I have installed a rear camera washer system onto my car. It is a challenge to keep the rear camera lens clean especially in winter climates where the rear camera constantly gets dirty because of road spray. Originally I bought the Abstract Ocean Superhydrophobic camera cover. It worked fine in the summer months but then the seal leaked and water got in during the winter months. I ended up removing it. So I embarked on piecing together some kind of kit. Here were some of the criteria I was working with:
- Separate switch to activate rear washer independent of the front windshield washer
- Minimize amount of wiring needed to be run for both electric and the hose (ideally put a reservoir in the trunk area)
- Ensure the washer doesn’t block the view of the camera
- Make it look as factory as possible

After googling around on various car forums, I came to the realization that a washer system is not very complicated. You need a reservoir, pump, nozzle and a switch. All of these parts can be had for fairly cheap depending on how you want to mount everything. The challenge is finding something that can be installed without looking too ghetto. The rear trunk area doesn’t have very much space to mount a nozzle. I ended up finding this camera housing on eBay that has a nozzle integrated. It wasn’t cheap but really liked how it looked OEM.


I then looked into finding a reservoir and ending up ordering one of AliExpress. Then came the switch. I found a wireless control switch also off AliExpress so I don’t have a run a wire from the cabin to the pump. Only have to put the button somewhere easy to reach.

Installation wasn’t too bad. Removal of camera wasn’t hard with their video instructions. Running the tube is the trickiest part having to remove paneling and fishing the tubing through to get it to the rear hatch (I also installed some eagle eye tail lights and the wiring is a pain to run to the hatch). I put the reservoir in the rear left cubby hole in the trunk and left some extra length of tubing so I can pull out the reservoir for easy access to fill. I have liners for the cubby hole so just drilled a hole to run the tube through it. For electrical I decided that I didn’t want to splice into factory wiring so just hooked up the wireless controller to a 12v plug. Then I bought a 12v socket splitter so I can still use the rear 12v plug which I often use for a cooler. So you can see the wiring for this part but I’m not too fussed about it. Overall I am very happy with this set up. Too bad Tesla doesn’t include something like this as a feature.

Video

I had the worst time getting 'walk away lock' to work. In my previous two Model S it worked fine but I was using the key fob. With my Y and using just the phone it just wouldn't work. The car kept warning me the doors are not locked when I parked the car. I doubled check driver profiles and settings. Just would not work.

I finally figured it out. I have two phones and the Tesla app installed on both. One stays in the car, one comes with me. I have disabled [phone key] in the app's settings. This way it is not supposed to act as a key for the car. It works as far as not unlocking the car when you walk up with the phone. If it's turned off it will not unlock the car. But for some reason it still prevents auto lock to work. It technically should not, but that's what I just found out was the issue.

Until Tesla fixes this, the only way is to either disable Bluetooth or remove the phone as a key completely from the car.

Awesome presentation. Lots of new information. Login to view embedded media

NotATeslaApp says that 12.4 will rely on the cabin camera for attention monitoring instead of the steering wheel IF several conditions are met:

• the camera is not occluded
• there is sufficient lighting
• the driver is looking forward
• the driver is not wearing sunglasses
• the driver is not wearing a low-brim hat or another object that covers their eyes

Night driving in remote areas (no oncoming headlights or street lights to illuminate you) will mean the cabin camera can't see your face, so I was wondering if a plug-and-play USB-powered infrared LED somewhere in the cabin could fix that without any actual changes to the car. I had an old security camera with a few IR LEDs so I plugged it in and tested in the garage with no lights... unfortunately, while the cabin camera can see the IR a bit, it's still filtered in some way, because it's not picking up much of it. I had to hold the camera right next to my face for it to pick it up at all, yet the cheap security camera itself sees the cabin as if it's entirely lit up.

I'm under the impression the IR filters are over the lenses of the cameras, so potentially one could retrofit a lens without the IR filter (obviously voiding or outside of warranty), but would be nice 1st party retrofit from Tesla.

In July we will be making our annual road trip to Southern Spain from our home in Cheshire. Normally just my self and my son go in the car and the wife flies out to join us.
In the past I have always done all the driving but I would really like my son to share some of the driving with me. He is age 22 now, has his own car and insurance (electric Corsa) for around 4 years now. He hasn't made any claims.

I'm not optimistic it is even going to be possible, or if it is the price may be so prohibitive to not be worth the bother. Before I start looking does anyone have any pointers or advice to offer?

