Tesla released the Holiday Update for 2020 on 25th December. This is the company’s second such Holiday Update. As we all expected, the update (Firmware 2020.48.25) includes tweaks to the FSD beta feature among other things. The display for the Supercharger and Vehicle Information received updates as well. However, the feature that the Tesla Community will appreciate the most will be the new “Boombox” feature.
Tesla Gives Owners A Christmas Gift, Holiday Update Is Out With Features That Can Entertain Crowd
Vehicle Information
Tesla removed the T from the touchscreen menu to improve functionality. Overall there are improvements throughout the display as a part of the update. There is an added emphasis on increasing the utility of the touchscreen display.
FSD Visualization updates
Tesla released the FSD beta feature in October. However, the feature needed some improvements. While Tesla has improved the car’s behavior in FSD mode, the occupants of the car wanted a bit more information. The update improves the visualization of FSD mode on the touchscreen. Although the touchscreen showed a lot of information before, it has been improved to help owners understand what their car is doing.
“The driving visualization has been refreshed and now offers a larger visualization to allow drivers to view more details of the road surroundings. The next turn will now appear above the visualization if the navigation turn list is covered by another app.
Additionally, select items have moved slightly, without changing their functionality.
- Quick access to the backup camera and wipers has moved to the bottom bar.
- Indicator lights have moved to the side of the touchscreen.
- Autopilot set speed, Autopilot availability, and detected speed limit is displayed next to the driving speed.”
Scheduled Departure improvements
The Scheduled Departure feature is a real boon for most owners. However, Tesla has now improved this feature. There is more emphasis on a simple design. This allows owners to control charging costs. It also improves the in-car comfort when ready to drive. The Scheduled Departure feature can operate even when the car isn’t charging. Previously, the feature was inaccessible when the battery was lower than 20%.
Owners can now set the time when their off-peak rates end to save charging costs.
Supercharger Display Improvements
Real-time supercharger occupancy information was first offered in 2016. Since then, Tesla has improved the information displayed to make user experience improvements. The focus is on increasing distraction-free driving. This includes the abbility to see available charging stalls at a glance. Previously, owners had to dive deeper into the system to find out this information. The Supercharger pin now shows the number of available stalls at the selected destination.
Boombox
Arguably the feature that everyone was waiting for, Boombox is finally here. This feature allows owners to use the external speakers as a boombox when the car is parked. This also allows the owners to change the honking sound that the car makes when they press the horn. It can be changed to sound like a goat or even like a fart.
This new update is once again a mix of features that owners wanted, and ones that they didn’t know they needed. Owners wanted the Boombox feature for some time now. However, the supercharger improvements are more useful. More owners will appreciate this feature along with the improvements to the display overall. As Elon told us last month, this update truly was lit.
