Why updates don't come as often anymore...

[A-Wimoweh]

Back when I got my new S in November last year, I remember getting a new update like every one to two weeks. Its since slowed down to one every month or two. The last one I had to call and ask for... I have teslafi, so I can see there are updates out there...

I remember seeing a post on here a month or two ago, that basically said our Tesla's have a finite amount of memory available for these software updates to be written to, and each time you get an update, you use up some of that memory. So after awhile, your memory is full, and your MCU is trashed, because you can't update it anymore.

Maybe Tesla is being more selective now and pushing updates alot less frequently because of this?

 

[bob_p]

Updates are usually more frequent after Tesla has released major software changes, when they find and then fix bugs introduced by the software release. And then the pace slows down once the major bugs have been fixed, until the process starts over when the next major changes are distributed.

Only Tesla knows how often and in what sequence they'll distribute releases to vehicles - for customers, it usually feels completely random, with some vehicles quickly getting updates and others waiting weeks or months for changes to be distributed.

Tesla could and should implement more transparency about the software release process, such as providing release notes prior to installing a release and allowing owners to request updates be downloaded and installed (something Musk claimed we would see "soon" last summer).

 

[ewoodrick]

Tesla is my probably working on updates that have to be released as a whole. This can slow the update cadence

And whatever you heard about the memory is incorrect

 

[emmz0r]

No, an update doesn't wear out the eMMC, but excessive logging did. This was mainly a problem on the first Teslas since they needed a lot of logging to root out early issues.

 

[Uncle Paul]

From the blogs, it seems as though Tesla is working on a whole bunch of stuff that will be coming to S & X. Maybe they want to send out one large integrated update instead of piece meal bits more often.

 

[emmz0r]

From the blogs, it seems as though Tesla is working on a whole bunch of stuff that will be coming to S & X. Maybe they want to send out one large integrated update instead of piece meal bits more often.

I'd prefer the piece meal bits instead of a huge update that potentially has a lot of different problems at once...

 

[boringman]

Model 3 is the main priority now. Latest hardware, compute engine, larger production numbers, more media buzz, eyeballs etc. So most engineering bandwidth is allocated to that.

 

[JZifch]

From the blogs, it seems as though Tesla is working on a whole bunch of stuff that will be coming to S & X. Maybe they want to send out one large integrated update instead of piece meal bits more often.

Which blogs?

 

[seaweed]

My Tesla is a June 2017 model and I have not seen an update since December last year, version 2018.50.6 That is probably the longest stretch without an update since I bought the car.

 

[morrisdl]

If you have an older Tesla, then many of the new versions are not eligible for your car. Im still on 2018.50.6 and the SC told me nothing newer is "available" even though 2019.9 is out in the wild. Back in the old days there were fewer car variations to code and test.

 

[boaterva]

From TeslaFi or ev-fw.com you can see most S and X’s are on 2018.50. We are hoping that 2019.8 or 9 is what is coming to everyone but who knows. With all the stuff that is ‘missing’ (nice features plus AP adds, etc.) the idea is we are due for a large release.

As for large vs small release, it may be they now test out features in small pieces to early access (which we aren’t supposed to see on TeslaFi etc) and then combine into a larger package for wide rollout.

Just a theory.

 

[boaterva]

If you have an older Tesla, then many of the new versions are not eligible for your car. Im still on 2018.50.6 and the SC told me nothing newer is "available" even though 2019.9 is out in the wild. Back in the old days there were fewer car variations to code and test.

BS from the SC but the newer versions may be only in limited testing as I’ve said. Rarely believe what they tell you. Only want to get you off the phone or out of their face.

 

[morrisdl]

I would tend to agree with you but he did show me a screen with my VIN that said "no update available". This was at TYCO SC

 

[E-Ryc]

AP2.0 epoch is over, we need to get used to it...

 

[DukeofURL]

I think 2019.9 is the early access beta testing version, so whatever follows that will likely be the big update for us.

 

[DigAdrenaline]

Model 3 is the main priority now. Latest hardware, compute engine, larger production numbers, more media buzz, eyeballs etc. So most engineering bandwidth is allocated to that.

Well, in fairness, it's also the priority because there are a bunch of problems with it that need to get sorted out. That happened long ago with the Model S, and then with the X, and now it's happening with the 3. I agree, I think 6 weeks is the longest I've seen for my car historically, an I'm past 12 now, but at Christmas, I was making a 10000km roadtrip, and I just wanted NoA before I left. Sure enough, Dec 24th I got my update, and that's one day after an update on the 23rd.

There's a bunch of stuff in the new firmware, but I can wait, I know the cold weather problems and the other issues with the 3s are getting them a ton of bad press, where my S is awesome. 3 months isn't bad. NoA is ok, and any time I feel like complaining, I just step on the right pedal, and my love for the car goes back through the roof. Soon enough the 3 will be as stable as the S/X and we'll all start getting updates together again. And then this process will start again for the Y...

Watching TeslaFi, I also see lots of updates in Europe. In the same way that NoA came to me later because I'm Canadian, I assume there are things North America has that Europe doesn't yet. I'm OK with waiting to get everyone together. So I can wait. Not patiently, but I can do it.

I'd take a TransCanada Highway full of superchargers over updates anyway. Though I really want both. RIGHT NOW!!

Kev.

 

[cfwiggum]

I'll just be happy if we get the new browser in the AP1.0 cars.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

You could do daily updates for hundreds of years, and still not hit the write limitation for modern flash drives.

My hypothesis on why we don't see as many updates is that Tesla is simply more careful with them.

Tesla has hundreds of thousands of vehicles out there, and it's extremely risky for them to update them all at the same time. So it's best to start with a slow rollout.

The rollouts have gotten so careful that it's about a month between the time some update will be mentioned by the Tesla blog, and my vehicle getting the update.

I typically get an update within 25% to 50% of vehicles in the fleet that get a wide release. So generally a couple days after a release goes wide.

Back in 2015 when I had a Model S I'd get updates pretty much the night they came out. It was like the night before Christmas when an update was announced. Where I'd often stay up late (like 2am) just to install an update.

Now days I never do that since I know it will be weeks before it will roll to my car.

 

[A-Wimoweh]

Tesla is my probably working on updates that have to be released as a whole. This can slow the update cadence

And whatever you heard about the memory is incorrect

So the issue is that when logging is enabled, it rewrites the flash memory over and over many times, killing it after awhile? Just like the dashcam does to the USB stick?

 

[milleron]

If you have an older Tesla, then many of the new versions are not eligible for your car. Im still on 2018.50.6 and the SC told me nothing newer is "available" even though 2019.9 is out in the wild. Back in the old days there were fewer car variations to code and test.

On TeslaFi, you can clearly see AP2 cars getting firmware updates as recent as 2019.8.x, just very few of them. The AP2 cars that are getting those very recent updates are presumably hand-picked by engineering, so your SC guy was probably technically correct — i.e., even though Tesla can install those recent updates on AP2 cars, there really was no update "available" that he could install for you.

Now days I never do that since I know it will be weeks before it will roll to my car.

I wish it were weeks. On my AP2 MS, I've waited approximately two months between the last two updates I received, and even if the next one came tomorrow, it would be at 1.5 months. In two years, the longest I ever went was 63 days, but I'm expecting to break that record with the update from 2018.50.6 -- TeslaFi shows that about 75% of AP2 cars are still on that one.