Downside?

[N5329K]

Serious question: What would be the downside of not connecting your Model 3 to wifi at home, and simply dropping by a Service Center now and again to use their facility for updates (after they've been more or less debugged)? Any operational disadvantages with this that current owners might comment on? Not concerned about maps updating more frequently.
Thanks,
Robin

 

[ckoval7]

If that's how you want to spend your time, then I guess there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Black306]

IMO, not any different than most cars today that don’t have WiFi at all; won’t get any updates and the car will continue to work in the same manner as its current state.

Not sure what the considerations are for not using WiFi and making an extra effort to go to a Service Center. Why not connect the car to WiFi at home? Download limits?

 

[N5329K]

No, no download limits. Just curious if the car would operate normally without Constant Contact with the mothership.
Robin

 

[Petrlol]

No, no download limits. Just curious if the car would operate normally without Constant Contact with the mothership.
Robin

Oh.
It will act normal. But its LTE connection is still in constant connection with the mothership...

 

[seattlite2004]

Oh.
It will act normal. But it's LTE connection is still in constant connection with the mothership...

What are the ramifications of not having that LTE connection?

 

[whatthe2]

Serious question: What would be the downside of not connecting your Model 3 to wifi at home, and simply dropping by a Service Center now and again to use their facility for updates (after they've been more or less debugged)? Any operational disadvantages with this that current owners might comment on? Not concerned about maps updating more frequently.
Thanks,
Robin

Just curious what you see is the downside to connecting with WiFi? You don’t have to install an update if you don’t want to.

 

[Matsayz]

What are the ramifications of not having that LTE connection?

You can’t kill that connection unless you remove the antenna from the passenger mirror housing but that seems a bit excessive. Unless you want to be “off the grid”. Maps will suck, it’ll just be the chunky large view map with no detail.

The OP could just hotspot their phone for a bit to download the update but there’s not really much reason to wait out for non-buggy updates... it’s not a phone update.

 

[seattlite2004]

You can’t kill that connection unless you remove the antenna from the passenger mirror housing but that seems a bit excessive. Unless you want to be “off the grid”. Maps will suck, it’ll just be the chunky large view map with no detail.

The OP could just hotspot their phone for a bit to download the update but there’s not really much reason to wait out for non-buggy updates... it’s not a phone update.

No way to kill the connection by pulling a breaker, connector or the SIM?

 

[N5329K]

What are the ramifications of not having that LTE connection?

I would be interested in knowing the answer to this as well.
Thanks, all,
Robin

 

[N5329K]

Just curious what you see is the downside to connecting with WiFi? You don’t have to install an update if you don’t want to.

We were having a conversation this AM about an essay in the NYT
Opinion | You Are Now Remotely Controlled
about the IOT, and the question came up, is a Tesla just another IOT outpost, and must it be? What real functionality - if any - would be lost by “going dark”. I didn’t have an answer.
Robin

 

[whatthe2]

We were having a conversation this AM about an essay in the NYT
Opinion | You Are Now Remotely Controlled
about the IOT, and the question came up, is a Tesla just another IOT outpost, and must it be? What real functionality - if any - would be lost by “going dark”. I didn’t have an answer.
Robin

Got it. Thanks for replying. Haven’t read the article but I will.

 

[ckoval7]

I imagine killing the LTE connection would have a negative impact on warranty coverage. Tesla uses that connection for remote diagnostics if something were to go wrong with your car. Plus you'd lose app access, which takes away a lot of the pros of owning a Tesla in the first place.

 

[N5329K]

I imagine killing the LTE connection would have a negative impact on warranty coverage. Tesla uses that connection for remote diagnostics if something were to go wrong with your car. Plus you'd lose app access, which takes away a lot of the pros of owning a Tesla in the first place.

Specifically, which apps are you thinking about here?
Thanks,
Robin

 

[ry-ballz]

No way to kill the connection by pulling a breaker, connector or the SIM?

A breaker? This isn't a 727, we don't even have a flight engineer.

 

[seattlite2004]

A breaker? This isn't a 727, we don't even have a flight engineer.

Hahaha...sorry...been at work too long....I meant a fuse.

 

[qdeathstar]

A breaker? This isn't a 727, we don't even have a flight engineer.

I have a flight engineer... she sits in the passenger seat...

 

[Rottenapplr]

What’s the advantage of doing this? All I see are the cons especially going to a service center plus 30 mins to download, and 30 mins to restart. So you are out at least 1 hr of your day, that’s the minimum. If you are retired and have the time in the world go for it. For me I got too much and I’m too busy.

 

[SMAlset]

No, no download limits. Just curious if the car would operate normally without Constant Contact with the mothership.
Robin

Ask people on the MS forum who are intentional holdouts still on v9 because they didn’t like that v10 changed things they liked like their split screen etc.

The car operates fine but obviously no new features and no updates that improved certain functions. Sometimes there could be safety updates that you’d want to have and I think they might be able to force those. If you take your car in for service they would probably do an update as routine. There’s also the issue that if you don’t do the updates at some point there could be things that don’t work properly because prior updates that relied on them weren’t done. Remember reading something like this in the Manual about updates.

 

[dmurphy]

No way to kill the connection by pulling a breaker, connector or the SIM?

May I ask why you’d want to do this?

Before you answer, I’m just going to say that I’ve been hearing people say things like this since OnStar launched 25 years ago. It was unsubstantiated paranoia then, and, just my opinion, the same now. I don’t see any rational argument to take such an extreme measure.

If being wholesale disconnected from the modern world is of paramount importance, it’s likely that a Tesla is a poor choice of vehicle. May I suggest a Trabant?