GM has repaired more than 11,000 Teslas since 2021
TeslaRepairs/Instagram
In an ironic twist, Tesla’s soaring popularity has helped a repair shop that’s been around for over a century. During General Motors Investor Day, the company’s President, Mark Reuss, said, “That’s a growing business for us. I gotta say it’s a new business,” according to Barrons. He was referring to servicing Teslas at GM facilities. The car company, which has been around since 1908, has repaired more than 11,000 Teslas since 2021 in the United States.
While not happy to be losing the business on the service side, Tesla must be relieved that its owners have access to repairs at a company that has thousands of service centers across the country. Tesla has increased production, getting more of its in-demand vehicles on the road; however, it takes much longer to have facilities built and employees trained to service these vehicles.
More Teslas Will Need Service
Recently, internal documents showed that the company was going to introduce a process allowing salvaged Tesla to be recertified and allowed back on the Supercharger grid. That may increase the number of Teslas that need to be worked on. Improvements to service have been on Tesla’s radar for some time. Last year, Musk said that the company was expediting service center openings to keep up with the exploding demand for the product.
Musk Was Focused on Service
In September, Elon Musk said that he was focused on improving service. A Twitter user complained about a recent service appointment being canceled on short notice. Musk responded: Note, I am putting a lot of time personally into advancing Tesla service to make it awesome. Hopefully, this is starting to be felt by Tesla owners.
The user also pointed out that Tesla can charge $100 for canceling an appointment with less than 24 hours' notice, but there was no penalty when the company cancels with short notice. Musk tweeted: You’re right, we should credit Tesla owners $100 if we change appointments with less than 24 hours notice. Should be reciprocal. On June 4, 2022, he tweeted: Working on Tesla North American service. Goal is 2/3 of cars receive same-day service, no wait.
But since those tweets, Musk has had a lot of attention taken to running his new company - Twitter. It's unclear how long he will be running Twitter or when his full attention will return to Tesla and improving service.
While more facilities have opened, many Tesla owners are clearly finding it more convenient to go to the neighborhood GM dealership. This ironic twist may provide some short-term relief. Still, Tesla must continue building and staffing more service centers to keep owners happy and persuade prospective buyers to consider the electric car pioneer when purchasing their next vehicle.
Tesla has updated its English voice for navigation guidance on newer vehicles. Many users have noted a change in the pitch and speed of the spoken text when using Tesla’s navigation system. Right now, we’re not sure whether this voice change is an indication of a larger change that’s coming, a minor tweak for better clarity, or possibly a bug.
Update: We’ve updated the article with how you can get the new voice in your existing vehicle.
Tesla Voice Guidance
A reader, known as FSDTester#420 on Tesla Motors Club, recently reached out to us to report a new nav voice. He took delivery of a new Tesla and immediately noticed that the navigation’s voice was much better than his other Tesla. The voice is noticeably faster and appears to have fewer pauses, making it sound more natural.
After posting his experience on Tesla Motors Club, other readers chimed in, saying they had the same voice in their new vehicle. The change does not appear to be affecting older vehicles, but it turns out you can update other vehicles as well (see steps below).
Video
You can listen to the navigation voice guidance in the video video below by FSDTester#420.
It turns out you can get the new voice on older vehicles as well, but it requires resetting all of your settings. X user, IRSHater69, tipped us off that a software reset may get you the new nav voice, and @brandonee916 just recently tried it and confirmed that resetting the MCU will indeed get you the new, faster voice.
If you’d like the new voice, you’ll need to factory reset your vehicle, meaning that all settings will go back to their factory defaults. You can do this by going to Controls > Service > Factory Reset. This will reset all of your vehicle settings, but most settings are now saved to your Tesla profile in the cloud, assuming you have one set up. Keep in mind that not all settings are saved to your profile and will be lost.
Settings such as browser bookmarks, trip meters, and others are not saved to your profile, and you will lose them if you factory reset your vehicle. Any drivers who don’t use a cloud account (the ones that display an avatar) will also be lost, and the driver will need to set them up again. This includes data such as seat and mirror positions, Autopilot settings, and more.
Tesla Smart Assistant
It looks like Tesla will be updating its Voice Commands system in the future, with Musk recently saying that Tesla will support Grok AI in the car. Tesla’s current voice commands are limited and require you to say phrases in a very specific way, although they do give you access to the most common features (Top 10 Tesla Voice Commands).
Overall, voice commands are not very smart – and they’re nothing like using Google Gemini with Voice or other modern AI-based assistants. Back in January, Tesla began implementing a smart assistant in China – which brought things beyond just vehicle control, like weather updates, stock market information, language translation, and even poetry.
However, this never made its way out of China, even though Tesla’s smart voice assistant has been sitting dormant in the software for quite a while. It looks like we’ll get a wake-word, similar to the common “Hey, Tesla” – it could even be “Hey, Grok” – if we get full Grok integration as previously hinted at by Elon Musk earlier in 2024.
Either way, for now, there haven’t been any significant changes, but this voice change we’re seeing could be related to Tesla’s upcoming smart assistant feature, where they may need a more capable, more natural sounding voice.
SpaceX recently managed to catch Starship, their future interplanetary rocket, on its first try. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video below. Without a doubt, it was one of the most spectacular moments in human history—the beginning of a new era for human spaceflight.
Even Elon Musk thought it wouldn’t be easy and called his own idea insane. But it turns out they managed to do it on the first try anyway. So, let’s celebrate in your Tesla with a game by SpaceX.
STARSHIP - The Game
As part of the launch event day, SpaceX released a fun little game called STARSHIP - The Game, which is playable on a web browser, phone, or even in your Tesla. The game is pretty simple, with multiple difficulties. You launch Starship, and while it goes off to Mars, you’re piloting the Superheavy Booster.
You’ll want to collect stars and avoid space debris, aliens, and other objects on your way down. But don’t forget - Mechazilla on the ground is waiting to catch you! You’ll need to slow down and be in the right spot for the chopsticks to safely grab the Superheavy Booster. You can try out STARSHIP here.
Mechazilla.io
Andre Almeida on X also recently produced a SpaceX Starship game. Rather than being 2D, this one is 3D - and once again, you’re in control of the Superheavy Booster as it makes its way to the Mechazilla to be caught. You’ll need to use your wits and judge how much you need to adjust the Booster’s angle when coming in and safely come to a stop in the safe hug of the chopsticks.
The best part? You can play it in a browser, your phone, and now, even in your Tesla. Andre just recently added touch controls to the game to support playing it in your Tesla and is planning to add even more levels once Starship 6 launches.
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