8.1 folks can you please test this?

[Sir Guacamolaf]

A while ago Tesla disabled connecting to Wifi while the car was in motion (i.e. tethering from your phone, so you wouldn't have to pay Tesla a fee for LTE access on the 17").

Has this been reverted in 8.1? Thx!

 

[Majerus]

Has Tesla started charging anyone yet for cell service?

 

[stopcrazypp]

A while ago Tesla disabled connecting to Wifi while the car was in motion (i.e. tethering from your phone, so you wouldn't have to pay Tesla a fee for LTE access on the 17").

Has this been reverted in 8.1? Thx!

The disabled wifi access while in motion had nothing to do with an LTE fee (which I don't believe Tesla has charged anyone for). It had to do with security researcher showing a demo where they hacked into the car by connecting the car to a compromised wifi access point.

 

[bmah]

Actually the "no WiFi in motion" behavior was reverted during the 8.0 timeframe. See this post for what I was able to test personally:

No wifi while driving in v8.0

Bruce.

PS. My car is still on 8.0(17.8.16). I admit I haven't tested this recently.

 

[xyeahtony]

A while ago Tesla disabled connecting to Wifi while the car was in motion (i.e. tethering from your phone, so you wouldn't have to pay Tesla a fee for LTE access on the 17").

Has this been reverted in 8.1? Thx!

i don't understand the point of tethering? i thought LTE service thru the car was free and will stay free for the foreseeable future (to ensure OTA updates).

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

@tpham07 I think Tesla hasn't started charging for it because they have their hands full. I was told that its included for 4 years - and yes currently nobody is paying for it, but that'll change, eventually.

Now if Tesla charges a reasonable fee, then its a non-issue. But that remains to be seen. Ideally I would just want to stick something in the OBD port and turn it into an always on cellular wifi hotspot that I can even connect my cloud backed dash cam to (actually I already do that). And while I have wifi in the car .. might as well let me connect the car to it.

 

[LoL Rick]

It's not just about the monthly fee. Cars built before 2015 had 3G so a 4G tether might be faster. And some places may have poor coverage where a different provider has better coverage. In other words, options are good.

 

[chillaban]

Actually the "no WiFi in motion" behavior was reverted during the 8.0 timeframe. See this post for what I was able to test personally:

No wifi while driving in v8.0

Bruce.

PS. My car is still on 8.0(17.8.16). I admit I haven't tested this recently.

I'm on 17.4.14, and the current behavior is:

- Shifting out of Park will disconnect you from your hotspot immediately
- You can reconnect once you're in Reverse/Drive, and that will continue staying connected as you drive.
- While in Drive, the car will not automatically connect to any hotspots it finds without you manually telling it to

My theory is that this behavior is to protect against cases where your car latches onto your home wifi as you drive away. I actually have a ton of problems in 7.1 where driving slowly near shopping complexes would cause my car to connect to xfinitywifi and then lose streaming radio. (My apartment complex has a outdoor xfinitywifi installation that I use to receive updates at night)

 

[krazineurons]

noob question but why connect via Hotspot when LTE signal from the car is already there?

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

noob question but why connect via Hotspot when LTE signal from the car is already there?

Because the car does not expose itself as a hotspot. The LTE is strictly limited to Tesla functions and Tesla functions only.

 

[krazineurons]

Because the car does not expose itself as a hotspot. The LTE is strictly limited to Tesla functions and Tesla functions only.

So the idea is to connect to phone's wifi while the car is in motion and collect diagnostics information flowing out of the car?

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

So the idea is to connect to phone's wifi while the car is in motion and collect diagnostics information flowing out of the car?

Nothing to do with diagnostics.

The car can connect to either LTE or Wifi. It is nice to be able to connect to the phone's hotspot, so you can get higher data speeds.
Phones with 5g will be out soon and many older cars have 3g.
Also - some of us already have an additional hotspot in the car.