Model S Software/Firmware wishlist

[Mayhemm]

When I got my car back I noticed that someone must have been for an extreme joy ride prior to pick up! Tough to prove other than extremely high power consumption that maxed out the gauge for a few miles. Not a happy camper but I let it go.

Would the power usage not go crazy if they simply had the car "idling" in the shop? I recall someone on another thread showing power usage north of 900Wh/mile due to the car being powered on but not moving.

Back on the wishlist topic, it would be nice to see Tesla offer some kind of optional, high-performance cooling system to reduce the car limiting power due to excessive thermals. Even if my car would probably never see a track, I'd likely get this option just in case I'm ever presented with the opportunity. Right now the thermal limiting is, IMO, a glaring weakness to the performance side of the car.

 

[403portside]

The ability to create a custom program for ride height as a function of speed would be great. And a usable browser.

 

[jamieb]

Two software wishlists that are smartphone-related:

1) Ability to send a destination (and even a preferred route) from the phone (or a desktop computer) to the car. Other cars are starting to do this. Could be integrated into the Tesla app so that you could click on a navigation icon, get taken to Google Maps to find a destination and choose a route, then send it to the car so the route is waiting ready to go...

2) Ability to synchronize a subset of contacts on your phone. I'm a contacts hoarder and I have >1k contacts synched to my phone from my contacts manager. I use many of them on my phone (as a storage device) when working to retrieve addresses, notes and email addresses, but don't want them cluttering up my contacts list on the car. I'd like to be able to identify those contacts I want synched to the phone from within the contacts manager on the phone or computer that will be synched to the car (e.g., create a group called 'Tesla' and synch only those contacts). I guess I could do this by creating such a group, synching only the Tesla group to an extra phone and synching that phone's contacts to the car, but that seems like an unwieldy workaround. Now that I think about it, on the Tesla does deleting a phone from bluetooth delete the associated contacts list? On my wife's Prius the old contacts list went away when I switched her phone...

It would be nice to add a contacts synch feature to the Tesla app to push the contacts from the Tesla app rather than from the native address book app. In iOS, you'd have to give the Tesla app permission to look at your contacts, and if you created a 'Tesla' contacts group, it could upload only those contacts to the car...

JamieB

 

[kseitzberg]

Would love to be able to send a message from the phone app to the display in the car

 

[brianman]

Would love to be able to send a message from the phone app to the display in the car

Can you elaborate on the intended purpose? In-family communication?

 

[iffatall]

Two software wishlists that are smartphone-related:
2) Ability to synchronize a subset of contacts on your phone.

If you use Google Contacts for the hoarding (like me), this can be easily achieved if you use an Android phone. (Probably on iOS too, but I don't know much about iOS.)

 

[Robert.Boston]

Umm, call me old fashioned, but I would hope that they will add a setting to collapse the steering wheel towards the dash when you put the car in park and open the door, like almost every other car on the road with a motorized steering wheel... especially a car that's this hard to get in/out of and his B-Pillar point wear problems. yes, I'm aware of the "exit" profile solution, but I think we're ready for a "REAL" solution.

A flexible way to implement this would be for the car to automatically invoke a profile named "EXIT" if one exists.

Also would love to see more radio presets... most cars have A & B sets for every mode at a minimum. This car is a giant computer and we only have one bank of presets per mode... c'mon now. We should be able to have nearly unlimited number of presets, and have the ability to autoscan/autoset them.

To add to this, I'd like locationally aware presets. I listen to different stations in Massachusetts v. Maine. (I'd also like to have a preset labelled "NPR" that simply tunes to the nearest NPR station.)

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Even if there is a crash the car is pretty safe. Allow us to watch sporting events while we drive. Nothing lame like daytime soap operas or anything. Just sporting events and perhaps gratuitous sex/violence videos. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, in California it's illegal to have video visible to the driver.

