Tesla Software updates - Australia

[Maximillan]

It's not just one or two updates though, is it?
The whole UI has bugs and disparate ways of doing things. The browser, Netflix, YouTube etc all do things in different ways. It shows a basic lack of programming expertise at the planning level.

That's likely another common phenomenon, tech debt. I'm certain that the software development team would like to get just a week to work on it and tidy at least some of it up because it most likely makes it harder to develop new features, but the product manager / exec sponsor / Elon won't let them because there is a massive backlog of features that are critical to Tesla's success that take priority.

Like a light show. Or a "car colourizer".


You and I are in agreement. I previously described is what likely happened in December that allowed all of those tiny little fonts and stupid menus into the UI. However what we are dealing with is a common lack of organisational discipline and dysfunction that impacts software engineering. I'm sure that the development teams working at Tesla are very good, however organisationally they're up against it.

Compare the software that we use every time we drive with your iPhone and how iOS has never had a major screw up in well over a decade, Tesla is far from being the best in the software business.

 

[Priit]

Most people who've worked in Software Development would know that what most likely happened is that the team HAD to get the software update out before Christmas so Elon could tweet about the light show (deadlines are usually something more arbitrary and mundane that you only find out about after the fact, e.g. CEO's wife's birthday).

The development team then cut some corners in testing UI changes in actual cars, they probably got some additional must have features snuck in, and then pulled late nights just to get it live before Christmas (notice how the influencers got the release about the same time as the rest of the fleet). Corners were cut with the unspoken understanding that they could fix the bugs after the holidays.

Par for the course for most enterprise software projects, but far from what's expected from a company that brags it's a software company. Their UX team is probably still taking a long hard look at themselves in the mirror every morning.

Well their development cycles are strange, but I believe they do work with deadlines that sometimes are a bit sudden and unexpected. Though over the 3 years of ownership I have had the longest gap between updates for about half a year and the shortest one has had 3 updates in single day, so not sure if they have any actual testing happening before pushing them out lately. With the Christmas light show though, if it was a deadline, they could have pushed it out on old UI, the UI change was its own decision and as its receptions and feedback showed a really bad call, as they dropped all useful UI elements and then had to start adding them back in. Seems like since then, they have been just scrambling and pushing out updates multiple times per week to fix the mess they created with that UI rewrite. Though it seems to start getting back to useful interface, so probably a few more updates and we are all happy again

 

[Wol747]

I’ve only done “amateur” programming, in such things as aircrew scheduling and so forth, but even at that lowly level I know that the user experience must be the primary objective and the way to get that accomplished is to make a structure plan before coding even starts.
FSD is obviously a completely separate endeavour with its own team.
There really is no excuse for in today’s IT environment for a single display screen to have multiple ways of doing things depending on which application is on it, nor for the randomness that comes in all the time with multiple tasks. There are so many bugs and poor ways of implementing things I long ago gave up making notes on them, especially the ones that are apparent when driving and which distract you from the road.

 

[moa999]

But v11 drastically simplified things and made everything the same.

All controls can be found either under Main Controls (Car Icon) or HVAC Controls (touch or swipe up).

It removed what I would call horrible UI.
- the trip/tyre pressure cards - accessed by swiping a random bit of screen with no indication that something was there.
- wifi could only be accessed by a very small target on the main screen.

Of the main complaints I think Tesla has now addressed most of them
- profile is now selectable when in Park
- wifi/LTE status shown in Park
- quick save sentry can be added to the app draw.

The main complaint not addressed is from cold weather users wanting single button access to defrost controls (it's two) - which id think could be addressed by allowing this to be added to app draw.

 

[Wol747]

Touching the HVAC icon brings up only IIRC a slider, you have to touch a second time to get to the controls. Poor.
Swiping screens is pretty hit and miss - you have to get the finger almost exactly on the little bar to make it “stick”. Poor. A very large and consistently place “X” is much safer.
I know that some things are individual preference, but UI inconsistency should be paramount.
All the bugs, too - at this point in development they frankly should be just memories. Wing mirror folding for example - mine have probably seven or eight different ways of behaving when I reverse out of the garage, none predictable! That’s not to mention one of them folding/unfolding sometimes when the passenger door handle is activated!

