Yep. This is my WAG too. I will be extremely disappointed if Elon called a press conference to announce a nav update. Huge yawn ... such things will happen over time anyway, as will better energy prediction, tweaks to the drive train control software for increased efficiency, widening the usable energy in the battery a little, ..., all of which are software OTA but really don't merit a press conference. SEC rules for public companies are quite clear about making sure investors have a level playing field. That's why there are such scrutiny on insider trading -- trading on information which is not public. In my corporate experience, a press conference is for a major (financially material) announcement, like a material new partnership which will change the trajectory of the company. Coupled with an increase in charge rate, it only makes logical sense to me that he's going to announce a 3rd party partnership for rapidly increasing the number of charging sites to end range anxiety. It could be that the non-Telsa DC charging sites will be pay for energy in some way, and the Tesla ones remain "free" (actually, pre-paid). I guess we'll have to wait until Thursday, but the negative ramifications of a ho-hum press conference could be pretty devastating.
Had Elon Musk not tweeted that it would be by an over-the-air update, I could agree with you that he could be announcing that they'll be building 600* Superchargers in the USA. But he said OTA update. Which means that it's a software improvement that eliminates range anxiety.
Tesla is building the Supercharger network out, and that makes trips possible, but it doesn't deal with the range anxiety associated with variables that affect energy use, such as weather, traffic and the rolling resistance of your tires (affected by the tire itself and tire pressures).
So, in reference to my previous post, let's do a "What If?"
What if Tesla had a 100% accurate real-time algorithm for mapping your routes, calculating how much energy you'll use, and giving you the best strategy for minimizing your travel time or charging time? It would take variables such as weather, climate control use, traffic and Supercharger occupancy into account. You get in, input your destination, it would do the calculation and give you the results. As you drive it will tell you any adjustments to make based on differences between prediction and actual events. For this scenario, forgot current holes in the Supercharger network, which Tesla continues to fill.
If that were the case, as long as you follow its instructions you won't have to worry about running out of charge. Sure, your travel time might vary a bit, but that happens anyway. If it's raining heavily or snowing you have to slow down and since slowing down cuts energy consumption significantly in order to have a complete failure there would have to be insanely freakish conditions where the difficult weather wasn't expected, climate control and battery conditioning were (unexpectedly) using a lot of energy, then there's a sudden traffic jam from which you can't easily detour.
Accurate energy usage prediction is not a small thing. It's a mind-boggling HUGE thing. Range anxiety comes from uncertainty. It's why Tesla has been working on it, and
talking about it for a long time.
They've already had the previous firmware release where they introduced the energy prediction which I believe takes terrain into account. The next key step is real-time information about weather, because we know that temperature, wind and precipitation can all have a
large impact on range. Traffic is also important, but, since slowing down cuts energy use, weather is likely to be the bigger factor.
It's not going to be perfect, but it doesn't have to be. As long as they allow margin for error they just need it to be good enough that people can trust it. With their OTA updates so they can easily continue to improve it. The better the model, the lower the buffer and more likely you are to arrive at Superchargers with ideal SoC and the less time you'll spend at them. That's what Tesla wants, because the real Supercharger problem isn't providing enough locations, it's maximizing throughput and avoiding contention.
It's possible and I expect that they'll
also talk about other things like the plans for the Supercharger network, but there's only one possible
software element that can end range anxiety and that's accurate energy usage prediction. I can also see them wanting to have integration of destination charging, because they know it's important to lower contention at Superchargers, but overall I don't think it's anywhere near as crucial or press-conference worthy. (Most trips have fixed destinations, other BEVs already have charger locators and there's a PlugShare app).
* Robert calculated that fewer than 600 Superchargers would be needed to have 40-mile-radius coverage for all Interstates in the Lower 48.