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Would love to be able to send a message from the phone app to the display in the car

I was thinking about the reverse: the phone app should receive messages from the car and pop them up on my phone, including:

• Charging complete
• Charging amperage stepped down by car due to voltage fluctuations
• Charging stopped unexpectedly
• Car is being towed (off but moving)
• Car was unlocked remotely
• Valet mode switched off
• Remote monitoring switched off

 

[iffatall]

Something that I have not come across among the wishes so far: The map on the touch screen should automatically zoom in or zoom out depending on the speed of the car when it is centered on the car. (Zoom in at low speeds, and out at higher speeds).

 

[N4HHE]

Two software wishlists that are smartphone-related:

1) Ability to send a destination (and even a preferred route) from the phone (or a desktop computer) to the car. Other cars are starting to do this. Could be integrated into the Tesla app so that you could click on a navigation icon, get taken to Google Maps to find a destination and choose a route, then send it to the car so the route is waiting ready to go...

MBrace II (Mercedes-Benz) does this from Google Maps. Hidden in Goggle Maps is a "send to…" function allowing you to send a destination or route to an email address and a vehicle manufacturer who presumably knows what to do with it from there. The older COMMAND system from 2009 (which I have) will only accept one point at a time and not the entire route but starting with 2012 models the entire route is supposed to transfer.

What I'd like is for the in-vehicle navigation to sync with my personal Google accounts and map data. This would solve a lot of problems including the inability to edit an automatically selected route. The in-vehicle router selects the awfullest routes on paths that I know well. Yet I'd like to enable routing if for nothing but realtime ETA.

 

[ThosEM]

Id like to point out that if this feature had been present in the test car that led to the disastrous NYT review, the journalist would have been continually apprised of his energy situation and would have had no excuse for misjudging the meaning of the rated range in cold weather. Any comparable ICE powered vehicle puts up a remaining range estimate that is based on recent consumption, and this should clearly be an option for the MS...

Moreover, the primary charge gauge should be in fact switchable to energy units as desired. There is a switch but as far as I can tell it has no effect....

A big wishlist item for me: allow me to show "projected range" (based on the last X miles of my actual driving) as the primary display in the center of the dashboard. This is what my Roadster did, and I always found it to be accurate and a great guide. Both "rated" and "ideal" are much less likely to be accurate estimates of my remaining range.

As a secondary note, having the energy app always revert to "instant" projected range no matter how many times I set it to "average" is a bug, and needs to be fixed.

 

[InTheShadows]

Id like to point out that if this feature had been present in the test car that led to the disastrous NYT review, the journalist would have been continually apprised of his energy situation and would have had no excuse for misjudging the meaning of the rated range in cold weather. Any comparable ICE powered vehicle puts up a remaining range estimate that is based on recent consumption, and this should clearly be an option for the MS...

Moreover, the primary charge gauge should be in fact switchable to energy units as desired. There is a switch but as far as I can tell it has no effect....

It is an option already. On the right side of the energy graph it tells you how far you can go with the average of your last 5/15/30 miles or it will show you how far you can go with your instantaneous consumption.

 

[Rodolfo Paiz]

It is an option already. On the right side of the energy graph it tells you how far you can go with the average of your last 5/15/30 miles or it will show you how far you can go with your instantaneous consumption.

It is NOT "an option already," you have misunderstood the original request. What I asked for was the option to show that projected range, taken from the energy graph, on the PRIMARY dash display in front of the driver instead of rated or ideal. Not hard to do from Tesla's point of view: there is already a setting to choose between rated and ideal miles on the dashboard (which is the primary display of range), and all Tesla has to do is add "projected" as a third option to that setting. "Projected" would then mean whatever you set to show on the right side of the energy app.

 

[Rte66]

Pre-fetch maps for navigation, especially when going into or through bad 3g reception area

 

[iffatall]

It is NOT "an option already," you have misunderstood the original request. What I asked for was the option to show that projected range, taken from the energy graph, on the PRIMARY dash display in front of the driver instead of rated or ideal. Not hard to do from Tesla's point of view: there is already a setting to choose between rated and ideal miles on the dashboard (which is the primary display of range), and all Tesla has to do is add "projected" as a third option to that setting. "Projected" would then mean whatever you set to show on the right side of the energy app.

