The week of December 24, Tesla announced that Tesla owners could enjoy more fun, all with a free, over-the-air, software update.

Since I work in the world of software development, I am aware of the difficulties of launching new features, although there are several points that have left me very disappointed at the same time I am very grateful for the Tesla philosophy of constantly updating our cars for free and I believe that there is always an intention to improve even if it is difficult for users to get used to it. I am sure that by reading posts like mine and other comments on social media, they will be able to improve the experience of this new version shortly, something that characterizes Tesla is their ability to iterate.

What are the main features of this new release?

I am a Tesla user and UX Designer, so I am going to order the main features according to the importance these changes have had for me, but in this link you can check the order of priority that it has had for Tesla. Here are some of these new features that may vary by model and country:

1. New User Interface

At a first glance …

I must confess that the first feeling was overwhelmed 😱, I did not understand where the icons that I used the most were or certain characteristics that are essential for me, but there were a couple of details that I liked:

🥰 I could make phone calls from an icon in the main menu and the part on the left, where the vehicle is shown is smaller. When I signaled to change lanes I was also pleased and really surprised, but I’ll put a picture of that later.

Things I missed:

🥲 Access to the user who is currently driving at the top of the menu.

🥲 I really miss the top information with the status icons for LTE / WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth, etc. In addition, now you can no longer force directly through the icon on the camera to save the last 10 minutes of the dashcam, only by sounding the horn and it is something that is not very safe.

🥲 Information cards relevant to the style of driving, such as seeing the routes and consumption when you are driving, information on tire pressure or intensity of the windscreen wiper. That information in the previous version, could be obtained with the ellipsis menu that appears in this image.

🥲 The icon that indicates that autopilot is activated is much smaller and is at the top.

🥲 You must go to the “service menu” while you are driving, blocking the main screen with the navigation map.

🥲🥲 If you want to return to the map, the following problem occurs, clicking on the icon takes you in a loop to Spotify and back to the service menu, you have to manually lower the screen to be able to see the map again.

🥲 In winter it is very important to be able to quickly access the option to remove the fog from the windows, both front and rear for safety, now that option is hidden within the air conditioning menu. This option was easily accessible from the bottom menu, as well as pressing for a while you could deactivate the air conditioning.

🥲 Another aspect of the air conditioning that was very useful was being able to access the intensity of the seat heating from the bottom menu for both the driver and the passenger. Now that function can only be used from this menu shown above. To make it more complicated, the heated rear seats are kept in the “rear” section but I don’t know why the user does not have the freedom to also modify the front seats from that screen, in UX it is a good practice to offer different alternatives to perform the same action depending on the type of user in question.

🥰 Not everything can be negative, so regarding the configuration of the vehicle’s air conditioning and I give a positive point to the “auto” option of the heated seats, they calculate the intensity very well based on the outside temperature and the time it takes. take inside the vehicle.

💡 If Tesla allows me to give a suggestion as a user and as a UX ;) , I think a solution would be to allow the user to have the freedom to configure the bottom menu with accesses that are really important in terms of security because the customization it offers is quite frivolous, I do not consider that contributes to the daily driving experience having direct access to the Arcade or Toybox among others, but being able to control the heated seats without losing sight of the map. Also being able to add more than three shortcuts would be great.

🥰 Within many of the configuration screens they have organized the content in such a way that scrolling is no longer necessary.

2. 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Blind Spot Camera

A tremendous contribution to driving safety.

3. 🥰 Updated Navigation

Now the user can add and reorder multiple stops on their route. The vehicle will automatically update the arrival times and the status of the battery for each stop.

4. 🥰 Sentry Mode Live Camera Access

This functionality allows the user to check in real time the feed of the sentry mode cameras directly from the app on their smartphone without having to wait to get to the car to check them.

5. 🥰 Games

For the nostalgic, they have added the original Sonic the Hedgehog arcade.

6. 🥰 Audio

The subwoofer output can now be adjusted independently to moderate the bass, and the vehicle now also has five levels of immersive audio that adapts to the content being played.

7. 🥰🥰 Tesla Light Show

And finally, the Tesla light show, European users were looking forward to it.

Here is a Notion with a repository to customize the show that grows with the contributions of the Tesla user community.

And so far my experience testing the new interface yesterday, as I said at the beginning, I am aware of how difficult it is to launch new releases and that they are not usually well received by users, when users are comfortable we are very reluctant to change, although in this case there are some points that can be improved and I am sure that Tesla will do it.