Caution: Driving while firmware is updating

[Hometheatremaven]

Thinking I had plenty of time while shopping in Costco, I disabled Sentry Mode and started my update (to 20.4). However when we got back to the car, the screen said "Update in Progress". I thought we wouldn't be able to drive the car until the update was completed, but I thought I'd try anyway. To my surprise, the car started normally with the update screen still showing. After a minute or two of driving, the screen went black. I was able to continue driving HOWEVER the screen was black and I had no regenerative braking.

After a few more minutes of driving carefully, the screen rebooted with a message saying the update was being confirmed (something like that). After another minute the update was successfully installed and the What's New screen showed that Dune Buggy Racing 2 had been installed. All good.

I'm not sure what else wouldn't function properly during the update while you're driving. The lack of regenerative braking was the only thing I noticed, but try this at your own risk.

 

[boaterva]

I’m surprised you can put it in Drive, actually. You really shouldn’t touch the car after you start an update until the app sends you the ‘Update Complete’ notification.

Good thing everything else worked!

 

[Joshan]

Dang bro.... you like living on the edge eh?

 

[OCR1]

Good to know it’s possible to drive while updating. But seriously, how did you get out of a Costco so quickly?

 

[Hometheatremaven]

Good to know it’s possible to drive while updating. But seriously, how did you get out of a Costco so quickly?

Slow day for grazing

 

[aronth5]

The OP is a brave soul I always wait an do the update when I'm home just in case something happens.
I never sit in the car while it's updating and always unplug it while it's updating. Figure it's best to minimize any variables. May not matter but I've never had any issues during or after an update in 15 months.
Of course I just jinxed myself with this post.

 

[PoitNarf]

I believe it’s a good policy to only start updates when you’re at home. You wouldn’t want a botched update leave you stranded in some random parking lot. Granted the chances of an update making your car un-drivable are very slim, but it’s just not worth the risk dealing with update related issues when you’re away from home.

 

[sduck]

try this at your own risk.

Thank you, but I'd rather not.

 

[ewoodrick]

I definitely wouldn't do this. Some updates may only update the display computer, but others may update other systems. You probably don't want the brakes going out during an update while driving. Or more probable, the car turning on the parking brake before running a part of an update.

 

[duanra]

I guess life is too monotonous for some folks...

 

[VT_EE]

Definitely not something I would ever try.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Thinking I had plenty of time while shopping in Costco, I disabled Sentry Mode and started my update (to 20.4). However when we got back to the car, the screen said "Update in Progress". I thought we wouldn't be able to drive the car until the update was completed, but I thought I'd try anyway. To my surprise, the car started normally with the update screen still showing. After a minute or two of driving, the screen went black. I was able to continue driving HOWEVER the screen was black and I had no regenerative braking.

After a few more minutes of driving carefully, the screen rebooted with a message saying the update was being confirmed (something like that). After another minute the update was successfully installed and the What's New screen showed that Dune Buggy Racing 2 had been installed. All good.

I'm not sure what else wouldn't function properly during the update while you're driving. The lack of regenerative braking was the only thing I noticed, but try this at your own risk.

I can't believe anyone actually tried it.

That's dangerous and irresponsible, honestly.

 

[StellarRat]

Never

 

[commasign]

Wow. Not something I would ever do. Lol. But good to know the drive system will continue to function in a catastrophic software failure.

 

[Timbo2]

I believe it’s a good policy to only start updates when you’re at home. You wouldn’t want a botched update leave you stranded in some random parking lot. Granted the chances of an update making your car un-drivable are very slim, but it’s just not worth the risk dealing with update related issues when you’re away from home.

I follow the same rule! This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but I'd also note while it updates it drops the charging rate down to 5A. So you have the potential to also limit your charging if something goes wrong.

I got home last night - started the update and plugged in the car. It initially charged at my full 40A rate and about halfway through the update process the charging slowed to 5A. I thought I might have to go out to the car after the update and manually increase the charge rate back to max again. However, after the update the car again began to charge at 40A rate.

 

[mswlogo]

And how does the OP know for sure everything did get updated properly because he was driving.

Maybe it skipped that flash of the inverter controller because it was active, or something along those lines.
I would hope the software is smart enough to not mark it as success if everything wasn't flashed properly, but who knows.

I agree, it's safer to flash in a more controlled environment.

 

[DirtyT3sla]

In this video you can see I was able to drive during the 2019.16 update

Screen went black for a while and it was a little freaky honestly lol. I tried to do a scroll wheel reset and it doesn't work. Eventually everything was fine

But yeah I don't think I'd do this again.

 

[Msjulie]

Mine 'screen' has crashed on occasion while on the road.. not much to do but keep on keeping on...

I wouldn't do what OP did but baring a power loss while the update is installing, or subsequent reboot probably not too much could go wrong...

 

[Krazaak]

I can't believe anyone actually tried it.

That's dangerous and irresponsible, honestly.

I wouldn't do it, but I'd argue that it would be more dangerous and irresponsible for Tesla to allow you to drive the car during an update if there was any real danger in doing so.

I would consider being able to fail gracefully if the update process is interrupted as the minimum required for a product being consumer ready. Being able to succeed with the update while driving is pretty impressive.

Still seems like a bad idea though.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

I wouldn't do it, but I'd argue that it would be more dangerous and irresponsible for Tesla to allow you to drive the car during an update if there was any real danger in doing so.

I would consider being able to fail gracefully if the update process is interrupted as the minimum required for a product being consumer ready. Being able to succeed with the update while driving is pretty impressive.

Still seems like a bad idea though.

Pretty sure they warn against it on the "update now" screen.

There are plenty of products that you wouldn't think needed to have proper use explained...but it's 2019. someone has used every product wrong at least once, necessitating some dumb sounding warning labels.