interaction between the car, the route, and the forecasted driving conditions, all working in tandem to ensure efficient energy usage.

A New Era in EV Travel

Tesla's Supercharger monitoring system is not just an incremental improvement; it's a major stride in EV travel. By giving drivers a personalized, comprehensive view of their trip and managing charging times to reduce congestion and increase efficiency, Tesla has fundamentally changed the EV driving experience.

Range anxiety, once a crucial downside, is no longer an inherent part of owning an electric car. Tesla's advanced technology has turned it into a thing of the past, demonstrating that electric vehicles are not only a viable option but are set to become the norm in the future of personal transportation. The next time you plan a road trip, consider making it electric — with Tesla, you won't need to worry about running out of charge.

An In-Depth Look at Tesla's New Music Player in Update 2024.14 [Photos & Video]

One of the exciting new features of Tesla update 2024.14 is the improved media player for the Model 3 and Model Y.

Tesla's media player has gone through some drastic changes over the years, but this appears to be the best revision yet.

The previous media player had four states... yes, four. It made for a confusing experience, even for owners who used the car every day.

The four states included:

• The "default" state included a small player closest to the driver with some of the most used buttons

• The second state was the enlarged view when you dragged up on the media player that revealed additional buttons such as shuffle and search

• There was also its minimized state, which placed the music player’s icon in the dock and led to confusion

• And lastly, if you had a music service open fully on the right part of the screen AND minimized the media player, then the player would hop over to the top of the larger music panel on the right.

It created for an inconsistent experience and all of the players had their downsides. There just wasn’t a solution that worked all of the time. Thankfully the new music player addresses most of these issues.

Tesla used to have a media player that ran along the bottom of the right part of the screen

What’s New

The first thing Tesla did was reduce the number of states essentially down to two. You have a regular media player and a minimized player. You don't have to drag up on the player to access the shuffle or search functions and you can’t “lose” the player by minimizing it to the dock anymore.

One-Tap Access to Shuffle, Repeat and Search

What Tesla did was move all of the crucial media functions from the previous larger player directly to the main player. This now gives you one-tap access to functions like shuffle, repeat, search, playback speed, audio levels, and search.

Not only were these functions hard to access before, but they were hidden underneath the player, making discovery for new owners difficult.

Improved Progress Bar

The progress bar on the previous player was difficult to see since it was just a slim line at the bottom of the player.

The new player has a thicker progress bar that separates the top portion of the player, which houses the album art, song title, and a couple of functions, and the bottom portion, which contains more controls. Tesla also added a circle to the progress bar, making it more obvious you can not only scrub through the media but also lets you easily see your current spot.

Accessing More Functions

More music player options open to the right

Since the larger media player was removed, so was some of the functionality that it included. All the important items were moved to the main media player such as audio settings and search, however, the other functionality such as access to Favorites, Sources, Recent Songs, and Next, was moved to the larger music app.

If you tap on the new music player, it’ll open up the current music app on the right side that includes music controls, as well as access to your favorites, music sources, upcoming songs and more.

This is also the only way to view the elapsed and remaining times for the current selection, which is useful for longer median such as audiobooks or podcasts.

New Minimized Player

Although the music player doesn't minimize to the dock, it does feature a minimalist version that docks to the bottom of the screen.

When you slide down on the audio player, it'll be reduced to a simple "one-line" player. It simply shows a music icon, the name of the title being played, and an arrow showing you the player can be made larger. There is no longer a gray music icon that appears in the dock when the player is in its “minimized” state.

The new music player no longer minimizes to the dock

Modern UI

The player itself also looks more modern, it now features a translucent background, instead of a solid color like before. The new background lets vehicle animations subtly shine through, a lot like the effects used on modern operating systems.

What Models Will Support It

According to Tesla’s social media post on X, the ‘Visual updates’ in update 2024.14 are limited to AMD Ryzen-based Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, meaning only vehicles manufactured after about 2022+. The exact timeline depends on your vehicle and region, but you can check to see which processor your vehicle includes by navigating to Controls > Software > Additional Vehicle Information.

