Tesla Features in Development: Karaoke 'Recording Studio,' New Trip Planner and Trailer Estimate Improvements
As Tesla rolls out update 2024.20 with adaptive headlight support in the U.S. and Canada, as well as improvements to adaptive headlights in Europe, it’s also testing out some things under the hood.
Every release includes other smaller changes that go unlisted. In addition, there are sometimes other code additions or features that aren’t active yet or development is still ongoing.
Shadow Mode
Sometimes Tesla runs changes in shadow mode, meaning that the change is in the software, but it’s running in the background. This is often useful if you have a working version of a feature, but are planning to replace it with an updated or improved version.
A good example is when Tesla started rolling out Park Assist for vehicles without ultrasonic sensors. For months, Tesla was running the updated Tesla Vision system in shadow mode and comparing its output to the values provided by ultrasonic sensors. By using the ultrasonic sensors as the “truth,” Tesla was able to constantly improve its vision-based replacement before finally rolling it out to users.
In update 2024.20, Tesla has several changes happening under the hood. Some of them are likely gathering data and others running may be running in shadow mode.
New “Voyage” Trip Planner
Tesla’s trip planner received a big update in December of 2022 and has been exceptionally performant. It provides accurate trip data, calculating in Supercharger stops – including wait times and station closures, and factors in elevation, user driving style, and traffic all into one package.
However, it has been a while since Tesla has made updates to the trip planner. Tesla hacker Greentheonly dug deep into 2024.20.1 and found a new trip planner called “Voyage” hidden in the update. It seems to be a full rewrite of the trip planner functionality.
At this point, no further details are available, but it could be integrated with 8/8’s Robotaxi announcement. It may be running in shadow mode now, letting Tesla gather data and compare it to the current implementation.
Updates to Maps & Towing
It looks like Tesla is also making some updates to maps, according to Green. He noticed that Tesla is using a new Google Places API that is used for points of interest.
There are also towing changes in this update, but don’t appear to be activated yet. They could provide more accurate range estimates. Previously, users would have to take into account the impact on range from trailer towing on their own. In the future, Tesla may be taking your trailer load into account when determining your range.
Caraoke to Gain Recording Mode
Caraoke, Tesla’s version of Karaoke, is also expected to gain a new recording mode according to Green. He spotted references to a new “Recording Studio”, enabling you to record your karaoke session. It would also give you the ability to add special effects to the recording. When Tesla adds this functionality, we could see it come with an export option that would let you save it onto a USB drive, letting you share it with friends on social media.
It’d be fun if Tesla also incorporated the cabin camera so that the recording featured everyone singing as well, but we may just have to wait and see how Tesla plans to incorporate changes to its Caraoke service.
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