He Said: Three (random) things to know if you're a Model 3 owner
When our youngest son was a teenager, a frequent reply to almost any question about his activities was, “You don’t need to know everything.” It was irksome at the time but, in a more general sense I think we would all agree to the need to be selective about the information we commit to long term memory. Still, there are things that stick in your mind because they’re interesting or useful. Here are three things stuck in my mind that you might also find helpful, as well.
LED lights and HomeLink
Since we bought our house four years ago, I’ve been very diligent about replacing the incandescent lights with LEDs to save energy. I hadn’t gotten around to doing this with the lights on my garage door openers yet, which is why I did not know (until recently) that this can lead to problems with the communications between the garage remotes and the receiver that controls the door opener. It can also lead to problems with the communications between the HomeLink transmitter in the Tesla Model 3 and the garage door opener.
The problem occurs because LED lights contain circuitry that (may) emit RF (Radio Frequency) interference across a spectrum that overlaps the frequency used by the door opener. If you encounter this, there are at least two ways to resolve the problem. You could just replace the LED light with an incandescent bulb (I mean it’s a very low-use light, right?) or you could shop for a better LED light that is engineered not to cause this interference. How do you identify a LED bulb that is safe? As stated in this article on 1000bulbs.com, you should look for verbiage on the packaging that indicates that bulb is compliant with FCC Title 47, Part 18 which states that “devices or equipment are shielded enough that they won’t interfere with radio communication devices.”
Sunlight can block your AutoPilot cameras
If you’ve ever seen the message on your touchscreen that says something like, “Left door pillar camera blocked or blinded” and you know it’s not snow or mud, etc. because you just washed the car and it’s a nice sunny day, you may be tempted to set up a service appointment, thinking there’s a problem with that camera. Before you do that, take note of the position of the sun with respect to that camera. There’s a good chance the sun is shining at a low angle and blinding the camera in much the same way it would blind you if you looked out at the same angle.
How to get vehicle data (even EDR data) from Tesla
Teslas collect a lot of driving data that is sent back to the mother ship and used to improve owner experience and autopilot function – particularly if you have opted in to Data Sharing (as most owners do). It is possible to request a copy of this data from Tesla and even to extract data yourself from the Event Data Recorder (EDR) in the vehicle.
To learn how to request vehicle data from Tesla, check out this page on their website. The process is pretty simple and only involves selecting a few options from drop-down menus on the www.tesla.com/support/contact page. It’s possible, however that Tesla may not have any data for your vehicle and there are a variety of reasons for this. A lot of the data transmitted to Tesla by your vehicle is anonymized to protect your privacy. Other data is aggregated but not stored in detail by Tesla. So your results may vary.
If your vehicle is involved in an accident or you have some other reason for wanting to get at the data stored in the vehicle’s Electronic Data Recorder (EDR), this is also possible. But you have to really want it. In other words, you have to be willing to spend about $1200 on the cables to extract the data, then follow instructions to remove some trim panels, etc. to access the BUS connector. Then you will need a Windows computer on which to install some free Tesla software used to download the data from said BUS connector. And, finally you must upload the data to Tesla and allow them to generate a report in PDF format for you.
All of this is described at edr.tesla.com. It’s expensive, it’s a hassle but, if you know you are in the right in an accident it may well be worth it to uphold your claim in court.
For more information about the Tesla Model 3 check out our Tesla Model 3 User’s Guide:
Click on the image to find out more about this book.
