Tesla releases software update to help unfreeze charge port

Many new Tesla owners are currently experiencing their first winter with their new vehicles and it is coming with some issues.

Tesla has been trying to address them with a few software updates – the latest one is being released this week and it is attempting to help unfreeze the charge port.

Last month, we reported on the Model 3 having some issues in cold weather and Tesla said they were investigating the situation.

Several owners in cold weather regions where experiencing difficulties entering their vehicles because the door handles wouldn’t open, the windows would jam, and even the charge port would freeze shut.

A week later, Tesla released a software update to help with some of those issues.

Now the automaker is adding to those “cold weather improvements” in a new update (2018.50) that it is starting to push this week.

Tesla wrote in the release notes:

“When you set mobile preconditioning to HI, the climate system will better thaw your charge port in freezing conditions”

Some owners were complaining that the charge port’s latch would freeze shut in cold weather and it would become impossible to remove a charging cable from it.

In the previous “cold weather improvements” update, Tesla changed the behavior of the charge port in order for the latch to remain unlatched to allow a charge cable to be inserted, even in the event that the latch is frozen.

It wasn’t clear at what temperature that was triggered and of course, it also comes with a caveat since it also means that someone could easily remove the charge cable.

Now it sounds like Tesla is addressing the problem differently with the “climate system” when preheating the vehicle with your mobile app.

Electrek’s Take

It’s unclear to me how the climate system can help thaw the charge port since it is located on the outside of the vehicle and at the level of the trunk, which would be hard to heat with the climate system.

But Tesla appears to have found a way to optimize the system to help unfreeze the charge port.

If you got the update and have an idea of how Tesla is doing it, please let us know in the comment section below.