Hurricane Irma is about to make a landfall in Florida on early Sunday morning. The category 5 storm is expected to bring devastating winds and storm surges in the Florida state. Thankfully, Tesla has taken actions to help Florida's customers with their hurricane evacuation.
According to TechCrunch, the US-based automaker has extended the ranges of some vehicles of its Florida customers. The company has given a remote update to some range-limited Tesla vehicles, giving those Florida’s Tesla customers a range boost of between 30 and 40 additional miles.
The firmware update and the escape from Hurricane Irma
As mentioned earlier by Electrek, Tesla confirmed that Florida owners of Tesla Model S and Model X 60 and 60D vehicles will receive an over-the-air Firmware Update, a temporary access to the full range capacity of their Tesla battery. The newly announced firmware update will automatically increase the range of some Tesla vehicles from 210 miles per charge to 249 miles. The additional bump on power capacity will give an extra 30 to 40 miles of range. That extra power will allow some Tesla owners to move much further away from Irma’s 400-mile-wide path.
Many people have witnessed the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey, which hit and flooded the city of Houston in Texas.
These include stories of flooded Tesla vehicles in and around Houston. Storm surge along with torrential rain from the recent hurricane has reportedly flooded the area with up to 9 feet of water in some coastal areas. With Harvey’s devastation still fresh in memory, many Tesla owners living right in the path of Hurricane Irma have driven out of the affected area when the first mass evacuation was announced.
Tesla said that most of the Florida’s Supercharger network is still active and working, so Tesla drivers will still be able to make some quick charge and make it out to the designated evacuation zone.
Other Tesla-related news
In other news, GoodYear is teaming up with Tesla ride service Tesloop on tire data technology. The two will be working on an intelligent tire that will gather important data for Tesloop’s fleet of semi-autonomous vehicles.
According to Teslarati, the data collected from the intelligent tire, which includes tire pressure and temperature, will be added to GoodYear’s cloud-based algorithms to help with the tire replacement and repair schedule. The goal is to improve overall tire maintenance.
