Botton line up front: If your iPhone has tether/hotspot capability, you can link your Model 3's WiFi to it to "trick" the car into thinking it's on WiFi.
Back story: I live in an apartment complex and have zero access to WiFi. I've tried driving around to stores/shops in my area to get on their free WiFi and the signal is never strong enough and I don't live close to a Tesla service center. Because of this, my car was not updating. I read somewhere on here that if you contact Tesla, they'll send out a technician with a mobile hotspot and hook you up. This was not true. I submitted a service request but when I spoke to the tech, he said he saw my car hadn't been updated in quite some time due to not being on WiFi (the new maps are what absolutely require a WiFi signal to download). He was, however, able to force the latest software version to my car (despite not having the ability to download corresponding maps). He said to get the maps, go to a Tesla service center and sit on their WiFi (for an undisclosed amount of time...and hope that it works). I wasn't doing that, I live at least an hour away from the nearest service center.
The solution: A friend suggested to use my iPhone mobile hotspot and link my car's WiFi to it. So for the past couple weeks I've been setting this up every time I drive. Finally today, on my hour-long commute to work, I got the notification that my car was ready to install the map update.
Takeaway: I've been bitching about not having WiFi and searching for solutions all over the internet, forums, Tesla service, etc, and haven't seen anything regarding a work-around. So if this information is already out there, sorry for wasting your time. I'm shocked the Tesla service rep didn't know about or suggest this solution, but it worked. If you're having the same issue, be patient, and link your car's WiFi to your phone as much as possible. Depending on how long you're in your car for will obviously affect the rate at which the downloads will come. Like I said, I've been doing this for a couple weeks now and just today it finally worked; I received "Version 2019.8.5 3aaa23d" and all the maps, so now I can FINALLY use NAV ON AUTOPILOT...which is f'ing awesome.
Fire away with questions.
Back story: I live in an apartment complex and have zero access to WiFi. I've tried driving around to stores/shops in my area to get on their free WiFi and the signal is never strong enough and I don't live close to a Tesla service center. Because of this, my car was not updating. I read somewhere on here that if you contact Tesla, they'll send out a technician with a mobile hotspot and hook you up. This was not true. I submitted a service request but when I spoke to the tech, he said he saw my car hadn't been updated in quite some time due to not being on WiFi (the new maps are what absolutely require a WiFi signal to download). He was, however, able to force the latest software version to my car (despite not having the ability to download corresponding maps). He said to get the maps, go to a Tesla service center and sit on their WiFi (for an undisclosed amount of time...and hope that it works). I wasn't doing that, I live at least an hour away from the nearest service center.
The solution: A friend suggested to use my iPhone mobile hotspot and link my car's WiFi to it. So for the past couple weeks I've been setting this up every time I drive. Finally today, on my hour-long commute to work, I got the notification that my car was ready to install the map update.
Takeaway: I've been bitching about not having WiFi and searching for solutions all over the internet, forums, Tesla service, etc, and haven't seen anything regarding a work-around. So if this information is already out there, sorry for wasting your time. I'm shocked the Tesla service rep didn't know about or suggest this solution, but it worked. If you're having the same issue, be patient, and link your car's WiFi to your phone as much as possible. Depending on how long you're in your car for will obviously affect the rate at which the downloads will come. Like I said, I've been doing this for a couple weeks now and just today it finally worked; I received "Version 2019.8.5 3aaa23d" and all the maps, so now I can FINALLY use NAV ON AUTOPILOT...which is f'ing awesome.
Fire away with questions.
