Tesla's vehicles will soon use Starlink to connect in dead zones
SpaceX
Tesla’s vehicles will integrate with SpaceX's Starlink to eliminate dead zones in the future.
On August 25th at 5pm PT, Musk and T-Mobile CEO and President Mike Sievert, announced a landmark partnership between Starlink and T-Mobile with the goal of “eliminating dead zones worldwide.” This venture is called “Coverage Above & Beyond,” and it will go into beta late next year for text, MMS, and select messaging applications, according to Teslarati.
Starlink V2, launching next year, will transmit direct to mobile phones, eliminating dead zones worldwide
Musk posted a follow-up tweet saying, “Note, connectivity will be 2 to 4 Mbits per cell zone, so will work great for texting & voice calls, but not high bandwidth.”
Unfortunately, watching high-resolution videos on YouTube or Netflix, or sending high-quality pictures will not be ideal at this speed. Hopefully, T-Mobile and Starlink continue to improve these speeds as hardware and software gets enhanced to enable more bandwidth.
To achieve mobile service in remote and rural areas Starlink will use a portion of T-Mobile’s mid-band PCS Spectrum to get rid of dead zones around the world.
“That is incredible because it’s a lot like putting a cellular tower in the sky, just a lot harder,” Sievert said at the “Coverage Above & Beyond” event.
The connection to Starlink via Tesla’s vehicles will enable them to make emergency calls and texts. Twitter user @heydave7 responded to Musk’s tweet about Starlink V2 satellites inquiring about this. Musk responded, “Yes.”
With Tesla’s vehicles able to connect to the internet in the most remote places, this could mean that your vehicle’s connectivity will be more reliable when driving through areas with little to no cell service. And this may mean Tesla could drop AT&T as its enterprise mobile carrier, allowing for much more flexibility and control over its fleet’s data usage.
And you won’t need to update to a new phone. The one you use right now will work. Furthermore, it’s rumored that Apple will be announcing a satellite connectivity feature for their iPhone 14 so it seems that satellite connectivity is going to be prime real estate in the coming years.
Sievert and Musk called on other telecommunications companies around the world to join the program and offer “reciprocal roaming.” This would allow US citizens to travel to other countries and not lose cell service, and similar for those who are traveling to the United States.
Since this information is still so fresh, details about the integration, packages, and pricing are not available, so it’s unclear if Tesla will increase the price of its Premium Connectivity package when Starlink connectivity becomes available.
Watch the Event
Watch T-Mobile and SpaceX’s “Coverage Above & Beyond” event at Starbase below.
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Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
This morning, in response to Dan Burkland, Wes shared that Tesla had significantly rewritten the backend portion of Trip Planner. These improvements, made by several engineers, were designed to improve Trip Planner’s accuracy and open the door to future features.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.
![First Look at Tesla’s New 'Blind Spot While Parked' Feature [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/model-3-2024/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg/4cdcb11af7b1c7cf021ba96588fd4f1a/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg)
