Model S blinking Morse code with headlights when parked?

[Lloyd]

Did you name your car 'Christine' ?

 

[Wol747]

My guess is it's a message to the mother ship, which will come down from orbit and collect all her kids when the owners are asleep.

 

[whitex]

I think it's right headlight "M" and then left headlight "A" but still creepy.

Neh, the one is just slower - each had a short blink followed by long blink, so still an "A"

 

[whitex]

Any more details you can give @whitex and @BigBas ?

For both of you it seems like it happened in the middle of the night? (even though your timezones are approximately 9 hours different, so this could be a clue that the car is waiting until nighttime regardless of timezone)

It happened 3 minutes before midnight PDT for me.

Any updates happen around when you noticed the blinking? Maybe this is some sort of easter egg where the car gets woken up in the middle of the night (by a software update downloading, or another command from the mothership), and it gets "sleepy eyes" or something like that.

Car locked. Key away. No updates (it did update the day before). No meaningful internet traffic (see below traffic graph for just that Model S - lights blinked just before midnight).

 

[whitex]

Light = AUTO
Range mode = OFF

Same here.

 

[whitex]

our MS's are jealous of the MX Xmas show ? Want to join in on that action ?

Maybe Christmas Show code intermingled with sleep code. Just wait until the racing game code intermingles with auto-pilot!

 

[westerlund]

I happen to be walking in the garage last night and I noticed that our newest Tesla (2018 MS) was blinking its headlights. Noone was controlling via the app (late night) so I was a little worried the car was being hacked? So went in and checked out security camera footage, and apparently it is blinking in Morse Code, first the right headlight "A" and then left headlight "A". Any hacker groups out there with initials AA? Or is this a known regression of Tesla software (back in early days ~2012/2013 Teslas used to be "possessed" when parked, especially while applying updates (and no, the blinking MS was not applying updates at the time). Here is a video of this. Any ideas?

I have the same issue. Talked to Tesla today and they haven’t heard anything. The couldn’t see anything in the logs.

 

[whitex]

I have the same issue. Talked to Tesla today and they haven’t heard anything. The couldn’t see anything in the logs.

Point them to this thread, 2 videos on page 1 - one on each continent so it's not limited to geographical area.
We now know it's not random - both videos show identical blinking pattern.

 

[ttran203]

Here's another video. This happened to me last night as well. I had a headlight replaced in the afternoon yesterday due to a dimming DRL and thought it was related to that, but apparently not. I reached out to service and was told it's a firmware bug. My last software update was August 2nd and I have not seen this happen until yesterday.

 

[whitex]

Has anyone seen this happen before yesterday? I wonder if this is related to a firmware version, or some sleeper code which activated itself on a specific date.

 

[CRinATL]

Happened to me this morning, at least two times while cleaning my S, did not get video but it flashed each headlight at different times. I had the fob in my pocket the entire time.

I upgraded to 28.2 yesterday or the day before.

 

[zallegro]

Has anyone seen this happen before yesterday? I wonder if this is related to a firmware version, or some sleeper code which activated itself on a specific date.

I noticed this started happening to ours a week ago, I want to say it was after getting 28.1 and still happens with 28.2. It seems to happen when the car wakes up from sleep, last night it happened after I plugged it in when it had been asleep for a couple hours. All told I have seen it happen 3-4 times in a week, always at night after, although I don’t haven’t been around to see it during the day.

 

[Barry]

I speak Morse Code. Each headlight is "saying" ET.

 

[Dithermaster]

On any other day I'd say this is a weird firmware bug (Tesla has many). But because of the timing of the article claiming there are unfound easter eggs, and because the blink lengths are different, I'm giving it a small chance of it not being a bug, but the lead up to something more interesting.

 

[Big Toys]

It's not "A". It's two letters, "ET", which someone thought would be funny to go along with the Mars app that makes absolutely no sense.

 

[BPeter]

Must be related to 2019.28 as I had never noticed this before but this morning when walking into my garage my driver side headlight did this.

 

[shellderp]

looks super creepy

 

[Jpagadala]

Same exact thing started happening to my model S since a few days ago; coincides pretty close with my last firmware update. My first guess was that it was also a bug in the latest update. Relieved to see I’m not the only one experiencing this issue, hopefully Tesla adresses it soon.

 

[ucmndd]

Mine did this again tonight, noticed because we were outside in the hot tub. Creepy.

 

[whitex]

I checked, my car does few times a night, I guess whenever it wakes up periodically. It might do it during the day too. It seems Tesla software bug. Evidently their QA doesn't watch what happens to the car when parked.