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Tesla 2020.40.0.4: Speed Assist, Glovebox PIN, Priority Bluetooth, and more

The Tesla Model 3's minimalistic interior. (Credit: Tesla)

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Tesla’s new 2020.40.0.4 Software Update has been released to owners, and a variety of new features were added to make life easier for drivers. Speed Assist Improvements join new security functionalities, along with fresh accessibility features to make driving a Tesla safer and more luxurious.

While the electric automaker rolls out updates in a frequent fashion, this new software comes with multiple functionalities that are entirely new to drivers. Other updates could include one or two features that are simply improvements to already existing characteristics. However, 2020.40.0.4 includes multiple features that Tesla has not included in past updates.

Speed Assist Improvements

Tesla vehicles will now use the external cameras on the car to detect speed limit signs. This will help improve the accuracy of speed limit date for highways, but it will also help vehicles travel at appropriate speeds.

In the past, some owners have complained that their vehicles are not recognizing the speed limits in certain regions. California drivers were having relatively non-existent issues with the functionality, but drivers in other parts of the United States were reporting several issues with their cars traveling at the correctly intended speeds.

Tesla poised to roll out speed limit recognition and roundabout support worldwide

CEO Elon Musk responded that the issues were of “high priority,” and that Tesla was addressing them.

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It appears that the functionality has been improved and fixed. The release notes state:

“In addition to local roads, Speed Assist now leverages your car’s cameras to detect speed limit signs to improve the accuracy of speed limit data for highways. As usual, to adjust Speed Assist settings, tap Controls > Autopilot > Speed Limit.”

Additionally, drivers with different Infotainment systems will have differing capabilities.

Notes for MCU2 drivers state:

“Speed Assist now leverages your car’s cameras to detect speed limit signs to improve the accuracy of speed limit data on local roads. Detected speed limit signs will be displayed in the driving visualization and used to set the associated Speed Limit Warning. As usual, to adjust Speed Assist settings, tap Controls > Autopilot > Speed Limit.”

MCU1 users will have slightly fewer capabilities, according to their notes, which say:

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“Speed Assist now leverages your car’s cameras to detect speed limit signs to improve the accuracy of speed limit data on local roads. As usual, to adjust Speed Assist settings, tap Controls > Autopilot > Speed Limit.”

The functionality is availabel on all four currently released Tesla models and requires HW 3.0 to be used.

Priority Bluetooth Device

Tesla vehicles will now connect to one Bluetooth device that has been defined as the “priority device,” according to the new update. This will stop confusion between two owners whose phones or devices are both synced to the vehicle. One phone will be considered the “priority” device, and will automatically connect. It is available for all four vehicles.

“To avoid connecting to the wrong nearby phone, you can now set your priority Bluetooth device. Your car will attempt to connect to the priority device associated with the profile selected before it attempts to connect to other paired phones. To set your priority device, tap the Bluetooth icon on the top of your touchscreen, select your preferred phone and tap Priority Device.”

Mobile App – Vent Windows

This feature is pretty self-explanatory. It is only available for the Model S, however.

“You can now vent all of your windows from the Tesla mobile app.

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Note: this feature requires the Tesla mobile app version 3.10.0 or later.”

Glovebox PIN

A great security addition for owners, the Glovebox will now be locked until a four-digit PIN number is entered. A glovebox is a great place for sensitive information like insurance or vehicle titles. Tesla adding this feature should give owners peace of mind. It is available on all four cars.

“Protect the valuables in your glovebox with a 4-digit PIN. Tap Controls > Safety & Security > Glovebox PIN on the touchscreen to create your PIN.”

Charge Port Inlet Heater

Model 3 and Model Y owners can enjoy a defrosted charge port thanks to an inlet heater that will remove any ice or snow from the inside of the mechanism. It can be turned on through the Tesla mobile app, so owners won’t have to go out into the cold weather to get things cleared up for when they need to charge.

“Your car can now use the charge port inlet heater to help defrost the inside of the charge port. The charge port inlet heater can be activated in cold ambient temperatures by enabling preconditioning using the mobile app, activating the rear defrost button on the vehicle’s touchscreen, or preconditioning the vehicle using scheduled departure.”

Full release notes are available here, thanks to TeslaScope.com.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla Semi lands the biggest electric truck deal in U.S. history

Tesla leads a record 2,500 truck order, but not every truck will be a Semi.

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Tesla has landed the largest electric truck order in U.S. history. ZET SCALE, a new alliance of shippers and carriers, named Tesla its primary manufacturer on Tuesday for an initial order of 2,500 electric Class 8 trucks. The deal alone would nearly double the number of electric heavy trucks operating in the country.

According to the press release from Catalyst Mobility, the nonprofit formerly known as CALSTART, Kenworth, RIDE and Volvo were also selected as secondary manufacturers that carriers can pick if their operations call for it. No split between the four brands has been published, so the exact number of Semis in the order is not yet known.

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Tesla won the top slot through a competitive request for proposals. The alliance, which Catalyst Mobility runs with the Smart Freight Centre, scored bidders on price, range, charging capability and production capacity. Pooling freight demand from founding shippers, including Microsoft and PepsiCo, let every truck maker bid lower than it would for a single fleet. “The Tesla Semi is designed for lower cost per mile operations than diesel,” said Dan Priestley, director of the Tesla Semi program, as noted in the press release.

