I took delivery of a 2022 M3 LR AWD on 12/20/21, and I discovered that the center console USB-C ports do not support data. Tesla makes a cryptic mention of this in the user manual, and I read somewhere that Tesla had a parts shortage and so put in charging but no data on those 2 ports so they could ship the car. So the only USB port that has data is the USB-A port in the glove box. I plan to ask Tesla Service if this is fixable. Yeah, good luck, right?
The car came with a Tesla-branded 128 GB USB 3.1 stick already inserted in the glove box USB-A port, and it was already formatted for Dashcam and Sentry Mode videos. Viewing it with GNOME Disks under Linux showed it was a single 128 GB partition formatted as exFAT:
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So I repartitioned the stick into 2 partitions, and formatted both as exFAT: a 120 GB partition for video and an 8.5 GB partition for music. Not sure why it came out 8.5 vs 8, but that's what I got:
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I duplicated the original naming and directory structure on the 120 GB partition, then copied over some music from my laptop drive onto the "Toons" partition. Then I went for a drive. Here's the directory structure and video file naming that the car creates:
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And here's the music partition top-level directory (folder) structure. You don't have to name any folder "Music" or anything. I have music files organized under artist folders, with album folders underneath, and individual tracks in each album folder. I just directly copied folders from my laptop. The car sees everything fine, and if you have Genre, Artist, Album metadata in the music files, you can sort on those, too. Since Tesla cars run Linux, the player plays OGG files just fine, and I have a lot of them mixed in with older MP3 files.
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Everything works: I get Dashcam and Sentry Mode videos saved and I can play music from the stick.
I was worried that doing this workaround would slow down or interfere with Dashcam and Sentry Mode videos, but it seems to work OK. Scrolling ahead in a Sentry Mode video to the red dot where the action is detected is not smooth, but it wasn't smooth to begin with, maybe because I only have the Intel Atom processor. Does anyone know if that chip is pin-for-pin compatible with the new AMD Ryzen (and is it on a socket or soldered)? Yeah, good luck, right?
The USB playback UI could be improved, but at least it works. Sometimes when I get back in the car after being out of it a while, it forgets that it was on USB playback and switches to one of the streaming channels I had favorited 3 months ago. So I have to hit the USB button, which is a customizable button now and I put it on the bottom bar.