Author: Aarian Marshall / Source: WIRED
Just a week ago, Consumer Reports released its initial review of Tesla Model 3, the car that CEO Elon Musk bills as an electric “for the masses.
” Despite the “exhilarating acceleration” and impressive handling, the well-respected, review-focused magazine reported “flaws—big flaws—such as long stopping distances in our emergency braking test and difficult-to-use controls.”As a result, the magazine’s testers said they could not recommend the Model 3—a serious blow to a luxury carmaker that prides itself on its safety record.
Nine days later, Consumer Reports has updated its review to give the Model 3 its recommendation. What changed? Over the weekend, Tesla pushed out an over-the-air software update, one that the carmaker says tweaked the calibration of the vehicle’s antilock braking algorithm. That cut the vehicle’s 60 mph stopping distance a whole 19 feet, to 133, about average for a luxury compact sedan.
Six years after Tesla pushed its first over-the-air update, the quick turnaround shows that the automotive software pioneer is still dedicated to constant iteration and near-lightning-quick improvements. The carmaker has relied on the patches, which are pushed via 3G or Wi-Fi networks to vehicles when they’re in park, to make more than 40 changes to its vehicles’ software. (In fact, it doesn’t even assign its vehicles model years, a nod to the ever-changing nature of its tech.
)“I’ve been at CR for 19 years and tested more than 1,000 cars, and I’ve never seen a car that could improve its track performance with an over-the-air update,” Jake Fisher, the director of auto testing at the publication, said in a statement.
Car techies also say this is a notable automotive accomplishment. “It is impressive,” says Oren Betzaleli, vice president of the automotive electronics company Harman, which produces software that supports…
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