Issue 296 - High Fidelity Park Assist

Charging

Tesla confirms wireless inductive charging pad is under development
Tesla is developing a wireless inductive charging pad for its electric vehicles, a project internally known as "Project Garfield." Confirmed by Tesla's Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen, this technology will enable drivers to charge their EVs simply by driving over a pad in the garage. Though the exact timeline for its release is unknown, Tesla's move into wireless charging technology follows their earlier acquisition and subsequent sale of Wiferion, a company specializing in wireless charging solution.

Software Updates

New Tesla holiday update feature uncovered
Tesla's holiday update delivers more than initially reported, packing a sleighful of features to improve your driving experience. Navigate smarter with on-the-fly alternate routes and prominent traffic light warnings. China gets an extra safety layer with haptic feedback for potential collisions. As has happened for a number of years now, the holiday update is the one with the most features in a single update, although Tesla keeps giving us gifts throughout the year.

Tesla displays intersection images in China 📷
In its holiday update in China, Tesla added pictures of intersections in the navigation. When we first got our Tesla at the end of 2017, I remember the navigation in the US showed images, not pictures, for highway exits, but since Tesla moved to their own navigation system, they stopped it. This is useful for new areas where the driver isn't really familiar with the road, but it can probably be tiring for those taking the same route over and over.

Cybertruck

Cybertruck mod package
The first deliveries fo the Cybertruck just happened and Elon announced this week that Tesla will be offering a mod package that will enable the Cybertruck to traverse 100m of water. According to Elon, most of the elements are already there, but they need to upgrade the cabin door seals. Would you consider this upgrade?

High Fidelity Parking Assist

New parking visualizations only for cars without USS, for now
According to our friends from Teslascope, the new parking visualizations are right now only showing up in the notes for cars with HW3 and HW4 without USS (Ultrasonic Sensors). Ashok, head of the Autopilot team, confirmed on Twitter that it will be soon delivered to cars with USS, but for now we will have to wait.

Tesla rolls out new High Fidelity Park Assist feature 📹
Tesla's 2023 Holiday Update includes the new High Fidelity Park Assist feature, which is generating excitement for its innovative visualizations. As mentioned above, this feature is only currently available for cars without USSS. This feature offers a 3D reconstruction of the vehicle's surroundings while parking, creating real-time 3D models of nearby objects like cars, pillars, and bikes using Tesla Vision. The objects change color based on proximity to the vehicle, enhancing driver awareness and parking precision.

Another video of the High Fidelity Park Assist 📹
In the words of the author, "It’s very close to a 360 cam moving through a garage." As has been discussed many times before, the current camera setup can't really render a 360 view; there is a blind spot in the front and also a patent for such a system, but nothing stops Tesla from using their cameras to do a 3D reconstruction of your surroundings, and it looks pretty cool in my opinion!

🤓 What the acronym
As a Tesla fan, I find myself sometimes having to remember what are all those acronyms, here is a list of the ones you can find in this issue.