We are going in our Model 3 Performance (Ins Group 50).
I would be prepared to agree with the insurer that he would only be insured provided I am present in the vehicle if it helped ease the cost, but I'm thinking even trying to start a conversation like that with any insurer is likely to meet with immediate dead ends given the computer says no generation we live in today.

Thoughts comments observations would be much appreciated.

Hi. Does anyone know of an independant Tesla service centre in Surrey UK. Car done 25k 24mo and I'd like someone to have a look. Thanks

car parked in locked compound , found hood covered in deep scratches which looked like from claw marks, there are at least 20 -30 deep scratches with various length, a majority through the clear coat. completely devastated, still have no idea what happened, theory is might be a fox or seagull. does anyone knows cost to repaint M3 hood in the UK or is this something smart repair can fix? tried buffing with DA polisher with no luck.

I had my black on black M3 since June 2019 (105,000 miles), and traded it in for my MY in February. Here's a quick report in case anyone cares...

1) I absolutely love it, and I was worried I would miss the M3. While I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the old M3, the MY is just better in nearly every way.
2) Bigger is better. And the MY is bigger. So much easier to bring stuff places. But most importantly, my wife and kids don't hate sitting in the back seat. They all love the move to the MY.
3) White interior is awesome. Period. If you're thinking about it, get it! It's cooler in the summer. It looks fantastic. My wife loves it. And it has been easy to keep clean.
4) Midnight Silver Metallic is beautiful. I thought I'd miss black. But this thing can be dirty as all get-out and it still looks great. The black only looks good when it's just been cleaned.
5) The MY drives great. I thought I'd really miss the sportiness of the M3. Nope. Took me a few days to get used to it. I find it 90% (maybe 95%?) as fun to drive as the M3.
6) The Ryzen hardware is soooo much better than my old Atom. It makes a very noticeable difference.
7) Lack of USS is missed, but it's not even close to the dealbreaker I thought it would be. That said, I'm still really disappointed that Elon removed them. Classic Elon move there.
8) If you're on the fence about upgrading from a M3 to a MY like I was, it's worth doing, especially if your M3 is older like mine was.


"Tesla Model Y IMG 9499" by Alexander-93 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

How much power (watts) do the headlights draw on low beam?

I'm curious how fast they'd drain the battery if the lights were left "on" in the manual setting, and didn't find anything in the Energy app.

Ideally, info for both matrix or pre-matrix headlights.

Just curious if anyone else has experience this. Around 2 weeks ago I received a software update (v12 2024.14.6) so my turn signal would go on and off based purely off the center lines, which was kind of nice. I’ve never had a car or seen a car that was able to do that. And all of a sudden today’s gone away back to 3 blinks for just tapping it once.. before it would stay on until you were fully in the other lane. Just curious how to get that back or what’s going on with it now?
Thanks guys

Hey all. I purchased a used 2017 Model X a few months ago. The car had enhanced autopilot and the AP2 computer. It's low milage and has MCU1 without any of the EMMC issues. We don't use Netflix and I have little desire to pay $2500 for the upgrade. It's just not for me. I had no intention of upgrading to full self driving but then Tesla dropped the upgrade price to $2000 if you already had enhanced auto pilot.

When pulling up the upgrades screen in my app it showed full self driving for $2000 with the caveat that the vehicle would need to go into service for the AP3 computer. I had done this with my Model 3 years prior so I understood the process and assumed that now that full self driving is in wide release, this was the only thing standing between me and having FSD on the car. I was wrong.

I got the car back from service and noticed it didn't have the full self driving firmware on it. Not the end of the world. I figured it would pull the update within a few days. The other peculiar thing I noticed is that I had the "request beta access" button for full self driving. And when I clicked that button it said I was added to the queue. My understanding is the queue is no longer a thing and that if you have the hardware and pay for the software, you're in. After all, millions of people apparently received free trials of the software. They didn't have to join a queue.

So I did a little digging and discover that full self driving on MCU1 cars does not exist. Or I should say, the firmware does not exist. And knowing Tesla's history of edge case firmware support for legacy vehicles, it seems likely this will never happen. There was a firmware version that was released and subsequently the rollout was stopped. So everyone with MCU1 and FSD hardware is just twiddling their thumbs. I would have never purchased this had I known. I haven't owned an MCU1 car since my old P85D 8 years ago. So this was all news to me.

Meanwhile, Tesla is stating (according to the tech that called me) that the Tegra chip in MCU1 is unable to keep up with the visuals and that the vehicle would need to be upgraded to MCU2 for $2500 for me to receive full self driving. Which seems to confirm that this will never come to this vehicle.

