Tesletter - Issue 161 - Newsletterest

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Issue 161 - Access Event Data from the car

Accessories

Giveaway Alert: Win a complete set of All-weather floormats for your Tesla
This accessory is for sure a popular one and a must-have. Want this awesome set of All-weather floor mats by Evannex? Us too! Participate in this week's giveaway and for a chance to make it yours (winner chooses the Tesla model). Check out pinned tweet to participate.

Hotwheels Cybertruck 1:10 scale arrived - and it is gorgeous! 📷
Folks who ordered the 1:10 scale Cybertruck are now receiving it. I have to be honest, I haven't seen one IRL but the pictures look amazing!

Software & Hardware Upgrades

Tesla gives customers access to Event Data Recorder to retrieve event records from the car
Many times in the past, owners in accidents requested access to this data, especially when it came down to prove that they weren't at fault. Well, now Tesla released the software (Windows only) to retrieve the data from the car and put up a web service that generates a PDF from that information. There is one caveat tho, you need to purchase a cable that costs $1,200 😕

Tesla received approval to install short-range interactive motion-sensing radar in its vehicles
The FCC granted Tesla permission to install these radars in its cars. They could be used to know if a child is left in the car and in general, for much more detailed passenger monitoring.

We got our refund check today for the replacement MCU recall 📷
A few weeks ago, Tesla announced that they would reimburse people who had to pay to get their MCU1 repaired- sadly not for those who opted in for the MCU2 upgrade- and now folks are starting to get checks in the mail.

Energy & Supercharging

Pre-fabricated concrete Tesla pedestals for Superchargers 📷
We saw some Superchargers already mounted and ready to install the other week. Now, here are some pre-fabricated concrete pedestals. Clearly, Tesla is trying to get creative and expedite the time that it takes to build a Supercharger station.

Powerwalls now require to purchase a Solar Roof or Tesla Solar Panels
Powerwalls are a really popular product and Tesla has decided to only allow clients purchasing the Tesla Solar Roof or Solar Panels to purchase them. I'm sure that in this configuration the installation and the system are better, but I know several people who had panels from other companies that just wanted to add Powerwalls to make their house not depend on the grid.

FSD

Walnut Creek, CA through the eyes of FSD BETA 📹
Another great video by AI DRIVR, this time showing us Walnut Creek (we live really close by!) through the eyes of FSD. I love the creativity of overlaying the FSD visuals in the video.

Cars with AP2.5 will be able to upgrade to AP3 and get the FSD Subscription
The FSD Subscription is supposed to land sometime in May and Elon just confirmed on Twitter that cars with AP2.5 will be able to subscribe and get the retrofit to AP3. What he didn't mention is if there will be some type of minimum subscription required. We should know soon!

💡 Tip of the week

Don't want your significant other to know that you like bad music? Fear no more! You can tap and hold the album art until it grays out and the X icon appears, tap the X icon, and delete.

🤓 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.

AP2.5 - Autopilot hardware manufactured after August 2017 and by Hardware 3
AP3 - Autopilot hardware manufactured in/after February 2019 for Model S / Model X, and in/after April 2019 for Model 3
FCC - Federal Communications Commission
FSD - Full Self-Driving
MCU - Media Control Unit
MCU1 - Has an NVIDIA Tegra-3 chip. All Model S and Model X built before the end of March 2018 have this version.
MCU2 - Has a more powerful Intel x86_64 processor. All Model 3 have this version as well as the Model S and Model X built after the end of March 2018.