I agree. The best option would obviously be to display the projected range inside the speedometer in place of the rated (or ideal) range. Alternatively, as mentioned by Rodolfo Paiz above, even including it in the energy graph on the instrument panel when I am displaying the energy graph there would suffice.

 

[MarkR]

I agree. The best option would obviously be to display the projected range inside the speedometer in place of the rated (or ideal) range. Alternatively, as mentioned by Rodolfo Paiz above, even including it in the energy graph on the instrument panel when I am displaying the energy graph there would suffice.

Given that our 30 mile-average projected range is apt to be the most useful/most accurate estimate, I agree that it should be displayed on he speedometer. Having the rated or ideal ranges displayed has the potential for disaster if they are relied upon - it would be like driving an ICE with a broken gas gauge!

 

[EchoDelta]

MBrace II (Mercedes-Benz) does this from Google Maps. Hidden in Goggle Maps is a "send to…" function allowing you to send a destination or route to an email address and a vehicle manufacturer who presumably knows what to do with it from there. The older COMMAND system from 2009 (which I have) will only accept one point at a time and not the entire route but starting with 2012 models the entire route is supposed to transfer.

What I'd like is for the in-vehicle navigation to sync with my personal Google accounts and map data. This would solve a lot of problems including the inability to edit an automatically selected route. The in-vehicle router selects the awfullest routes on paths that I know well. Yet I'd like to enable routing if for nothing but realtime ETA.

In iOS and Android you can "Send ..." certain types of information into receiving apps. For example, Yelp, PlugShare, etc. Google maps wants to receive the addresses so in iOS at least it doesn't have this integrated functionality. Tesla's app could receive the location and send it to the car. But I usually route with Waze and I'd like built-in Waze routing or a "Send to Tesla" from Waze (part of the value of Waze is realtime changing directions so even the "send to" already feels like an old-school feature; even if still a useful one.

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I'd like events and control functions for IFTTT (If This Then That).
Events would include SOC levels, charging/not charging etc etc. events like the one mentioned before; and actions would be the sort of thing you control via the app.

 

[pete8314]

Talking of the navigation, and this is a little bit pedantic, but I wish the lane guidance images would completely fill the window, it bugs me every time I see them:

On the same note, I'd like the night-time lane guidance picture to be a little less bright...it does have a night sky, but the rest of the image is as bright at the daytime version.

 

[ThosEM]

Some digging in the wiki confirms that the projected range was *removed* from the instrument panel display at software version 4.0, a few months prior to the NYT review. Does anyone know what the motivation or cited rationale was for making that change at v.4.0? I'm genuinely curious. From my perspective, this was a step backward, but maybe there were considerations of which I are unaware? Can anyone comment?

I have submitted a software request through my Delivery Specialist as follows: "Make the instrument panel energy plot a full copy of the energy app plot that appears on the touchscreen, including the projected range and applicable averaging options. Also make those options sticky, preferably to the driver profile."

 

[iffatall]

Some digging in the wiki confirms that the projected range was *removed* from the instrument panel display at software version 4.0, a few months prior to the NYT review. Does anyone know what the motivation or cited rationale was for making that change at v.4.0? I'm genuinely curious. From my perspective, this was a step backward, but maybe there were considerations of which I are unaware? Can anyone comment?

If I had to guess, I would say that they were afraid people may freak out saying the range on a full battery is less than what Tesla promises; and the media always ready to pounce on Tesla, would pick the tab :wink:.

 

[ThosEM]

Nothing could be more damaging to Tesla's reputation, or generate more range anxiety, than to encourage drivers to plan their trips on the basis of promised/rated EPA range, only to find out they are running short toward the end of their trips.

Tesla should allow drivers to show the expected range based on actual driving conditions and practices encountered, without looking at the touch screen. Only then will drivers who practice hyper-miling be rewarded with projections that exceed the rated range.

Anyone who tracks projected range on their ICE vehicle will understand that the numbers go down in cold weather, mountainous country, or during spirited driving. This is not a unique liability of BEVs. Top Gear made a big deal of promised range when the Roadster came out. But it seems to me that a big part of the fault for such debacles lies with Tesla for featuring range above all other metrics, as they did with the Roadster (220 miles!) and are continuing to do.