Tesletter - Issue 196 - Let the (light) show begin

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Issue 196 - Let the (light) show begin

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As you may or may not know, Tesletter is a small family business run by Ignacio (@plunchete) and Vanessa (@deepbane). We're getting close to 200 newsletters sent and couldn't be happier about what the journey of putting together this newsletter has brought to us.

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V11 Holiday Update

Custom Light Show 📹
As part of the Holiday update, Tesla has opened Light Show as a new Toybox feature for all cars (it was a Model X exclusive until now) and has open-sourced a tool for creating custom light shows. People have started building their own light shows and sharing their marvelous creations. This is one of my favs so far 🤘🤘🤘

Tesla Light Show repository
Are you creating your own light show? Do you want to find others to download to your car? A repository of all the light shows from the community. Anyone can contribute!

Easy access app menu 📹
V11 allows the customization of the menu bar, here is a video showing how you can drag and drop your favorite apps for easy access. Easy peasy.

An in-depth breakdown of features added in the 'Holiday update' 📷
The "Holiday update" introduced a bunch of new features and updates. Tesla owners everywhere are excited. We are excited. We were also a bit lost with so many goodies. Luckily for us, here's a table with the breakdown changes by model, including the legacy Model S/X.

Safety

New blind spot visualizations 📹
They could be better, but at least they are present now. Little steps. I hope Tesla keeps improving this functionality, they could really step up the game with all the cameras and screens that other cars don't have. BTW, seems like in pre-2021 cars the blinker light makes the blind spot camera unstable at night.

Imagining Tesla's blind spot camera 📹
Greentheonly imagines what the Tesla blind spot camera 'should be'. What do you think?

How the Model Y outperforms the Model 3 on IIHS crash tests 📹
It is well known that Tesla focuses on safety. Could Tesla create an even safer car? Apparently yes. See it with your eyes. Disclaimer: Many cars were hurt in this video.

Hardware & Autopilot

First Model 3 and Y with MCU3 📷
New Model 3 and Ys with MCU3 starting to be built and delivered in North America. And they come with a few other new and exciting things:

MCU3, Infotainment Computer with AMD Ryzen
12v battery
Brand new front camera housing

Elon Musk talks Autopilot (amongst other things) with Lex Fridman 📹
Another (3rd) interview of Elon by Alex Fridman. The interview covers a lot of ground, Tesla and non-Tesla related. Here are some interesting bits that are Tesla related:

There is a major effort to reduce end-to-end latency and variability in latency from image sensor inputs to control outputs.
In the future, the system will consume raw outputs from the image sensors.
Some parts of the systems are still operating on single cameras, those are in the process of being replaced by cameras of all cameras.
Tesla is working on improving 'the memory' of the system, aka what the car saw just a few seconds ago.

💡 Tip of the week

Adjust your mirrors while in reverse. While in reverse, you can adjust your mirrors and save them to your profile, that way next time your car will remember. Just make sure you have “auto-tilt” set to on.

🤓 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.