Firmware 7.0 Beta Discussion

[dirkhh]

For those of you concerned about losing information on the dash while autopilot is engaged, not to worry. I have it on good authority that it's possible to display all relevant information, including temperature and time, simultaneously:

View attachment 94845



Ooops. That's just the dash display on my wife's two year old Volvo.

The range of 110 miles is a little disappointing...

 

[EarlyAdopter]

The range of 110 miles is a little disappointing...

To be fair, the "battery gauge" thingy was indicating 30%.

I tried plugging it in when we got home, but it didn't work. Evidently you have to drive someplace to recharge.

 

[darthy001]

I notice the release notes mention parallel parking only. What happened to automatically parking in the owner's garage? I've got a very tight garage and would like to have an automatic, accurate (within an inch or two) back in parking feature.

Sadly noticed the same as well. Got a very tight garage opening here to. That leads to the wife actually refusing to drive the car... Normally that would be a positive, but over time it gets annoying as she always wants to bring our small VW e-up! when there is a risk she might need to drive home without me for some reason.

I just hope this parralell parking at least is better than on my old cars as those took so long that I did it better and much faster on my own

 

[Earlian]

For those of you concerned about losing information on the dash while autopilot is engaged, not to worry. I have it on good authority that it's possible to display all relevant information, including temperature and time, simultaneously:

View attachment 94845



Ooops. That's just the dash display on my wife's two year old Volvo.

Good Point.

Did they send upgrades on that Volvo?

 

[Matias]

I expect lane detection of any sort will not work well in the rain, if at all.

TACC requires camera and works normal in rain. I Haven't tested it in heavy rain though.

 

[AlMc]

TACC requires camera and works normal in rain. I Haven't tested it in heavy rain though.

TACC is looking at the car in front of you which is large and *relatively* easy to *see*. What happens when a camera is trying to *see* road lines, at night, with street lights causing reflections on a wet pavement? This has fooled my lane keep function, at times, so I suspect it might fool autosteer.

So, heavy rain may block the camera view and a shiny/reflective wet road surface may do the same for picking up lines after or between rainfalls.

 

[wk057]

TACC is looking at the car in front of you which is large and *relatively* easy to *see*. What happens when a camera is trying to *see* road lines, at night, with street lights causing reflections on a wet pavement? This has fooled my lane keep function, at times, so I suspect it might fool autosteer.

So, heavy rain may block the camera view and a shiny/reflective wet road surface may do the same for picking up lines after or between rainfalls.

Seems like it'd be sensible to use the already existing rain sensor and act accordingly with lane keeping/auto steer. I'm sure there will be the usual barrage of warnings and cautions to not use it during bad weather and such, so why not just disable it in bad weather, or require hand on the wheel, or something else that would be a sane decision in such cases? Personally I don't think I'd be brave enough to use lane keeping in the rain or on wet roads... but that's me.

I suppose this wouldn't help if it wasn't raining and the road were already wet/reflective... but it would be better than doing nothing I'd guess. Perhaps it could remember that it just rained and adjust sensitivity accordingly. The car also has a dang internet connection and could potentially poll weather data.

 

[ohmman]

So, heavy rain may block the camera view and a shiny/reflective wet road surface may do the same for picking up lines after or between rainfalls.

I've had the thought that it would be beneficial to begin putting some sort of metallic (or otherwise detectable) additive/flakes into road paint. The idea being that initially it would be visually based, but over time as lines paint began to be adopted using the new compound, lane keeping vehicles could make use of the combination of both. This would theoretically solve the heavy rain issue, not to mention aiding in accuracy as we begin to head into the autonomous era.

 

[Soolim]

Personally I don't think I'd be brave enough to use lane keeping in the rain or on wet roads... but that's me.
I suppose this wouldn't help if it wasn't raining and the road were already wet/reflective... but it would be better than doing nothing I'd guess. Perhaps it could remember that it just rained and adjust sensitivity accordingly. The car also has a dang internet connection and could potentially poll weather data.

I agree and also not brave enough to try lane keeping (when available) on wet roads. I speculate that the camera will be smart enough to detect too much reflections on the wet road and give a warning to disengage AP, similar to over-speed limit driving indicator but more severe warning with chime or a specific warning message. Disengaging AP only requires the driver to be actively steering, no soft buttons to press.

Tesla could be watching our driving behavior:wink:

 

[garygid]

One thing that attracted me to the Tesla S was the really nicely done "high end" graphics,
and the amount of useful see-at-a-glance information on most screens, in particular
the dashboard screen (behind the wheel).

If we lose the high-end look, or useful information becomes
difficult to see without user interaction, I believe sales will slow.
When you pay a lot, you want excellent, not barely passable.

However, maybe the interface being tested/leaked is just for the Model X, to help
differentiate it from the Model S, and the Model S displays will continue to be
"splendid" ... or is that too much to hope for?

 

[HankLloydRight]

.. or is that too much to hope for?

Yes, it is too much to hope for because it's already in the release notes for the V7 beta testers.

 

[garygid]

Release Notes are easy to change.

