Tesla often releases software updates for its all electric vehicles that bring fixes, improvements and what not. Elon Musk, the guy who founded the company and runs it, revealed today that Tesla is soon going to release a new software update for its entire Model S fleet which is going to end “range anxiety.”
Range anxiety refers to the stress and tension that electric car owners feel when they fear that they might run out of charge before reaching their destination. Since these are not hybrid cars and there is no fuel fired engine to fall back on, range is a real concern with all electric vehicles, and Tesla’s Superchargers are not that common in the U.S. that one wouldn’t feel range anxiety.
Elon Musk sent out a tweet today informing the world about a Tesla press conference that has been scheduled at 9 am PT on Thursday. At the press conference he said that Tesla is going to “end range anxiety … via OTA software update.”
That’s right. Tesla is going to release a software update which will try to ensure that drivers don’t freak out about the range they have left when the charge level in their car starts to drop.
Obviously since it’s a software update it won’t be adding more capacity to the physical battery packs that are integral to Tesla vehicles. It’s possible though that the software engineers have come up with a way to squeeze more life out of those batteries.