Oct 2020 Update - Speed Limit as Percentage, Spotify, Music Sources and more..

 Got the  October update on Halloween and it was backed with lots of goodies:

• Autopilot speed limit offset can be set as a % rather of current speed rather than an absolute
• Spotify improvements - it now takes over from my other devices seamlessly and I can use my phone to control what is playing in my Tesla...sweetness!
• Improved media search by putting results into categories
• Selecting which media sources are displayed
• New Voice Recognition Languages

Here are the release notes and some of the detail screens:

October 2020 Updates

How low can you go? Beating range anxiety.

Wanted to give the battery a full cycle so on the way back home from a trip, I skipped a super charger stop since I could get home with ~5% battery. As I got closer to home I started using up more battery to get home as low as possible and managed to get down to 2%. 

I have heard some horror stories of the Model 3 needing a jump from an external 12V system to get it going, so I wanted to avoid hitting 0%, though I am not sure if it would drain the 12V battery. I guess 2% was my personal tolerance on my range anxiety. Surprisingly, I still had ~5 miles left per the computer based on the last 5 miles of my crazy driving....not bad.

Battery down to 2%

What I learned was that 15% state of charge is a lot, the usage of battery slows down considerably below that. Of course this is not good for the battery's longevity, so I don't think I will be taking it below 10% ever again, and I rarely take it over 90%. Sometimes to 95% during long trips.

Update October 2020 - Glovebox PIN, Speed Assist and BT Priority

 The October 2020 update dropped for my Model 3 and it has 3 nice little goodies.

Oct 2020 update features

I really appreciate the Speed Assist Improvements because I use Autopilot a lot and even though the highway speed detection has gotten better with the last update, the more local (those county and city roads with 65, 55 and 35 mph limits switching around) it was still dicey. This caused me concerns when going through small towns where the income is based on traffic tickets, basically made me double check Autopilot's speed management whereas I want to be a lazier driver 😎.

Looking a little deeper at the other improvements...

Premium Connectivity - A must for audiophiles and limited data plans

Hard to believe it's been a year with my Model 3. Fortunately, the free premium connectivity expiring was a good reminder 😏. Two days after premium connectivity expired, the satellite maps and the live traffic icons were gone from the map and clicking on the Tesla T icon to bring up car information indeed indicated "Standard Connectivity".

Essentially the system rebooted at some point and disabled the features only available with premium connectivity. I signed into my account online (not via the mobile app) and was able to signup and restore the premium connectivity. The Tesla system then rebooted 2-3 times, which was bizarre, and premium connectivity was restored.

Premium connectivity restored

The comparison of the two options as per Tesla are below...