Tesla resumes holiday update rollout, here’s why they paused it

Tesla has resumed deploying its annual holiday update after having to pause the rollout due to several bugs. The rollout was paused after the release of 2023.44.30.4, but has now resumed with the release of 2023.44.30.5.1 last night, which should contain fixes to address Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta disappearing, as well as a more serious problem related to the 12V battery.

Tesla started rolling out the 2023 edition of its holiday update (2023.44.30.1) late last week, a release that included several new features like High Fidelity Park Assist (but only for cars without ultrasonic sensors (USS) for now), Custom Lock Sounds, and more. Interestingly the company started rolling out new iterations of the release on a nearly daily basis, culminating with a 2023.44.30.4 release on December 18.

The rollout didn’t go smoothly, with Tesla subsequently pausing the updates and even pulling it from cars that hadn’t installed it yet due to several bugs, one of which was quite serious.

According to a source with knowledge of the issues, Tesla discovered that some cars were sending false notifications that the 12V lead acid battery was dead, causing the vehicle to become substantially disabled. Fortunately since the notifications were false positives, all that was required to fix the issue is a reboot, or power cycle of the vehicle by pressing the two scroll wheels on the steering wheel.

Tesla took a proactive approach to address the issue. They were able to identify the vehicles impacted, and remotely power cycle them to clear the issue. As a result many owners were probably completely unaware their vehicle had this problem, or were about to have this problem. According to our source, at least 10,000 vehicles were impacted.

Another less serious issue was also present in these releases, where FSD Beta disappeared from some vehicles. Again, this was also easily corrected through a power cycle, after which the feature would return.

With the release of 2023.44.30.5.1 last night, both of these issues, and other minor bugs, have all been addressed, and if you haven’t already received the update, it should hopefully come soon. If you have already received the holiday update, and have a car with a lead acid battery, you should also receive .5.1 or later in the next few days.

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