 

[Priit]

Touching the HVAC icon brings up only IIRC a slider, you have to touch a second time to get to the controls. Poor.
Swiping screens is pretty hit and miss - you have to get the finger almost exactly on the little bar to make it “stick”. Poor. A very large and consistently place “X” is much safer.
I know that some things are individual preference, but UI inconsistency should be paramount.
All the bugs, too - at this point in development they frankly should be just memories. Wing mirror folding for example - mine have probably seven or eight different ways of behaving when I reverse out of the garage, none predictable! That’s not to mention one of them folding/unfolding sometimes when the passenger door handle is activated!

I agree with Wol747. Also would like to add that controls like lights and fog lights should not be in menu, but have option to single click on screen, as in bad visibility trying to tap through menus will take too much attention off the road and hard to see surroundings. Music controls with Spotify have been randomly hit or miss, sometimes the menu does not open for music needs multiple taps or slides depending on the mood of the update gods and sometimes gets to end of playlist and acts up requiring multiple attempts to start another playlist. The main focus on the UI in a car needs to be on making it easiest and least disruptive to the actual driving and should not require attention to be diverted off the road to read through menu names and settings. They have been on this for long enough that the basics should be solid by now.

 

[paulp]

Updated to 2022.4.5.5 a few days ago and first time having issues after an update!

No voice command when navigating and steering wheel volume control would not control music volume, but controlling navigation volume (yes when voice command not working). Tesla confirms it is a known issue and will be fixed in the next update

So well tested before release then

 

[paulp]

I think you'll find you'll be notified of updates whether you have Wifi or not. You'll just need Wifi to download it.

I have good strong wifi and have not been notified of the last two updates. Only found out they were there when I got into the car.

 

[cafz]

No voice command when navigating and steering wheel volume control would not control music volume, but controlling navigation volume (yes when voice command not working). Tesla confirms it is a known issue and will be fixed in the next update

That issue has been around for longer than just 2022.4.5.

Try changing the UI language, then changing it back. If that doesn't work, a factory reset fixed it for me but is kind of annoying.

 

[Hong Konger]

That issue has been around for longer than just 2022.4.5.

Try changing the UI language, then changing it back. If that doesn't work, a factory reset fixed it for me but is kind of annoying.

Thanks for the suggestions, I have tried resetting by holding down both steering wheel control buttons, will give the UI language change a go tomorrow!

 

[atj777]

Im with Vostok on this, I have had a few updates, software versions, that do not show up on the phone app and announce update availability. Have had to go in the car and go to the controls menu to look at the software version, and only then it checks for updates and tells you that you have one available and even then the phone app stays silent until the update has been downloaded and applied.

I believe that was actually a bug in the app and it appears to be fixed now.

I had quite a few come through with no app notification. I recently updated the app to 4.6.1 and I'm now getting notifications about software updates again.

 

[Vostok]

Ha ha… it turns out my car somehow lost its Wi-Fi connection in the garage and so was not downloading any new updates. I only noticed that a few days ago. I re-connected the car to Wi-Fi and presumably it will soon notify me of a more recent update. Unless there is a hurdle and updates subsquent to 2021.44.30.12 can be installed only if 2021.44.30.12 has been installed. There’s never been a hurdle before that I have noticed but there’s always a first time.

It’s nearly been a week and no notifications of any newer updates. I have the latest App version. 2021.44.30.12 is still sitting there on the console screen, daring me to push the button. I’ll give it another week, and if still stuck, I’ll call Tesla to kick me straight to the latest update. I don’t want to install 2021.44.30.12.

 

[believer__]

But v11 drastically simplified things and made everything the same.

All controls can be found either under Main Controls (Car Icon) or HVAC Controls (touch or swipe up).

It removed what I would call horrible UI.
- the trip/tyre pressure cards - accessed by swiping a random bit of screen with no indication that something was there.
- wifi could only be accessed by a very small target on the main screen.

Of the main complaints I think Tesla has now addressed most of them
- profile is now selectable when in Park
- wifi/LTE status shown in Park
- quick save sentry can be added to the app draw.

The main complaint not addressed is from cold weather users wanting single button access to defrost controls (it's two) - which id think could be addressed by allowing this to be added to app draw.

its nice to hear some positive about the UI update. Im still waiting for my M3 but the little I have seen does not seem (with the lastest updates) to warrant all the hate. Im also glad Tesla has given an easy way to add new stuff (the configurable icons)

 

[Priit]

It’s nearly been a week and no notifications of any newer updates. I have the latest App version. 2021.44.30.12 is still sitting there on the console screen, daring me to push the button. I’ll give it another week, and if still stuck, I’ll call Tesla to kick me straight to the latest update. I don’t want to install 2021.44.30.12.