From my perspective, the app showed a price and mentioned that I needed the computer upgrade which was included. It did not mention any other necessary upgrades that I would have to pay for out of pocket. I think from Tesla's perspective it's "we intend to eventually offer firmware on these edge case vehicles" but at no point in the process did the tech call and give me a heads up that the car would need further upgrades that I'd have to pay for. Nor did the service center. Each agent I've spoken to at the 800 number seems surprised to hear that they installed the computer in my car without advising me of this.

I want either a refund (they can leave the computer or take it back) or for them to upgrade the car to MCU 2 on their dime. Am I being unreasonable here?

They have kicked the can down the road for a full week now. I've spoken to 4 different agents, each of which says they're escalating it to the service center and to wait for a call back. The call back never comes. My next course of action is arbitration - a hassle I don't feel I should need to endure for their mistake - or a chargeback.

Before solar, I'd typically use about 1,800kWh from my utility per month. Now, almost two years with solar, the total grid power I have imported is 1,332.

While I'd love to see more negative bills, having an electricity bill of $0.50 is, well, not priceless, but almost.

I think my utility, like so many others, are finding ways to reduce the amount saved. For instance, our electric rates (before taxes and fees) was around $0.08/kWh. They recently increased the flat bill rate from $5.50 to $15.00 and reduced the energy charge by a little over a penny/kWh.

For now though, with summer in full swing (Florida), I'm very happy with fifty cent electric bills.

I'm thinking about buying a used model S from a non-Tesla dealership. The dealership is about 10 hours away, and I would like to drive the car straight back home. I would be doing this on a Saturday. How am I going to be able to supercharge the car on the way back? Thank you

6 jaar een model X, in het begin vele ongemakken, terug te herleiden naar de service van Tesla, maar de laatste jaren naar volle tevredenheid.

Helaas is het tijd voor een nieuwe auto. Ik werd verliefd op de range rover sport (hybride) maar de kosten voor het onderhoud beangstigen me.

Dus toch weer terug naar Tesla (een andere BEV lijkt op dit moment nog steeds een stapje terug). We hadden een afspraak gemaakt voor een proefrit in de nieuwe X en de Y. Helaas ons rijbewijs vergeten (dom, I know). Ze namen met onze paspoorten geen genoegen (in andere garages wel), en dus geen proefrit.

Natuurlijk is de Y financieel gezien de slimmere keus. Ik zou het echter moeilijk vinden om afscheid te nemen van de 7 zits en de flapperdeuren. Maar is dat zoveel waard?

Wat vinden jullie? Wat zijn de grote verschillen tussen de X en de Y. De ruimte in de Y viel me op het oog mee. Er staan van beide modellen auto’s op voorraad die naar wens zijn, ik zou vandaag kunnen bestellen. Maar what to do? Een proefrit zie ik niet meer zitten.

Hello all--

My wife's 2020 White Model Y was totaled while parked and unoccupied last week and she's ordered a black-on-black replacement. I'm looking at ceramic window tinting to reduce heat transfer and a ceramic coating on the car to help keep it clean. Want to know anyone's experience w/ these mods, if its worth the money and extra points if you have a shop recommendation in Denver.

Thanks in advance!

Login to view embedded media
I live in Phoenix, AZ. One of the benefits of having an electric car is the privilege of getting to drive in HOV lanes. However, Tesla FSD is having trouble merging into and out off HOV lanes. The turn signal comes on (either by itself or manually), but the car refuses to make the lane switch. I am guessing its because the HOV lanes is a solid white line.

Does anyone else have the same issue?

I have the the latest Tesla FSD v 12.3.6

You may be aware that the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) is currently consulting on updating the National Construction Code (NCC). It does this every 3 years. Consultation is open for another 6 weeks and closes on 1 July.

The NCC covers all aspects of building but two areas of interest to EV owners are the proposed codes for public carparks and for making provision for charging EVs in homes and public buildings:

• PCD 2025 - Carpark fire safety improvements
• PCD 2025 - Assisting future electrification and EV charging in homes

Controversially, NSW Fire+Rescue recently updated their position statement regarding EVs to state that:

FRNSW does not recommend EV parking and/or charging within any building not protected by an AS 2118 fire sprinkler system, including a building protected by an FPAA101D or FPAA101H fire sprinkler system which have lesser performance.

Click to expand...

