For the record, in October 2018, I pulled the trigger a Wednesday for a fully loaded Model P3D around 9h00am. At 12pm, I got a vin assigned and was scheduled for a delivery on the following Saturday. I also thought it was sitting inventory but months later I found out that the production date and time of my car was the same Wednesday at 11:40AM. Hence I got matched immediately with the car when it got out of the assembly line.
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- Thread starter Maximus831
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That would be your car’s dashcam feature. Introduced in software update back in October I think. Originally only using the narrow field front camera. The most recent update (I got mine 2/24 but not widely distributed yet) adds two side cameras. Sentry Mode — included in this latest update — gives you a “Hal2001”-type security system. You use a USB drive in one of your front console USB connectors and capture dashcam video on it. Files can then be watched on your computer or phone with proper connector.
Here's a link to the Model 3 Manual, last updated on 12/20/18. Dashcam info on Pg 63: https://www.tesla.com/content/dam/tesla/Ownership/Own/Model 3 Owners Manual.pdf
The manual hasn't been updated yet with the Sentry Mode and Dog Mode (this latest 2019 update mentioned above). Here's one of many videos out there on what this update brings to the car:
Sucks and hate to mention this but don't want to see any new owner unaware and get their car broken into. I assume you live somewhere in the Bay area since you are picking up in Fremont; and if you are not aware of it, there is an epidemic of car break ins in the State particularly in the Bay area, Teslas and non-Teslas. For the Model 3, don't leave anything of value visible in the car (kind of obvious) and do leave your rear seats down when parked. These guys are breaking the small rear triangular windows out, reaching in and flipping down the seat to look inside trunks. If they see a backpack/laptop etc back there they will break out your rear passenger window and reach in to grab what they can. If the seats are down, the thought is they will notice that first, not see anything back there and not break the window. Sentry Mode was released to help deter this kind of damage and theft. BTW people who put dark tint on their windows may be preventing the perps from seeing what's of value in their car and also the Sentry Mode screen being activated.
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From what I’ve read on here, Tesla (think an Elon tweet) said something about temporarily saving some saved TeslaCam files to their system as a backup. Not really elaborated on and would have to find the tweet. But I believe the intent would be for some short period of time it would be stored remotely.
As far as if the new cars will have this update, I’d venture to say no, not the latest I have, as clearly it’s still being beta tested before more widespread distribution. You will have the forward facing camera TeslaCam ability though. That was a 2018 update I think most people have.
As far as if the new cars will have this update, I’d venture to say no, not the latest I have, as clearly it’s still being beta tested before more widespread distribution. You will have the forward facing camera TeslaCam ability though. That was a 2018 update I think most people have.
Just remember you will be pulling it out and reinserting it a lot yourself. After doing this two nights in a row I have to say that at night the overhead lights near the rear view mirror don't reach into the depths of the USB area so plan using either a separate flashlight or your camera flashlight.
Because any saved driving files won’t auto delete and any Sentry Mode files that will automatically get saved to your USB stick won’t either. If you don’t do maintenance you will fill up your flashdrive and get the “X” when you try to record footage. Happened to a few people on here already who used tiny drives or even larger drives but didn’t do file maintenance over a period of a day or two. I have a 128GB flashdrive right now and others have bought 256GB ones to store more on it reducing the frequency to check it. Sentry Mode right now will be the big storage hog if you want video while parked and it gets triggered often. If you don’t care to have your car armed with Sentry Mode then pretty much the files will be overwritten as you drive and only get saved when you manual do so. Most people however will want parking protection when away from their car.
Our Blackview 900 software allows you to view the files from your phone OTA and delete any saved ones you might have saved. The parking mode event ones aren’t permanently saved and will be written over just like normal event files. They are just tagged by event for looking thru the long, long list of files. However TeslaCam is not set up that way. That could change but currently you need to manually delete the saved files. Kind of more protection for you if someone was lurking around your car and maybe you couldn’t get to see the video right away. With no over the air viewing and access of files, there’s no alternative but to pull the USB. Anyway, with 2019.5.4 that’s why you’ll be pulling the flashdrive out often.
It’s not perfect but for a first time effort on a parking mode with alarm monitoring, it’s not a bad start. They’ll be tweaking it over time.
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Got it!! Picked it up at Fremont around 4pm today and drove it back home. I love the car with exception of the buttons on the steering wheel to change the songs. Why couldn’t they just use flat buttons??
That organizer and some of the other ones on ebay (search: tesla cable organizer) look like the handle sticks kind of straight out from the wall mounted unit. I have Tesla's and just for comparison the handle is more angled downward. Might make a difference to those who have a narrow garage space to work with. The Tesla one sells for $25. Listed on their site right now in the Store, with at least a 4 week timeframe to get fullfilled. Once sold out it seems to come in and sell out quickly once it's restocked. Sometimes the service centers get one or two in.
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