Tesla Over The Air Updates, Upgrades, and Microtransactions
By: Electric Motoring W Dave Clark
Tags: Electric Vehicles, Electric Car, Tesla

One of the most revolutionary ideas Tesla had when creating their vehicles was the ability to continue to improve them via over-the-air (OTA) updates. Never before had an auto manufacturer done this, nor really wanted to. When you historically had purchased a car, that was as good as it would get without investing more money into customizing it yourself. This was to the advantage of the manufacturer as they could then build in new features and abilities with future year models, and try to entice you to upgrade to a whole new car in a few years.

Tesla has disrupted this entire concept. Today, computers are tightly integrated into their vehicles. And as such, it can be improved with new features, better performance, software bug fixes, and increased safety by simply pushing a software update to the car, all for FREE.

Since I bought my Tesla Model 3 in July 2018, it has only gotten better. A shortlist of some of the items that are new since I bought it are:

A Dash Cam that will record what is going on around the car as it is driven and allow you to save the previous 10-minute clips on-demand to a USB drive I insert into the vehicle. Sentry mode uses the same USB drive as the dashcam and will record events that occur around your car while parked. This has been useful in capturing vandals who have damaged or broken into Tesla’s, leading to many arrests. Navigate on Autopilot which is an automated driving feature that guides a car from a highway’s on-ramp to off-ramp, including suggesting and making lane changes, navigating highway interchanges, and taking exits, with driver supervision. And then a later update provided Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, where the car will monitor traffic signals and take the appropriate action. Video streaming with YouTube, Netflix, and others allows several entertainment options right on the in-car screen. Arcade Games is one that my kids enjoy more than I do. But, it is a great way to keep them entertained when having to wait in the car. Dog Mode allows you to leave your pet in the car and maintain the climate setting so it doesn’t get too hot or cold. A great safety feature for your pet. A total mile range increase from the original 310 miles to 325 for the Model 3 long-range version allows a little extra charge to get to far away destinations. 10% more power for the various Model 3 versions for quicker acceleration and fun. Smart Summons which allows the car to come to you in parking lots within line-of-sight from up to 200 feet away. I have used this feature a few times when out at a restaurant or store when it was raining, to come to save me from getting soaked. It works remarkably well. Improved braking performance as when Consumer Reports had tested the car, they noted a longer braking distance than average from 60–0 and did not give it a recommended rating. Within a week of the report being published Tesla had adjusted it via a software update and asked for it to be re-tested. Consumer Reports did re-test it, showed the braking was improved by nearly 20 feet and they changed their rating to recommended.

The list of new features, fixes, and adjustments continues to grow and continue to be free. To date, since July 2018, I have received 69 over-the-air updates. Which averages to about 1 update every 13 days. Tesla also updates its map data frequently to support changes to roads and routes for navigation. In many cases, other manufacturers charge hundreds of dollars to update the map data each time.

With the success and positive press from the news media by Tesla’s ability to maintain, update, and improve their vehicles with regular over-the-air-updates, other manufacturers are have been watching and planning to do the same. How this will be done and how well remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, consumers will be looking for this moving forward. No longer will it be acceptable to buy a car knowing the day you drive it off the lot that’s as good as it will ever be again.

But, there are also opportunities for these companies to make money with paid upgrades via micro-transactions, not unlike many developers in the gaming software industry. Games have been doing this for many years by offering various in-game boosts, cosmetic options, additional game levels, and more.

Tesla has already started to offer some of these paid upgrades to its customers. In December 2019, Tesla offered its first paid upgrade via their Mobile App for Model 3 Dual Motor owners. For $2,000, they could purchase an Acceleration Boot that would drop the 0–60 mph time by half a second, from 4.4 seconds to 3.9.

Then, in February 2020, Tesla offered an upgrade for Model 3 Short Range and Short Range Plus owners to add Rear Heated Seats for $300.

The options for upgrades are likely to continue by Tesla as they had the foresight to build all their cars with basically the same hardware and internal parts. In lower-spec models, they simply disabled features that are standard on higher-end models, and will begin to offer them as on-demand upgrades. Full Self Driving for $10,000 is also available as an upgrade in the mobile app.

Elon Musk has recently confirmed on Twitter that a Full Self Driving subscription model is coming in 2021. The price of that is not known at the time of writing this article, but it is expected to be more than $100 per month, likely a lot more.

Looking forward, perhaps Tesla will offer more upgrades in the future. Some possible upgrades that Tesla may offer in the mobile app, assuming the hardware exists to support it, are:

Premium Audio upgrade for Short Range and Short Range Plus owners. Break out some of the Full Self Driving features of interest for a lower cost, such as Navigate on Auto-Pilot, Auto Lane Change, Smart Summons, or Auto Park. More games and other entertainment options are also very likely for a small fee.

All indications are that Tesla is working toward offering an App Store in the future, where 3rd party applications could be offered and sold, similar to iPhone and Andriod. This would open up unlimited options and income streams for Tesla and continue enhancing and improving the customer's experience with the vehicle.