Tesla easter egg idea

[whitex]

As I was waiting in a left turn lane, watching cars with their blinkers on, an idea dawned on me. Tesla already has a fairly accurate time from the internet and GPS, it might not be that difficult to synchronize all Tesla blinkers in the world. It would make for some free media coverage - all Teslas in the world blink in unison. Also, in areas like Bay Area or Seattle area, it would get attention when a bunch of cars blink in unison. It may even be noticeable from space when it's dark during rush hour as Tesla gets more and more vehicles on the road.

 

[trm2]

Does that mean I would have to turn when others do? Seems kind of inconvenient.

Or does it just blinks no matter what? I thought I still had a few years before I would always forget to turn my signal off.

 

[Barry]

I would prefer Tesla concentrate heir resources on real features. For starters, fix everything they broke in V9 - put color back on the map, put winter driving (seat, wiper, and steering wheel heater control) back in a useful location that doesn't require eyes off the road for so long, etc.

 

[RedMS]

^ didn’t take long for the whiners to chime in

Great idea OP

 

[Barry]

Didn't take long for one of the Kool-aid crowd to chime in.

 

[Dameon]

On a related note, I'm always comparing my blinker iteration speed to other cars and also to the song playing on my audio system. There was a song the other day, something by The Who I believe (maybe Eminence Front?), that had a beat that exactly matched my blinker tempo. I must have engaged the blinker perfectly because it was spot on.

As for the syncing of blinkers worldwide... cool idea.

 

[Chaserr]

This would be such an awesomely nerdy thing to implement.

 

[whitex]

I would prefer Tesla concentrate heir resources on real features. For starters, fix everything they broke in V9 - put color back on the map, put winter driving (seat, wiper, and steering wheel heater control) back in a useful location that doesn't require eyes off the road for so long, etc.

Yea, I am the OP and I hate v9 too, would prefer to just get 8.1 back (new features like pre-heating steering wheel or seats from app are a placebo for my 2015 car anyways, app shows the hearers on, but they are not heating, even if I don't touch it, so it's not because I keep changing too quickly from the app). That said, I was just trying to think of more classy/nerdy easter egg than toilet humor.

 

[RedMS]

Didn't take long for one of the Kool-aid crowd to chime in.

I’m far from an Elon fanboi, but it would do you good to examine how a company and their engineers/employees have different tasks. Looks like the easter egg team does a fine job, so who knows, maybe we will get synchronized signals

 

[Stiction]

It's probably more work than the typical easter egg, but as a card carrying nerd I like the idea
Kudos to you for thinking of it!

One negative: there will be a potential big delay when you put on the blinker...i.e. up to just shy of one blink
cycle if you are unlucky. This might be a bit weird since usually you get a blink right away.

But perhaps there are other ideas that could use the fleet backhaul to good effect...hmm.

 

[Barry]

I’m far from an Elon fanboi, but it would do you good to examine how a company and their engineers/employees have different tasks. Looks like the easter egg team does a fine job, so who knows, maybe we will get synchronized signals

If there really is an "easter egg team" that serves no productive function, they should be fired. A company constantly teetering on the edge of running out of money shouldn't have such "fluff."

 

[whitex]

One negative: there will be a potential big delay when you put on the blinker...i.e. up to just shy of one blink
cycle if you are unlucky. This might be a bit weird since usually you get a blink right away.

But perhaps there are other ideas that could use the fleet backhaul to good effect...hmm.

I didn't want to make a long post nerding out on all details (leave some fun to Tesla engineers), but it did occur to me and I thought one simple solution would be to always start the blinker with instant ON (for safety) and then vary the frequency and duty cycle to sync up to the global blinking within a few blinks. So when you first turn it on, you will be out of sync, but your blinker will blink a bit faster (or slower) at first for a second or three until it syncs up.

 

[whitex]

If there really is an "easter egg team" that serves no productive function, they should be fired. A company constantly teetering on the edge of running out of money shouldn't have such "fluff."

It's not a dedicated team, it's the same team allowed to let off some creativity from time to time. Think of it as a team/morale building activity. Yes, easter eggs add code to be written, tested and maintained, therefore increase the cost to the company, hence they have to be well considered, but given a choice of a Friday beer night vs. easter eggs, a number of nerds would vote to spend the money easter eggs. Some easter eggs can count towards the marketing budget too, as they get free press and things like a global blink would get noticed by people driving too (heck, sync that up with a blinking Tesla billboard too with some slogans along the lines of "working together towards a cleaner world").

 

[ReturnZero]

Apple figured out how to synchronize all Apple Watches in the world, I'll bet Tesla could do this and it would be totally worth it. Elon needs to get on this.

As an aside this is true, have all the people in a room with Apple Watches switch to a watch face with analog dials and all the second hands will be exactly in sync. It's pretty damn cool.

 

[f205v]

In train stations all around Switzerland the platform clock are all synchronized to the second.
Now the sync is done electronically, but back in the past it was an electromechanical sync, and it worked flawlessly.
I think it would be quite easy to program synced blinks for Tesla just using the car internal clock (and checking clock sync just once in a while with an NTP call)

 

[whitex]

In train stations all around Switzerland the platform clock are all synchronized to the second.
Now the sync is done electronically, but back in the past it was an electromechanical sync, and it worked flawlessly.
I think it would be quite easy to program synced blinks for Tesla just using the car internal clock (and checking clock sync just once in a while with an NTP call)

GPS has an even more accurate clock reference. All Tesla cars have GPS.