My iPhone got notified by the Tesla App that an update was available at 2:22am this morning. Seeing that I got the security update earlier in the week, this had to be the much awaited for V 8.0 update. I noticed this notification while on that middle of the night visit to the bathroom. I know, TMI (too much information)
I have no idea why I received this update so early. I can tell you I am using WiFi connectivity (from my home) in the car. But that is all I can think of which might make the difference. But I have read many here who also have WiFi with no success. I feel your pain. I'm a retired guy but heck, I get excited too about these updates too. So, at 6:15am I put on some pants and shoes and started the installation. The Tesla app indicated the installation was done at 7:45am. But this guy went to bed at 1am so I went back to bed. I didn't get up until 9am or so.
So, of course, I had to try this out. In fact, I spent many many hours looking at the nice tiles in the media player and looked all around trying to see what else was changed. But to me the real meat and potatoes was in the driving. The TACC and Auto Pilot (Auto Steering) portion of the experience. So, off I go and went directly to the freeway. On the way there, I noticed that the braking for cars at stop llights had improved. It started earlier and was more gentle. No sudden stomp on the breaks. My wife would truly appreciate that one. Heck, so did I.
Once on the freeway, I felt like the AutoPilot was doing less fishing left and right. It was in a word, smoother. Ok, check that one off. It went from lane to lane like it did before. No change on that front. But then it seemed appropriate to try the exit the freeway by use of the blinker control. (Is that only a midwestern term?) Dang!!! I tried that 5 times with it only working properly once. You recall that if you change lanes sometimes it takes its good old natured time sometimes to do a lane change. Well, that is NOT predicable. Hence the same thing appears to occur if you use the blinker control when you want to exit the freeway. Four out five times (for me) it would not take the exit. Once it did, and it did take a bit of time for it to accomplish that trick. Good thing that particular exit was a LONG one.
But here is something that I noticed when I finally did exit the freeway under AutoPilot. The Tesla did NOT slow down at all. It was still going at warp speed (70mph) on that off ramp. What? How useful is that? If you are exiting the freeway or just exiting to go on a different freeway, wouldn't you typically slow down? But it then would be argued, well disengage AutoPilot. Sure, but if the exercise is to exit then shouldn't it slow down by itself? Should we need to disengage? What good is it to disengage after the exit. Why not just disengage BEFORE the exit? Nothing is gained.
Next thing I noticed was the experience of the NAG. Now this should get your attention. First, the message says to hold on to your wheel and a few seconds later the entire perimeter of the dash screen is now a half inch or so of WHITE. That got my attention. I tried it two different ways. First, I hung my left hand on the left side of the steering wheel and left it there while the AutoPilot dragged my hand along while it steered. That resulted in NO NAGS for twenty minutes straight. Second, I put my hands on my lap and waited for a message/White attention getter. That took only a minute and a half before i got NAGed. It averaged "about" every 3 minutes after that. Your NAG mileage may differ.
Next, the Navigation screen. Tesla appears to want you to have the map on the top half of the screen whether or not it is full sized or not. But in either case, after a few seconds of no touching the map the row of icons at the top will disappear with the map sliding up over them. I suspect to give you the most map for the buck. If you want them back, just touch the screen and they magically re-appear. Speaking of magic, there is a button which allows you to orient the map either True North or to the direction of your travel. But what changed is if you have it in the direction of travel, it acts like a nice little compass. You have to see it to believe it. I've never seen anything like that before. Very useful and it doesn't take much real estate of the map. The other buttons are all there too like before but they dissolve away until you click on the screen when they re-appear too.
I know, I know....... way tooo long. So, I will leave it here. Hope you found it informative and hope you get your update soon. I am grateful I did. So that's my excuse for this long one.
Cheers
