Blog Tesla: What to Expect in 2018

Following Tesla, there are always surprises. You never know when Elon Musk is going to launch a car into space or tweet about drilling tunnels, selling flamethrowers, or building a 50s style diner with food delivery on rollerskates.

A few things that we should expect in 2018:



Ramping Model 3 production to 5,000 per week

Standard range Model 3 deliveries

Dual motor Model 3

Announcing locations and perhaps even breaking ground on one or two new Gigafactory locations

Coast to coast autonomous drive

Solar roof tile deliveries

Megacharger location deployments

Sneak peaks of the Roadster 2020 and Semi as they start road testing

New Tesla mobile app with several new features

By July 2018, Tesla will be the first automaker to cross the 200,000 U.S. vehicle delivery mark. This starts the countdown to phase out the U.S. federal incentive for Tesla’s vehicles.



A few things we might see:



A reveal event for Model Y

More info about Tesla Pickup Truck (what is the game-changing feature?)

Performance version of Model 3

Model S and X interior redesign to bring it up to snuff with the Model 3 minimalism

Model S and X moving to the 2170 cell. This is certainly possible, but given the desire to ramp Model 3 as fast as possible, it may be a good idea to keep S & X on the unconstrained 18650 for another year.

120kWh Model S / X: if these vehicles move to the 2170, a range upgrade would be a nice add-on.

Improved voice commands that reduce the need to use the touchscreen for many settings

TeslaTunes streaming music service

Tesla Network ridesharing service

Surprises that we could never predict



What surprises do you expect from Tesla in 2018?

TMC Member Patrick0101 is a solar and electric vehicle advocate who blogs at Cars With Cords. 

 

[Beta V]

Okay, I've had Angel for about three weeks. I'm a long-time systems engineer and worked with computer user interfaces for decades. I would love to see these features:

• Garmin-like round-trip waypoint navigation
• "Don't go below" interior temperature management. Let me set a "base" temperature so the car is never below 50 degrees when I get in.
  
• Get smarter about "waking up" when the car is in my garage. As I walk by the garage door inside or outside the house, I can hear it needlessly grinding away at the retractable mirrors and flashing the lights.
• Figure out how to make the sun visors actually functional for people my height (6'2"). As they are, unless I grind my seat down so low I can't get out of it without a derrick, the sunshades are simply too low. Perhaps a shade that pulls down from the top and down like on big busses?
• Redesign the center console. It's better than nothing, but my Ford Pinto had a better, more functional console. Why have a tray that dumps out everything when I accelerate? Why have a back tray that gets jammed by stuff sliding back in the lower console?
• Provide a way to lock the glovebox. Many break-ins are targeting our vehicle registration and papers kept in the glovebox.
• Yes, the radio and nav controls require too many eyes-off-the-road seconds to adjust.
• Position the UI controls to place them closer to the driver (on the left). Why make me search for a small icon way over on the right side?
• Link the owner's manual to the UI. When you have a question about something in the UI (like how to turn on the headlights), have a context-sensitive help button take you to that page in the owner's manual.
• Improve the UI on the voice recognition--especially for phone calls. In other cars, I could say "call Marilyn Vaughn Mobile" and have it know which of her three numbers to dial. As it is, it barely recognizes my wife's name. I'm considering having her change her name to make it simpler to look up. Perhaps letting me setup quick-dial aliases would help.
• Enable far more voice-commands. "Cabin heat increase", etc.
• Optionally link the driver-passenger temperatures so I don't have to reset both when I want to adjust the temp.
• Make the basic operations such as cabin lights easier to find so untrained passengers can turn on a map light without having to go through four menus.
• I'm told that the mirror issue can be fixed by manually disabling auto-park. If this is the case, it should be part of the driver config so when I enter the car it's reset to the correct setting.
• Provide air-sick bags for passengers not accustomed to the high-G acceleration.

Don't get me wrong. My Model X is spectacular. It's a far cry from my old Lexus 450H but it could be so much more. I just want it to be all it can be.

 

[gork]

• Optionally link the driver-passenger temperatures so I don't have to reset both when I want to adjust the temp.
• Make the basic operations such as cabin lights easier to find so untrained passengers can turn on a map light without having to go through four menus.
• Provide air-sick bags for passengers not accustomed to the high-G acceleration.

When you adjust the driver temp, there is a little 'sync' button to the side in the popup. When you hit that, the passenger temp will follow the driver side adjustment until it is overridden by making an adjustment on the passenger side.

The reading lights can be turned on and off by depressing the light itself -- it is a button.

I had an E46 M3 that came with a very nice laminated safety briefing card. I tucked an airsick bag in there too; it was pretty good fun to hand them to a passenger that was having their first ride. 4.7s felt pretty damn fast back then! Been thinking of making one up for the Tesla; only real problem is the lack of storage pockets/compartments!

 

[thenaimis]

Given that Elon has already stated in a talk on Dec 7, 2017 that they were two years away from autonomy, it would definitely be a surprise to have coast-to-coast autonomous driving in 2018. Couple that with the fact that there are no automated superchargers out there and I'd say bloody unlikely.

