Tesla Camp Mode vs Dog Mode vs Keep Climate On: What's the difference

The differences between Keep Climate, Dog Mode and Camp Mode

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Keep Climate On, Dog Mode, and Camp Mode all allow you to keep your vehicle's climate control system running while the vehicle is parked. These settings can maintain the cabin temperature in hot or cold weather conditions. However, there are some differences between the three options.

Tesla's 2022.12 update in April of 2022 added the ability to enable Dog Mode and Camp Mode directly from the mobile app, but you'll need to enable Keep Climate On from within the vehicle.

Keep Climate On

Keep Climate On is helpful in circumstances that require the car to remain at a specific temperature when no one is in the vehicle. For example, if you run into a store and want to maintain the cabin at an ideal temperature so that it's at an ideal temperature when you return.

Keep Climate On can only be enabled from within the vehicle. To activate it you go to the HVAC menu and choose the 'Keep' icon on the right.

The Keep Climate On option is very similar to activating the climate system from within the Tesla app. Where they differ is how long they'll remain on and which notifications Tesla will send you.

Keep Climate On will keep your HVAC system on indefinitely until it's either, turned off, or until the car's battery gets down to 20%. Whereas, turning on the climate system from within the app will only keep your cabin at a set temperature for up to two hours.

When using the app, Tesla will also send you multiple notifications letting you the climate system has been enabled for an extended period.

Dog Mode

Dog Mode was specifically created for your pet. It'll keep a comfortable cabin temperature for them while letting nearby individuals know that your pet is safe and comfortable inside the vehicle.

While Dog Mode is similar to Keep Climate On, there are a few significant differences.

The most obvious is that the display stays on. It displays an animated balloon animal and shows the temperature inside the vehicle.

While Dog Mode is enabled, Sentry Mode and the vehicle's alarm are both disabled to prevent them from going off accidentally.

For more details about Dog Mode, view our Dog Mode page.

While you can monitor the vehicle's temperature from the Tesla app, Dog Mode should only be used for short periods while you are nearby in case the temperature cannot be maintained due to failure, a low battery or extreme temperatures.

Camp Mode

Camp Mode is designed for camping and offers a few additional features over Dog Mode and Keep Climate On.

While Camp Mode is enabled, the vehicle's USB ports and low-voltage socket remain powered so that you can charge devices or use electronics while Camp Mode is active.

The touchscreen also remains on, allowing you to use the vehicle's infotainment system to play music, browse the web, or watch streaming video. Similar to Dog Mode, the vehicle's alarm and Sentry Mode are both disabled while Camp Mode is active.

In Camp Mode, the vehicle's auto-locking system is also turned off, so you'll need to manually lock the vehicle by tapping the lock button on the screen before going to bed.

For more details about Camp Mode, view our Camp Mode page.

Feature Comparison

To activate Dog Mode or Camp Mode from the Tesla app, you can navigate to the Climate section and swipe up from the bottom. This will reveal some additional climate options, which include the ability to turn on Dog Mode and Camp Mode, as well as Defrost and Cabin Overheat Protection.

While Keep Climate On, Dog Mode and Camp Mode have some differences, they're also similar in a few ways.

To prevent you from returning to a vehicle with an empty battery, Keep Climate On, Dog Mode and Camp Mode are all automatically disabled if your vehicle battery reaches 20%. Tesla will attempt to send you multiple notifications letting you know that the climate mode you're in will soon be turned off.

Software updates can not be performed while these climiate modes are engaged and if you shift out of Park each of these modes is automatically turned off as well.

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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