Tesla making progress on Steam integration, demo 'next month'

By Gabe Rodriguez Morrison
Elon Musk says Tesla is making progress on its Steam integration
Elon Musk says Tesla is making progress on its Steam integration
Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the company is getting closer to integrating Valve's Steam gaming platform into its in-car gaming console. This integration would result in a huge array of video games inside Tesla vehicles.

Elon says that Tesla is making progress on Steam integration and the automaker is aiming for a demonstration next month.

Coincidently Tesla has its AI Day 2 event scheduled for September 30th, which was pushed back from its original August 19th date. Tesla plans to show off its humanoid robot among other "many cool updates." This may be a good time for Tesla to share its progress on Stream integration as well.

Tesla's current in-car gaming adds a lot of value to the Tesla ownership experience, but the automaker has bigger plans for gaming inside its vehicles.

Elon recently stated that “entertainment will be critical when cars drive themselves,” which he believes Tesla can achieve later this year.

In addition to Steam integration, Tesla offers video games inside its vehicles through "Tesla Arcade", which could eventually compete with other gaming platforms such as Apple's AppStore, the Playstation Store, or the Xbox Marketplace.

The new Model S and Model X feature a new gaming computer that is capable of 10 teraflops of processing power, enabling in-car gaming on par with today’s newest consoles.

The new gaming system is integrated and connects to both the front and rear screens inside the Model S and Model X.

Elon also revealed that the new computer has more storage to store more games on the platform. Tesla's Bluetooth controller compatibility will allow gaming from any seat.

The website videocardz compared Tesla's specs with next-gen consoles, showing that at least spec-wise, Tesla's gaming platform in the Model S and X is on-par with the latest generation of gaming consoles.

Tesla owners are excited about the potential for Steam integration coming to their cars soon. While this has been an exciting development, according to Tesla hacker @GreenTheOnly, only the new Model S and X feature the discrete AMD GPU that provides "next-gen" level graphics.

MCU 3-based Model 3 and Model Y vehicles do not include the discrete GPU, which means that some games may be exclusive to the Model S or X.

It's not clear whether Steam integration will be available for MCU 2 vehicles, although Tesla has a history of creating software that supports as many of their cars as possible.

Tesla still occasionally updates their original 2012 Model S vehicles with UI improvements and new features.

Tesla previously highlighted high-end games such as The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. We should know more soon.

GPU comparison in the Model S/X to the latest video game consoles
GPU comparison in the Model S/X to the latest video game consoles
videocardz.com

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Tesla FSD V13 Makes Big Improvements Around Emergency Vehicles, School Buses and Speed Zones [VIDEO]

By Karan Singh
HABiBtheDWEEB / bilalsattar

Tesla’s FSD V13.2.2 continues its rollout to the HW4 fleet, now complete with holiday goodness that makes it available to all HW4 vehicles. While FSD V13 is capable of some incredible feats, such as three-point turns, there are some additional capabilities Tesla hasn’t talked about yet.

Emergency Vehicle Handling

First up, better handling for emergency vehicles. While Tesla works on gathering audio data to make emergency vehicle detection even better, Tesla improved how it handles emergency vehicles with FSD V13.

FSD previously had issues handling emergency vehicles - sometimes pulling over and stopping on V12, other times requiring driver intervention to do the job. This led to lots of user interventions when an emergency vehicle was detected. Ensuring you’re out of the way of an ambulance can save precious seconds - which is enough to save lives.

V13 now does a much better job of pulling overly safely to the side for emergency vehicles. Check out the video below of FSD pulling the vehicle over to the side of the road.

School Buses

Another issue that FSD had trouble handling previously was school buses. Previously, FSD would ignore the stop sign and flashing lights and attempt to drive around the bus.

School buses often required driver intervention, but it seems Tesla has dedicated time to training FSD V13 to handle them properly now. Check out this post of FSD now successfully stopping and waiting for a school bus.

Speed Zone Handling

Reduced speed zones, including school zones, have had mediocre handling by FSD in previous versions. Now, some initial speed zone handling has arrived in V13.2. However, while it does handle some speed zones with blinking signs, it doesn’t necessarily handle all speed zones. For now, while Supervising, drivers will need to make sure their vehicles don’t exceed the speed limit, especially in school zones. In the meantime, look at this speed video of the vehicle handling a speed zone with FSD V13.

Camera Cleaning

As part of V13, Tesla included some interesting features addressing hardware - namely camera cleaning, The initial changelog was slightly vague: “Improved Camera Cleaning” and nothing else.

It turns out this actually refers to the camera heating elements around the vehicle, including those around the B-Pillar. According to FSD engineer Yun-Ta Tsai, this is far more complex than just heating the camera up.

Tesla Addresses Cybertruck Tonneau Cover Leaks with New Rubber Seals

By Karan Singh
The new Rubber Seal on the Aero Flap
The new Rubber Seal on the Aero Flap
theMONK11/Reddit

The Cybertruck features an automatic tonneau that lets you lock in valuables. It rolls back and forth along a track and is somewhat water-resistant. Tesla never said that the tonneau would be waterproof, but many owners have encountered a lot of water flowing into their tonneau covers.

The place where the glass roof meets the plastic strip - the aero flap- seems to be the location where most of the water gets in, and this has been noted by many as a constant source of leaks - while the rest of the bed stays mostly dry.

Tesla has attempted to fix this by adding additional slats to the tonneau, which ensures that there are slats left over underneath the aero cover, thereby providing some additional water resistance. However, it looks like they’re doing more now to prevent these leaks. 

New Rubber Seals

Tesla intends to issue a service code - the term they use for service bulletins to fix common problems - for this particular issue. This service code will include the removal of the old aero flap and the installation of a new aero flap that has additional rubber seals - similar to the ones used on windows. Thanks to theMONK11 on Reddit for catching this and providing the photo.

The service code hasn’t gone live yet, so it looks like Tesla is only testing this new part for owners who have complained about excessive water intrusion. We’ll likely see this new flap, with the additional rubber seals, become a standard part on newly built trucks to resolve this issue.

For everyone else, you’ll need to put in a service ticket with Tesla, but we would recommend waiting a few weeks before doing so. That will give them time to finalize the process and have the new part sent around to service centers across North America. Given that this isn’t a critical issue to the functionality of the vehicle, Tesla likely will not issue a recall for this - so it’ll be up to owners to create a service ticket and have the new applique installed.

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