 

[Chrisc1321]

I would still like to see the comfort exit auto-reset of the seats when the door is opened or the seat belt removed on the Model S. (For some reason this is only functional in the Model X.) App updates are MUCH NEEDED: such as being able to initiate program updates from the app, and remote programming of charging settings (in case you walked away from car w/o extending the charging to full when on a road trip - so frustrating to have to go back to the car to fix this).

Can't wait for the additional Supercharger Stations, especially ones that include services, since so many are quite a trek from bathrooms, etc. I don't know why they don't partner with state of Calif. to add a few supercharger spots at all rest-stops.

 

[Chrisc1321]

I remembered on more trouble thing: I get into my trunk to put groceries away or unplug the charger and store it, close the trunk and walk up to driver door, just to be locked out of my car...then I have to dig for my keys. It doesn't recognize that I have the key and allow me to double tap the door handle to gain access...THAT HAS BEEN SO ANNOYING!

 

[thenaimis]

remote programming of charging settings (in case you walked away from car w/o extending the charging to full when on a road trip - so frustrating to have to go back to the car to fix this).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but you can change charge limits from the app. I did it back in October after climbing in bed so that I'd have a full charge for drag racing the next day

 

[Chrisc1321]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but you can change charge limits from the app. I did it back in October after climbing in bed so that I'd have a full charge for drag racing the next day

I guess I didn't notice, since if you don't have it charging, you can't adjust it. I will check that out, the next time I am actually charging. Thank you.

 

[Chrisc1321]

I guess I didn't notice, since if you don't have it charging, you can't adjust it. I will check that out, the next time I am actually charging. Thank you.

MY BAD. It is totally adjustable. I am just not savvy enough to be a Tesla owner. D'oh.

 

[simonsmidt]

Electric motorbike!

 

[Ours chanceux]

When I buy a Tesla S car more than 4 times the base price of a Tesla Model 3, I admit I do not appreciate at all that, when to avoid an accident on the highway, I have to decide to use the power of my car, to fully accelerate during less than 5 seconds that makes me go above the legal cruising speed wich is set on, this in order to make the accident impossible... the result is a punishment like as for a kid!!! My Tesla software decide that I can not use anymore my cruise control, while it is a driving safety. This, until I stop my car on the side of the highway, wich is mostely dangerous... Yes stopping that stupid punishment would be a great improvement that I would appreciate a lot. Not the same for you all?

 

[Zenzation]

Another feature I would like to see is being able to activate the car's cameras remotely and see the video or a snapshot from a selected camera on your phone app. When you have it parked in a location that gives you concern, you could "check" on it visually from time to time to ensure everything is going well.

 

[Brando]

duh YEA! I already paid for my FSD over 12 months ago. Nada. Zilch.

Thanks Steve. Your fore thought to invest in FSD is helping us all.

 

[Beta V]

When you adjust the driver temp, there is a little 'sync' button to the side in the popup. When you hit that, the passenger temp will follow the driver side adjustment until it is overridden by making an adjustment on the passenger side.

The reading lights can be turned on and off by depressing the light itself -- it is a button.

I had an E46 M3 that came with a very nice laminated safety briefing card. I tucked an airsick bag in there too; it was pretty good fun to hand them to a passenger that was having their first ride. 4.7s felt pretty damn fast back then! Been thinking of making one up for the Tesla; only real problem is the lack of storage pockets/compartments!

Thanks for the tips. I found both of these options. Due to (family) circumstances, the dealer did not have the time to go over the car as thoroughly as they might have.

 

[pc1208]

Hi everybody,

Well the most easy change and that's for me an interesting change that I think Tesla can make easily is the fact that my car (a two years old model S) is able to read the panels located on the highways, but when I set 130 Kmh (the maximum speed allowed in France), it's just because I want to drive fastly. And when my car read 90 Km on a new panel, this is indicated to me on the front board, but my car still go on at the speed of 130 Kmh, which is then forbidden! I wish a great modification, making my car able to change the speeds according to the panels, even when the new panel is legally faster again.

Have all a nice Tesla year.

 

[pc1208]

Just to say I agree , although on the odd occasion when it registers the wrong "panel" who'll pay the fine?

 

[BluePhoton]

• "Don't go below" interior temperature management. Let me set a "base" temperature so the car is never below 50 degrees when I get in.
  .

While we're at it:
Should also have "Don't go Above" interior temperature management.

(For those of us in hot places like Arizona!)

 

[BigD0g]

There’s absolutely no chance of a Tesla ride hailing service this year, my gosh it’s already March and we still don’t even have an EAP feature...

 

[Patrick0101]

While we're at it:
Should also have "Don't go Above" interior temperature management.
(For those of us in hot places like Arizona!)

Tesla already has this. It's called Cabin Overheat Protection.

 

[achilles992000]

I'm not expecting much. the company is not as innovative as it used to be. i thought we would get really fast superchargers. still no full self driving. Model 3 numbers are lagging. gigafactory was supposed to run on solar. what happened to the solar roofs and solar superchargers?

 

[dgpcolorado]

...gigafactory was supposed to run on solar...

This, at least, seems to be happening:

Tesla Gigafactory