On Friday, Tesla (TSLA) officially unveiled a set of new features coming to its vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update this week.
These features are part of the big 2023 Holiday Update, some of which were leaked last week and we covered them in the 2023.44.25 release notes. However, Tesla revealed some new features that are also part of this year’s Holiday Update.
Tesla published a long X (Twitter) post highlighting these new features. Some of these features like a bird’s-eye view and rear screen gaming have been long-awaited by Tesla owners globally.
Although Tesla stated that the update will start rolling out this week, it has not. Tesla software tracking websites TeslaFi.com and TeslaScope.com also show no installs of the 2023.4.25 (Holiday Update). Looks like Tesla employees are still testing the features and it’s getting fine-tuned and bug fixes before the rollout.
Tesla started rolling out last year’s Holiday Update on 13th December 2022. Tesla might follow the same date pattern for this year’s Holiday Update and we might see it rolling out starting today.
New Features in 2023 Tesla Holiday Update
Bird’s Eye View while Parking
A Tesla vehicle has 8 exterior cameras installed. These cameras are primarily used for Autopilot/Full Self-Driving (FSD). However, Tesla also uses these cameras for other functions like the Sentry Mode, Key Card entry, and remote monitoring via phone app, etc.
Tesla Autopilot already renders the surroundings of the vehicle and creates a live animated vector model on the car’s center touchscreen known as Driving Visualizations. Tesla has improved these driving visualizations over the years.
With this year’s Holiday Update, Tesla is bringing this bird’s-eye view 3D reconstruction of the vehicle’s surroundings. Tesla’s bird’s-eye view will be activated only while the vehicle is parking. This feature will further ease vehicle parking for Tesla owners and get rid of the environmental blind spots completely.
Tesla calls this feature “High Fidelity Park Assist”. “See a 3D reconstruction of your surroundings while parking,” the automaker explained the feature in an X (Twitter) post.
“Vector-space bird’s eye view coming with FSD,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet from 2020.
Rear Screen Video Games
Tesla first introduced the rear screen in 2021 on the design-refreshed Tesla Model S. In addition to the Model X, the Model 3 Highland also has a factory-fitted rear screen.
Until now, the rear screen was used for limited functions like audio/video and climate control only. Tesla owners couldn’t play video games on the rear screen. With the 2023 Holiday Update, Tesla has enabled video games on the rear screen as well.
Tesla calls this feature “LAN Party on Wheels”. This suggests that multiplayer Tesla Arcade games can be played on both the front and rear screens simultaneously like we play games on a local area network (LAN).
Tesla has extended support for PS4, PS5, and Xbox controllers in the 2023 Holiday Update (223.44.25). Tesla has added a new video game Castle Doombad in this update with improvements to previous games.
Custom Lock Sounds
Tesla always has tricks up its sleeves to make driving and owning a vehicle more fun. Now Tesla owners can use any sound for the horn lock and replace the default sound.
“Replace the horn lock sound of your vehicle with another sound—like a screaming goat,” Tesla posted on X explaining the newly-launched feature.
You can check our previous report for details and release notes on other features of the 2023 Holiday Update (2023.44.25) like the 911 Automatic Calling, Apple Podcasts, Blind Spot Camera Enhancement, Speed Cameras on navigation maps, etc.
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