Note this statement says "any building" which would include private residences, and makes no distinction between BEVs, PHEVs and hybrids. FRNSW Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell retreated from that at a NSW Road Safety Inquiry in to Electric And Hybrid Vehicle Batteries on 30 April, saying the intent was not to require this in home garages, only smoke detectors, but the position statement has not been amended to state that. While FRNSW has no jurisdiction in this area, and what they say does not in any way represent a "rule" that anyone needs to follow, they are likely to make a submission to the NCC consultation recommending controls along these lines be mandated as part of the code.

I plan to make a submission after reading the relevant the material - of which there is a lot. FRNSW seems to have relied a lot on two papers released by the AFAC (Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council) which frankly I think are low on science and data, and heavy on inference and hand-waving.

A much better paper is this one by consulting engineers Arup on fire safety in car parks. I would actually encourage everyone to read it - it's one of the best documents I have ever read on EV fires due to the depth of research, data presented, and level-headed conclusions. The key parts are Sections 5 to 7.


There is a massive amount of interesting data in here that can be used to tackle head-on a lot of the FUD people post in various social media forums. Things like:

• Data from Norway shows that EV fires are much less common than fossil fuel vehicle fires (p.40), e.g. in 2022 there were 22 fires involving EVs (and this includes plug-in hybrids) while there were 20 fires involving hybrids and 703 involving petrol/diesel vehicles. Note this includes vehicles involved in collisions. In 2022, EVs/PHEVs represented 27.5% of all passenger vehicles on Norwegian roads, but were only involved in 2.9% of all fires. Implying that fossil fuelled vehicles are nearly 10 times more likely to be involved in a fire. This study did not indentify how many of the 22 EVs fires were actually started by the battery.
• Case studies of major fires in car parks internationally - of which only 4 were caused by EVs, collectively damaging a total of 9 vehicles. The largest and most damaging fires resulted from the ignition of fossil fuelled vehicles. The most recent one (which is actually not listed) was the Luton Airport car park fire in October last year which destroyed 1400 cars and was started by a diesel vehicle. Another fire at the Liverpool Echo Arena carpark in 2017 also destroyed 1400 cars.
• Did you know that on average in Australia there are 352 fires in carparks per year? An average of almost one a day! Do these make the news?!?!
• The paper cites a number of studies and experiments burning fossil fuelled vehicles and EVs, measuing the "Heat Release Rate" and showing that EV fires, in general, do not burn hotter than ICE vehicle fires (see pages 49 to 52).
• Toxic gas release is not worse from EVs fires compared to ICE (p.52) - "similar quantities of CO2, CO, NO and NO2 were released from BEVs and ICEVs" and that "BEVs are not unique in producing toxic gases – all fires produce toxic gases".
• Water runoff from Li-Ion fires is not more polluted either and a lot of the pollutants are similar to fossil fuel fires (p.55) - with the major difference being lead released in higher concentrations in fossil fuel fires.

So if anyone has the time and inclination to read all this stuff and make their own submission, I would encourage you to do so.

Does anyone know how to input the IO charge pricing in Tesla app as the off peak time change everyday? I am wondering whether this will make it harder to calculate the charging expenses, as at the moment most of the time the IO smart charging schedule falls outside the off peak time I have given (1130-530) in the charge stats app.

Hello, I am looking at getting my first Tesla. Going with either a 2017 or 2018 model S 75D or 90D. I am not sure if this is the right area for this thread, but I do have a question about the EV tax credit when making a purchase for a used EV. I am located in Florida and I am aware of the credit guidelines for income and the car having to be $25K or under in price. But does anybody know or have any experience on getting the $4000 tax credit upfront at time of purchase? I've seen a few discussions about this but it seems like there is nothing for sure documented if it's possible, so anybody here have any experience using that $4000 upfront for like a down payment when you purchase a used Tesla? If so, how did you make it happen with the dealership, what was all involved?

What do you think?

I'm a bull on version 12, but i have several complaints that i wish Tesla would work on:
1. When i do a Disengage, I'm asked to report it by selecting the lefthand "Audio" button and make my report. BUT, darn it, the music/podcast that's over there is STILL ON and makes my input difficult to impossible. STOP the non-germane audio while making a report!!

2. It has twice taken me into a clearly marked left turn lane, AT SPEED, instead of continuing in the proper lane. ... Very SCARY

3. it often does not get into the proper lane to prepare for a turn, then at the last second tries to bull its way into the correct lane. It should make the proper preparations earlier.

