Tesla’s leading position in the electric vehicle industry is not only due to its sleek design and battery technology in each car, but also comes from another factor: the ability to wirelessly update software like on a smartphone. This feature has been present in Tesla cars since 2012.
Recently, a Reddit user accidentally captured the scene of numerous Tesla cars in a parking lot updating their software, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that it looks like aliens are landing on Earth.
While most car manufacturers have little to no capability to issue software updates for their vehicles, except when the owner brings the car in for service at the dealership, Tesla can do this as simply as an OTA update for a smartphone. Thus, Tesla can provide new features or fix bugs for the vehicle.
New updates will appear on the car’s central control screen or even through the Tesla app, allowing updates to be pushed remotely to the vehicle.
Even when the cars have not yet been delivered to customers, Tesla can still push new updates directly to them via the internet. And that’s exactly the “like aliens landing” scene that the Reddit user captured when the entire Tesla parking lot was flashing lights while downloading and installing the update.
While the person who filmed this clip suggested that the updates were pushed to each car via an internet connection to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, in reality, Tesla does this through 4G LTE and Wifi networks.
Although Tesla is the industry leader in this capability, other manufacturers are starting to catch up. For example, Ford has been able to provide OTA software updates for the Mustang Mach-E. GM, Volkswagen, and many other automakers are also beginning to introduce plans to roll out OTA updates to their new electric vehicles.
However, there remains a hurdle that other manufacturers must overcome: they are still relying on franchised dealerships to provide service, and some dealers argue that the ability to perform OTA software updates could harm their business operations. This will make it more challenging to provide such updates compared to Tesla, which owns its service chain.
Source: Electrek