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Tesla customers report 2024 Spring Release update rollout

Credit: Tesla

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Tesla owners are reporting that they are now receiving update 2024.14.3, which is the 2024 Spring Release. The Spring Release includes user interface V12, Audible support, hands-free trunk, and sentry mode previews, among others. It also includes a number of new features for the Cybertruck. 

Tesla previewed a number of the Spring Release’s updates in a post on X earlier this month. While Tesla did not indicate the exact release that would include the new features would be rolled out, the announcement was appreciated by electric vehicle owners nonetheless. Notable software updates, after all, are among the most unique parts of the Tesla ownership experience. 

As per Tesla software tracker Not A Tesla App, the Spring Release has started rolling out to customers. The Tesla software tracker also shared the release notes for the update, which could be found below. Interestingly enough, only AMD-based vehicles would be receiving some of the update’s new features, like the new V12 UI that’s similar to the Cybertruck.

Following are the release notes for software update 2024.14.3.

Visual Updates

User Interface v12 elevates your visual experience with the following updates:

  • Immersive full-screen vehicle controls when you’re parked
  • Large playback controls and quick access to Recents, Favorites, and Up Next in the media player
  • Expandable Autopilot driving visualizations, with a smaller map in the top right for trip guidance
  • A sleeker and more compact drive mode strip and refined driving readouts

Audible

Listen to thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts. Pick up where you left off and listen seamlessly between your device and Tesla.

Scan the QR code to log in to your Audible account, or try it out with a selection of free audiobooks and podcasts. Requires Premium Connectivity.

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Hands-Free Trunk

Open your trunk even when your hands are full. Stand still behind your trunk with Phone Key unobstructed, listen for the chimes, and the trunk will open on its own.

To enable this feature, go to your vehicle settings > Locks > Hands-Free Trunk. Ensure your phone settings allow Nearby Interactions for the Tesla app, or open the app and go to Phone Key > Upgrade. Keep people and clothing clear of moving parts.

Requires iPhone 11+ and Tesla app 4.31.0+. A future update will extend this feature to Android users.

Preview of Sentry Mode Recordings

When Sentry Mode triggers your vehicle alarm and records an event, you can immediately preview a brief clip of the recording on your phone.

Press and hold the notification to watch the recording. In your vehicle settings, you must have Safety > Dashcam turned on.

Requires a USB with sufficient memory plugged into the vehicle, Tesla app 4.31.5+ on iPhone, and Premium Connectivity. Preview videos are end-to-end encrypted and can’t be accessed by Tesla.

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Trip Progress Bar

Below the turn-by-turn list in your navigation, you’ll now see a progress bar that changes as you drive closer to your destination or next stop.

The progress bar also reflects live traffic conditions on your route if you have Online Routing turned on.

For real-time traffic and road conditions to appear on your routes, the setting at Navigation > Online Routing must be turned on. Requires Premium Connectivity.

Spotify Queue and Playback Speed

You can now sync your Spotify queue across vehicles and devices, and adjust playback speed.

Better Route Available

Navigation now shows you, at the top of your turn list, if a faster route becomes available. It will reroute unless you decline before the option expires.

To choose how often you see these suggestions, adjust the number of minutes saved.

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In your vehicle settings, go to Navigation > Online Routing > Reroute to save. To use this feature, you must have Online Routing turned on.

Wiper Controls

Scroll Wheel — When you press the wipers button to view wiper controls, you can now adjust wiper speed by moving the left scroll wheel up or down.

Wipers Button — When you have the wipers set to I, II, III, or IIII, you can press the wipers button to cycle through speeds.

Other Updates

  • When you’re parked, you can expand the browser to full screen.
  • Access Car Wash Mode more quickly in vehicle settings > Controls.
  • Rear passengers can now see the current trip details, time, and temperature at the top of the rear touchscreen, except when Entertainment apps are using the full screen.
  • You can now swipe to delete Sentry Mode recordings in the Dashcam app on your vehicle touchscreen, or at Security > Sentry Mode Alarm Previews in the Tesla app 4.32.0+.
  • When you have Valet Mode on, and your vehicle is unlocked or shifted out of Park, you’ll receive a notification on your phone.
  • The Vampire Survivors game in Arcade now has the “Space 54” and “Deeploreble” updates.
  • Arcade includes the latest game update for Polytopia “Path of the Ocean.”
  • If you have no passengers in the back seat, the rear touchscreen now turns off when you shift out of Park, to reduce unnecessary energy use.

Speed Camera Chime

To hear a chime when you’re approaching a speed camera, turn on Navigation > Speed Camera Chime in your vehicle settings.

You must have Online Routing turned on. Requires Premium Connectivity.

Average Speed Zones

When driving through an average speed zone, you now see your average speed in the zone and the distance to the end of it.

You must have Navigation > Online Routing turned on. Requires Premium Connectivity.

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Adaptive High Beams

High beams now adapt to reduce glare for other drivers and cyclists.

By detecting other road users, and selectively dimming individual pixels of the headlight, your high beams stay on more often for greater visibility at night.

To turn them on, in your vehicle settings go to Lights > Adaptive High Beams.

Beach Buggy Racing 2

Drive your own kart racer in an action-packed race to the finish. Careen through Egyptian pyramids, dragon-infested castles, pirate shipwrecks, and experimental alien bio-labs. Blast your opponents with an arsenal of fun and wacky Powerups.

When you play games, Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system lets you turn the steering wheel without moving the tires.

To play, go to your vehicle settings > Entertainment > Arcade > Beach Buggy Racing 2.

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Cabin Overheat Protection

For hot days or parking in direct sun, Cabin Overheat Protection helps maintain the temperature you set for up to 12 hours after you park. It will turn off at 20% battery to conserve range.

In your vehicle settings, go to Safety > Cabin Overheat Protection. Never leave children or pets unattended.

Customize Scroll Wheel Functions

Do more with the left scroll button on the steering wheel. You can perform actions like raise or lower ride height, open the glovebox, or save Dashcam footage, and adjust settings like brightness and drive mode.

Press and hold the left scroll button to open the menu and choose a function. Next time, the button will perform the most recent function you chose.

To choose a function any time you use this feature, go to vehicle settings > Display > Scroll Wheel Function, and choose Ask Each Time.

Cybertruck Colorizer

Customize how your Cybertruck appears on the touchscreen and Tesla app.

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In your vehicle settings, go to ToyBox > Colorizer.

Improved Turning Circle

Your Cybertruck’s turning circle is improved by 1.6 feet, making parking and low-speed maneuvers easier. This is achieved by an increase in the turning angle of the front and rear wheels.

Front Passenger Air Vent

You can now open or close the front passenger air vent separately, with the rest of your vehicle Climate still on.

Tap the temperature to open Climate controls, touch the front passenger air wave on the touchscreen, and follow the instructions.

New Lock Sounds

You’ll hear new signature sounds from your Cybertruck when you lock and unlock.

You can enable or disable the sounds in your vehicle settings at Locks > Lock Confirmation Sound.

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Zoom

Attend video calls with Zoom using the interior cabin camera.

Open the app directly, or join meetings from your Calendar. Shift to Park to use participant video and screen sharing. If you drive, then meetings switch to audio only.

Driver has sole responsibility to consult and comply with all local regulations while using Zoom. Requires Premium Connectivity.

Security Improvements

This update includes important security fixes and improvements.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big

SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.

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SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.

The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.

The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.

SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.

Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.

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Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.

The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.

Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.

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Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.

Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.

The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.

The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.

Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.

Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.

For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.

While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.

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