Perhaps the displays that we have seen are just for TACC activated, when the car
is controlling the energy usage, so the instantaneous power usage is not all that
useful to the driver?

The current layout requires only a glance at one spot, the speedo circle, to give
the manual driver essentially all the information needed. However, battery and
internal temperature would be nice, along with the tire pressures (which 7.0
appears to show).

If I had been told that the MS's Nav Routing could not handle way-points, and could not
even be set to avoid toll roads, I probably would have kept driving the LEAF. However ...

The MS Range, the free Superchargers forever, the "real" (and actively growing) SC network, the
SC location near me, and the Autopilot hardware ... all tipped the scales toward "buy now".

Tesla, please keep doing the excellent work, or at least have a plan to evolve back to it.

 

[andrewket]

TACC requires camera and works normal in rain. I Haven't tested it in heavy rain though.

I've had it do odd things in heavy rain. Suddenly it thinks there is a car in front of you and brakes, then a second later it realizes it's a phantom and accelerates. However, I haven't driven in heavy rain since receiving the past two software updates, so it's possible (and perhaps even likely) improved. In fog I've used it successfully; I set the following distance to 5-6 (from my normal 1-2), and used it to detect cars in front of me when I could not longer see them with my naked eye. This is a case where the new UI will really be nice, assuming the graphic representation of what the sensors are detecting is more or less to scale.

- - - Updated - - -

Release Notes are easy to change.

Perhaps the displays that we have seen are just for TACC activated, when the car
is controlling the energy usage, so the instantaneous power usage is not all that
useful to the driver?

The current layout requires only a glance at one spot, the speedo circle, to give
the manual driver essentially all the information needed. However, battery and
internal temperature would be nice, along with the tire pressures (which 7.0
appears to show).

If I had been told that the MS's Nav Routing could not handle way-points, and could not
even be set to avoid toll roads, I probably would have kept driving the LEAF. However ...

The MS Range, the free Superchargers forever, the "real" (and actively growing) SC network, the
SC location near me, and the Autopilot hardware ... all tipped the scales toward "buy now".

Tesla, please keep doing the excellent work, or at least have a plan to evolve back to it.

The NAV and trip planning needs a lot of work, I totally agree. But at least there are other options available. Waze, google maps, etc all work from your phone and can use bluetooth for audio directions. evtripplanner.com is a great tool for trip planning.

 

[drsaab]

I hope the dash will also show the cars all around us like the autopilot website has shown since last year. The new pics seem to only show the car in front and that is nothing more advanced than all other tacc and lane keeping cars already do. It looks like they might have got rid of the 360 in motion cars display for advanced side collision assist graphics.

 

[green1]

I've had it do odd things in heavy rain.

Why do people keep talking about heavy rain? Every car I've ever seen specifically tells you not to use cruise control in heavy rain, why should we expect this cruise control to be any different?

 

[Sogorman]

I might have missed it but has anyone heard any update from the OP who received the latest 7.0 EAP firmware and email? Did TM roll his car back to 6.2? Did he use AP? Any feedback? I find it odd that we always get leaks of screenshots but never any comment on how the AP software works in real life. Side note, Still crossing my fingers for a 9/28 deployment of V7

 

[EarlyAdopter]

I might have missed it but has anyone heard any update from the OP who received the latest 7.0 EAP firmware and email? Did TM roll his car back to 6.2? Did he use AP? Any feedback? I find it odd that we always get leaks of screenshots but never any comment on how the AP software works in real life. Side note, Still crossing my fingers for a 9/28 deployment of V7

No one has heard from them since. I believe Tesla has locked them in their car with the USB charger ports and 17" web browser disabled until such time as 7.0 launches to the public.

 

[Sogorman]

No one has heard from them since. I believe Tesla has locked them in their car with the USB charger ports and 17" web browser disabled until such time as 7.0 launches to the public.

Ugh, if it were me I would have hours of demos up on YouTube already. Talk about being a tease. Lol

 

[perkiset]

Good lord. To take the current level of FUD at any kind of seriousness, we'd have to assume that the eningeers, programmers, all the beta testers and Elon himself have simply given it up and decided to aspire to mediocre. Do we really doubt that the original beta team and EAP folks did NOT tell the engineers that it was a pile of crap, if it were, in fact, a pile of crap?

I do not believe that any high tech company today develops in a waterfall fashion, and I'd wager that Tesla is pretty damn agile. Honestly, if the beta testers have fed back the designers that they like it, it works well, it doesn't devalue the car etc etc, then I think it should be worthy of the community giving it a shot before screaming how dissatisfied we are with something that no one here really knows anything about. Every spec, image, structure on this thread is speculation, it's not the real release. Let them get it out and if it is, in fact, a pile of crap they will certainly hear about it.

Heh. Based on the volume of this thread, I'd already have a plane ticket in hand if I were a developer and didn't think it would rock.

 

[Soolim]

Ugh, if it were me I would have hours of demos up on YouTube already. Talk about being a tease. Lol

His UI got roll back. He is also not AP equipped. That tease by Tesla was mainly for the UI.