New Player in Action [Video]

DominicBRNKMN shows off the new music player in action below.

Will We See Intel Atom Support?

The new music player isn’t doing anything crazy in this latest iteration. We believe we'll see this updated player come to Intel Atom vehicles eventually. The Cybertruck already includes the new media player, among the other design changes, so when Tesla said only for “Model 3/Y with AMD chip” on X, they likely meant in this specific update.

There's nothing that’s more computationally intensive about this new player except for maybe the translucent background, however, that’s already being done on Intel-based vehicles for some of the navigation modules. There isn’t anything new that the slower Intel processor couldn't handle.

It’s in Tesla’s best interest to keep a common interface between vehicles. Tesla wouldn't want to drastically change the way a common item like the "radio" works between different Model 3 and Model Y years if they didn't have to. That would complicate issues with service and documentation. Tesla wants owners to have the same UI as much as possible, so we there’s a good chance that we’ll see the new media player apply to Intel in the future.

Hopefully, in an upcoming update, Intel owners will receive this streamlined music player. Update 2024.14 is currently rolling out slowly to some vehicles. 

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Tesla Vehicles are the Cheapest to Maintain and Repair According to Consumer Reports Study

Consumer Reports

Tesla cars are the cheapest to maintain and repair according to a new study by Consumer Reports. Elon Musk commented on the survey on X emphasising that Tesla is “the lowest car to maintain”.

The study, which includes data from thousands of car owners in the US, was recently published and shows that Teslas averaged only $580 in maintenance and repair costs over the first five years of ownership. From years six through ten, the costs increased to $3,455, which brings the total to $4,035 for the first ten years of ownership — the lowest of any vehicle tested. It’s worth noting that the average length of car ownership in the U.S. is about 8 years. 

Buick and Toyota fall right below Tesla (both at $4,900) with Lincoln and Ford closing the top 5 with $5,040 and $5,400 respectively for maintenance and repair costs in a 10-year ownership.

German premium automakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz are among the 5 most expensive on the list with 10-year costs reaching $9,500, $9,890 and $10,525, respectively. The trio is only surpassed by the luxury German automaker Porsche with an average cost of $14,090 and Land Rover closes the list at $19,250. 

Car Maintenance

Vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE) require additional maintenance, not only oil changes, but drive belts, transmission oil changes, coolant flushes, and more. Not only that, but ICE cars have more moving parts that decrease the reliability of the vehicle and can cause additional repairs such as transmission issues, clogged fuel filters or injectors, faulty spark plugs and the list goes on and on.

Since electric vehicles use regenerative braking to slow the vehicle down, brake pads also last much longer, sometimes lasting over 100k miles. This reduces wear on the brake pads, and rotors and even reduces brake dust on your wheels.

“EVs are cheaper to maintain, look after, and certainly to service,” says Matt Cleevely, from Cleevely Motors to Wired magazine adding that EVs “have half as many moving parts and require no regular oil changes”.

In Tesla’s case, the automaker suggests Model 3 owners replace the cabin air filter and HEPA filter every three years, check brake fluid every two years, and clean and lubricate the brake calipers every year or 12,500 miles, in areas where the roads are salted during the winter.

Gas Savings

These maintenance savings are only a small part of the reason why electric vehicles are cheaper to use for daily driving. Another large portion of savings comes from fuel costs. Tesla often promotes their vehicles’ gas savings on their website. For example, the Model Y has an estimated gas savings of $6,000 in the U.S. over the first five years of ownership alone. The savings may be even greater in other parts of the world where gas may be more expensive. After taking those savings into account, the world’s best-selling vehicle in 2023 starts at $29,490 after gas savings and the U.S. federal tax credit — and that’s before you include maintenance cost and time savings.

Cheapest cars to maintenance and repair through 10-years of ownership

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