The financing is built to pull in carriers who have avoided electric trucks. ZET Financial is issuing the purchase order for all 2,500 units and will place them with fleets through a fair market value lease. The trucks will be deployed over the next few years across 10 freight hubs in Los Angeles, Stockton, Bakersfield, Seattle and Tacoma, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Atlanta, and the Newark and New York area. ZET SCALE says the first order is only the opening round, with a longer term goal of 10,000 trucks or more.

Even if Tesla ends up with only a majority share, it would still be the biggest Semi deal to date. Einride’s 500 unit order in August was the previous record, and WattEV’s 370 truck order in May was the largest California deal at the time. Einride’s CEO has since said he expects all 500 trucks delivered by the end of 2027.

The announcement lands two days before Tesla formally inaugurates its Semi factory in Nevada on September 24. The 1.7 million square foot plant sits next to Gigafactory Nevada’s 4680 cell lines and is designed for 50,000 trucks a year.

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Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

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Credit: Grok

Tesla has expanded Grok from an in-car chatbot into a hands-free work assistant. On September 22, Tesla officially launched Grok Bot capability, confirming that drivers can now manage email, calendars, files, chats, and tasks by voice and then hand more ambitious errands to the AI-fueled productivity cheat code.

Grok itself is built by xAI. The new car features split into two layers: Connectors link Grok to outside accounts. Grok Bot, currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, can complete multi-step tasks such as placing a usual coffee order, booking a reservation, or scheduling an appointment. It truly puts the driver in a nearly complete hands-free driving and productivity setting, with ironically the only task truly requiring your hands being to touch the “Start Self-Driving” button.

We were granted access to Grok Bot’s Tesla integration a few weeks back, and we’ve been able to do a handful of things with it. On a handful of occasions, we’ve used it to order food and have it ready for pickup slightly later into the evening; we’ve managed to pick up groceries after a day of errands with Grok Bot, and outside of the car, it’s helped with budgeting and even my fantasy football draft.

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Tesla shows another way to utilize it: in their demo, a driver says “Hey Grok,” asks the assistant to check an inbox, and hears that a message concerns a weekend reservation. Grok then scans the calendar, reports no conflicts, and confirms the Tahoe trip is clear. It can also add check-in details to a road-trip itinerary. The point is not novelty chat. It is keeping eyes on the road, or on Full Self-Driving, while the car handles the paperwork of a trip:

This Grok rollout is not a gadget add-on as much as it is Tesla’s thesis in software form: the car should stop being a machine you operate and start being a room you occupy.

Connectors and Grok Bot treat the cabin as an office that happens to move, and that has truly been Tesla’s intention for years now. The car has slowly become an extension of a home more than a vehicle. Inbox, calendar, groceries, takeout, and reservations become voice work, not dashboard chores that you need to do before you get in your car.

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Responsibility shifts from the driver to the stack, and as many Tesla owners rely on FSD for travel, Grok Bot now handles the monotony of dinner reservations or appointments.

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Elon Musk

X changed how everyone gets paid, and this lawsuit shows why

X sued a Bitcoin account network over fake payouts as its creator pay model shifts

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Elon Musk’s X has taken a Bitcoin-focused engagement ring to court, and the case doubles as a receipt for how differently the platform pays creators today. The company filed suit in the High Court of England and Wales against Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa, alleging the pair ran six accounts, including @Vivek4real_, @Bitcoin_Teddy and @TrendingBitcoin, as one coordinated operation to fake the kind of engagement that used to translate directly into money.

According to the filing, first reported by Gizmodo, the accounts posted near identical “BREAKING” crypto headlines seconds apart, in one case 11 seconds, then had three more handles like, reply to and repost the material to manufacture what X called “a false appearance of genuine, human communication and interaction.” X says the scheme pulled in at least £207,384, about $278,000, and pegs its own investigation and remediation costs at another £75,000. The accounts were suspended August 18. X general counsel James Burnham announced the case on X last weekend, writing that the company “will act forcefully to protect our platform and the earnings of genuine creators.” Musk’s own reaction, posted shortly after, was three words: “Don’t mess with 𝕏.”

The timing lines up with a a recent update to how X pays its creators. The program these accounts allegedly gamed, Creator Revenue Sharing, launched in mid 2023 and paid out based on how much a post got engaged with. Originality was never part of the formula, which is exactly how the platform ended up flooded with recycled clips, copy pasted “BREAKING” posts and replies engineered purely to farm reactions from paying subscribers.

X tried patching the model more than once, including an April cut to aggregator payouts and a March regional weighting change that Musk personally paused hours after it was announced. X retired Creator Revenue Sharing for good on September 7 and opened its replacement, Original Content Rewards, the next day.

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The new math is stricter. Payouts now come only from qualified impressions, meaning unique Home Timeline views from Premium subscribers where at least half the post is visible, and replies no longer count toward eligibility at all. Copied posts, reuploaded media and reposts without meaningful changes are explicitly excluded. Allegra Jacchia, senior product manager for Creators at SpaceXAI, which now runs X’s product and AI work following xAI’s acquisition of the platform, put it bluntly, saying the goal is to reward creators who bring original ideas and perspective, “not those who have become best at gaming the system.”

Read that way, the lawsuit isn’t really about six crypto accounts. It’s X putting a dollar figure on what the old incentive structure cost, then suing to collect it right as the new one goes live. For live updates on how the case and the new rewards program shake out, follow @Teslarati on X.

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