4. It misses my "Home" driveway which is not well delineated but Version 11 had no difficulty with. The map shows the road/driveway very clearly ... just follow the road.

5. On non-highway two lane roads, it has some "Auto" speed selection and does not allow me to reduce the speed with the right thumbwheel. It many times is way over the speed i'm comfortable with and i have to disengage to slow down. Give me back my opportunity to reduce the speed with the right thumbwheel.

6. Its hesitancy at Stop signs with it's creeping forward to get a better view is way too long. I do like that a simple, manual "nudge" of the accelerator is enough to get it moving.

Donald Beck 2024 Model Y
[email protected]

I have a new 2024 M3P arriving soon and want to tint all the windows (my now M3P has Xpel XR Plus all around)

BUT I want to make sure I have the best this time around. So, I have been going crazy reading, studying, trying to decide which manufacture (3M, Xpel, Llumar) really produces the best film.

What I have decided is: One can't go wrong with any of the three as long as their top ceramic product or maybe even the second tiered ceramic product is chosen along with good installers.

Am I crazy in thinking this way OR is there really a BEST film manufacturer and I'm not noticing it??

One of the major problems I have had with FSD 12.3.6 is that is does not understand posted signage. Cases in point:
1. Traveling on "State Highway 35" in Wisconsin where the speed limit varies from 55MPH on open stretches to 40MPH around curves to 30MPH thru towns and as low as 20MPH in School Zones "When Children Are Present". So here we are on an open stretch traveling 55MPH when we pass a sign indicating that we are on State Hwy 35 - it's a black&white sign that does not resemble a speed limit sign but the car thinks it is the new speed limit and FSD all of a sudden decides to slow to 35 MPH at which point I either disengage or hit the accelerator to maintain 55MPH lest I get rear-ended. After several repeated instances of this behavior over a few miles, i decided to let it slow down and see if it figures out what the actual speed limit is. It seems that FSD notices the error and after about 5 seconds will, on its own, resume the posted speed. Thus, FSD and/or the car needs to understand exactly what kind of sign it is reading.
2. School Zones: FSD does not understand that it needs to own down in a school zone. This is a bit more complex task than just changing the speed of the car. My experience thru four different school zones is that FSD seems to ignore School Zone speed limits entirely and I had to disengage.
3. Speed Limit signs when going around sharp curves like Exit Ramps. For example, traveling 60MPH approaching a sharp curve that has signs posted to take the curve at 30MPH. FSD did not slow down and I had to disengage and took said curve at 42MPH. This has happened on multiple occasions so I rarely let FSD drive on roads with sharp curves (besides, I sound like my dad: "You're going too fast! Slow down!" And I'm 66 years old now)
4. Construction Zones: FSD sort of seems to know what a construction zone is but does not always seem to read or understand the "Construction Zone Speed Limit" signs -or- to resume the normal speed limit when it sees the "End Construction" sign.
5. Lane Indicator signs and perhaps road surface lane markings. Quite often the Navigation system seems to know which lane should be used in situations where there is, say, four lanes: a right turn only, a forward only, a forward-or-left, and a left turn only lane. FSD has often chosen the right-turn-only lane to go forward because there were cars in each of the lanes covering the lane markings. But there was a lane-indicator sign that FSD ignored. Again, FSD really needs to be able to read and understand all the various sorts of signs and put them into the immediate driving context.
6. Motoring down a freeway at 60MPH. Take an exit that, at the top of the ramp, has a single lane that simply continues onto the side street (there is no stop or yield sign and no merging with traffic on that road). There is a speed limit sign that reads "City-wide Speed Limit 25 unless otherwise posted". Then a few feet later there is a posted speed limit of 30MPH and FSD slows to 30MPH. A few feet after that, I have no idea why, FSD decides the speed limit is now 55MPH! Nope! I do not know what triggers this but it is repeatable. FSD should be more aware of what sort.of street it is on and take that context into consideration when it gets conflicting information.
7. This point isn't a posted sign issue but rather, the lack of a posted sign. Scenario: traveling on a road with a speed limit of 25MPH. Approaching an intersection where the only choice is to turn right onto the highway. Come to a stop sign, stop, turn right onto a highway that has a speed limit of 55MPH but that speed limit isn't posted when turning onto the highway so FSD creeps along at 25MPH on a 55MPH highway. FSD and/or the car Navigation system should know the speed limit for that highway.

I found this and saw some positive reviews on YouTube. Has anyone on here had any experience with them to get Apple CarPlay?