Tesla has added a new feature to Track Mode v3 with software update 2024.38.4 and higher. This update lets users configure how aggressively their powertrain is cooled.
One of the biggest challenges of racing or tracking Teslas has been sustained performance as drivetrain components start to heat up. Previously, performance was optimized for maximum power, which would result in very high performance initially, but performance would quickly degrade after multiple laps. With this update Tesla is now giving users more control of their vehicle’s performance and cooling.
Thermal Limiting
Tesla limits vehicle performance as components reach their thermal limit. These could be the brakes, motors, or batteries. While the battery performs best when hot, too hot isn’t good for its life either. In terms of the motors, as they get increasingly hot, they’ll be at risk of damaging themselves, so the vehicle will thermally limit itself.
Track Mode also provides aggressive cooling at an increased level before, during, and after a track session, which helps to ensure that the vehicle stays within its safe thermal limits as you push it as hard as possible.
Powertrain Endurance
Powertrain Endurance is available in the Track Mode V3 menu between the Stability Assist options and the Regenerative Braking slider. It has three options: Standard, Increased, and Maximum.
Standard - This essentially provides no change to the existing functionality, so you’ll get the fastest initial times, but you’ll be thermally limited more quickly.
Increased - This is the next step up, providing a balance between initial performance and sustained power. It’ll give you more steady performance over multiple laps, but you may still get thermally limited.
Maximum - This setting will reduce your vehicle’s performance but ensures that the vehicle’s available power will last for longer distances. This is the option many have wanted to see - a way to get maximum performance without getting thermally limited and having to slow down immensely.
The 3 options in Track Mode V3
@PatrickMJanson on X
Supported Vehicles
For now, this option appears to only be able available on Track Mode v3 vehicles with update 2024.38.4 and later. For now, that means only the 2024 Model 3 Performance - the Highland refresh - has that capability.
Tesla has updated its Vehicle Safety Report once again, in line with the third financial quarter of 2024. Each quarter, alongside its Earnings Call, Tesla provides an update to its Vehicle Safety Report, which includes a massive amount of data on how safe Tesla’s vehicles are.
Q3 2024
In the third quarter, Tesla vehicles had one crash every 7.08 million miles while drivers were using either Autopilot or FSD. Meanwhile, those who didn’t use either regularly had one crash every 1.29 million miles in a Tesla.
The NHTSA shows that the average driver is in a crash once every 670,000 miles. Even if you weren’t using Autopilot or FSD but were in a Tesla, you were twice as unlikely to be in a crash. If you were using Autopilot or FSD, you were over 10.5 less likely to be in an accident compared to the average driver in the United States.
In Q1 2024, Tesla achieved a record-breaking 7.6 million miles driven before an accident while on Autopilot or FSD, and they’re trending back upwards after a Q2 miss at 6.8 million miles. Every batch of major improvements has increased this number drastically. If we look back to Q3 2021, it was only 5.5 million miles, while Q3 2019 was at 3.85 million miles.
It’s not a coincidence that Tesla’s safety numbers continue to improve. Tesla’s overall package of safety features, including technologies like Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Avoidance, and Collision Avoidance Assist, work through FSD’s vision-based system to keep both the vehicle’s occupants as well as other road users safe. Tesla continues to improve these safety features through continuous software updates, and as FSD improves, so do these safety features.
When you combine safety features with the only fully vision-based self-driving package on the market, you’ve got a vehicle that is demonstrably safer than the average road vehicle.
Following the massive adoption of the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, Tesla has launched another industry standard that it hopes other manufacturers will adopt.
This new standard is called LVCS, or Low-Voltage Connector Standard. It consists of six different connectors and a cable, simplifying a vehicle's internal electrical and data connections to that one standard.
LVCS
LVCS has six different connectors designed to deliver the power, data, and signal requirements for 90% of the internal systems in a modern EV. What’s interesting is that LVCS is built using the same 48V standard that Tesla provided to manufacturers when volume production of the Cybertruck took off.
Tesla previously shared that 48V standard by mailing it to every major automaker in North America in December 2023.
They weren't joking. We received the document today, dated Dec. 5th. Thanks, @ElonMusk. Great for the industry! https://t.co/DkLaHA84CY
Just like the 48V standard and NACS, LVCS has the chance to have a wide-ranging impact on the automotive industry as manufacturers follow Tesla’s technical engineering standards. If manufacturers adopt LVCS, it’ll be easier for both first and third-party technicians to repair vehicles, as the cables and connectors they’ll need to use will be standardized.
It’ll also improve operational efficiencies across the industry, helping to spur further cost reductions and improve manufacturing and automation. Essentially, Tesla is setting the stage to standardize the 48V standard they pioneered with the Cybertruck. The upcoming Model Y Juniper Refresh will likely be the first mass-market vehicle with a 48-volt low-voltage system. We already know that the new Cybercab and the Robovan are also running on 48V.
LVCS is another fantastic initiative from Tesla to standardize components, reduce waste, and improve the repair environment across all automotive manufacturers.
Tesla released an official statement on the LVCS system, which points out several key improvements:
Tesla’s new Low-Voltage Connector Standard (LVCS) reduces the required connector types from over 200 to six, covering 90% of device needs.
Using a 48V architecture like Cybertruck’s, LVCS improves efficiency with a quarter of the current needed for the same power.
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