Considering the number of updates released lately, I understand your hope to bypass some of the more problematic ones. Though since I have been getting multiple consecutive updates as soon as previous finishes installing, I would assume the later update was available before installing the intermediate updates, yet I have had no option to bypass any of them. So, I have a suspicion that in their haste, they may be pushing out consecutive updates without creating full update builds so they do not test or support possible skipping of some updates as they just push out changes from previous update version. There is no concrete information to support that suspicion, besides my own experience lately and that is a very small subset of the cars getting updates, so I could be completely wrong

 

[Wol747]

its nice to hear some positive about the UI update. Im still waiting for my M3 but the little I have seen does not seem (with the lastest updates) to warrant all the hate. Im also glad Tesla has given an easy way to add new stuff (the configurable icons)

Welcome to Tesla (No, that's not sarcastic). Th battery technology and the charging system is first class.
However, the UI in this day and age is not far short of amateurish. Yes, you can do everything you need to do but often with several attention distracting clicks and wondering just how to get to some things. iPhone users would be up in arms. And the bugs in the array of systems never seem to get any attention.
I DO find the wipers are better now though. Nothing like perfect and I prefer to use them manually, but better.

 

[Priit]

Welcome to Tesla (No, that's not sarcastic). Th battery technology and the charging system is first class.
However, the UI in this day and age is not far short of amateurish. Yes, you can do everything you need to do but often with several attention distracting clicks and wondering just how to get to some things. iPhone users would be up in arms. And the bugs in the array of systems never seem to get any attention.
I DO find the wipers are better now though. Nothing like perfect and I prefer to use them manually, but better.

So, I had to explain to an 11 year old today, the workings of Tesla developers. It kinda went like this:
We started heading home from my kids school, he looked at the map and noticed we were directed through a different route than our usual drive as there appeared very heavy red line through M1 (i suspect accident down the line somewhere).
Son: Why we are sent through this way?
Me: Probably an accident on motorway.
Son: Can I see where the accident is?
Me: You can drag the map to see where the red line finishes.
Son zooms out and finds the end of the red line about 7-8km down the road.
Son: How do I center the map back on car?
Me: Just leave, eventually it will go back.
Son: No, I want it to go back!
Me: Well try tapping on screen, see if you can find a button.
Son tried a bunch of things and about 90 sec later finally found a way to get it to re-center.
Me: You could have left it and it would have been back way faster.
Son: Why did they make it so complicated, it used to be just an easy tap there? - Pointing at the corner of map.
Me: Well its Tesla programmers, they feel they need to do stuff to get paid the big money, so they keep changing things.
Son: That makes no sense.
Me: Agreed.

 

[paulp]

So, I had to explain to an 11 year old today, the workings of Tesla developers. It kinda went like this:
We started heading home from my kids school, he looked at the map and noticed we were directed through a different route than our usual drive as there appeared very heavy red line through M1 (i suspect accident down the line somewhere).
Son: Why we are sent through this way?
Me: Probably an accident on motorway.
Son: Can I see where the accident is?
Me: You can drag the map to see where the red line finishes.
Son zooms out and finds the end of the red line about 7-8km down the road.
Son: How do I center the map back on car?
Me: Just leave, eventually it will go back.
Son: No, I want it to go back!
Me: Well try tapping on screen, see if you can find a button.
Son tried a bunch of things and about 90 sec later finally found a way to get it to re-center.
Me: You could have left it and it would have been back way faster.
Son: Why did they make it so complicated, it used to be just an easy tap there? - Pointing at the corner of map.
Me: Well its Tesla programmers, they feel they need to do stuff to get paid the big money, so they keep changing things.
Son: That makes no sense.
Me: Agreed.

They need to bring back the +- zoom button or just a single way of recentering when enlarged or shrunk.

 

[Leeroy]

Has anyone else noticed this new regen feature in stop start traffic is now really jerky. I believe it always was a little bit, but after the last update it has actually become uncomfortable.

 

[Vostok]

Has anyone else noticed this new regen feature in stop start traffic is now really jerky.

What new regen feature?

 

[Leeroy]

2022.4.5.5 mentions changes to regen braking during stop start traffic, more regen smoother stops. To which line does neither.