Tesla update coming next week adds useful features, and an annoying one
Tesla announced on Twitter a variety of new features coming via its over-the-air 2023 Holiday Update. It comes with a number of highly useful features both for convenience and safety (including a number that have been commonplace on other vehicles for years). It also comes with one that will likely drive neighbors crazy.
And we’ll kick things off with that obnoxious one: screaming goat noises. In a natural progression from the onboard fart sound generator, Tesla is going to make it so that the car can play a particularly famous screaming goat (or possibly sheep, we’re not experts on these animals) sound, which you can hear in the video below.
But unlike the fart sound player (at least originally), this will play through the car’s external speakers as an alternative to the horn beeping or various other sounds to confirm that you’ve remotely locked the car. We can imagine this being funny the first couple times, but we doubt the neighbors will enjoy it a few weeks later when it screams every time the car is parked in the driveway. Or when it screams over and over as someone is pressing the remote lock button to find the car in a parking lot.
Goat aside, there are some useful safety features that have been added. One of the most welcome ones is the addition of an actual blind-spot warning, something that’s been ubiquitous on other cars for a very long time. Similarly there’s emergency 911 dialing in case the car deploys airbags.
On the convenience side, the update will let rear seat passengers play mobile games on the rear screen and pair Bluetooth headphones specifically to the rear screen media player. Apple Podcasts will now operate natively on the infotainment system; Tesla navigation will show speed camera, traffic light and stop sign locations; multi-stop trips can be setup in the Tesla app; a new light show mode will be available; and more cameras can be used in Sentry Mode along with 3D visualization of surroundings when parking.
This update package goes live next week. Tesla notes that not all models will be able to take advantage of all features. It didn’t specify exactly which models, though.
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