Tesla releases Track Mode V2 — like a racing video game in your car

Tesla released the new version of Track Mode and it’s like having a racing video game version of your actual track performance in your electric car.

As we reported earlier today, Tesla started pushing its new 2020.8 software update, which includes Track Mode V2 — a new version of the performance mode along announced earlier this week along with Tesla’s new “Model 3 Track Package” with new wheels, brakes, and more.

Now we’ve got the full release notes and all the details of the updated feature as Tesla starts to more broadly release the update.

Here are the full notes about the new Telsa Track Mode for Model 3:

Track Mode has been improved to make it easier to monitor the status of your car, create custom track mode settings profiles and record your track day data.

Monitor the status of your car motors, battery, brakes and tires, allowing you to adjust your driving in real time. G-meter, a real-time accelerometer, can now be viewed in the Cards area of the touchscreen. The map now displays a Lap Timer. Follow the onscreen instructions to place a start/finish pin on the map. At the completion of each lap, the Lap Timer displays the duration of the lap. It also displays the times associated with the previous and best laps in the driving session.

Track Mode allows you to save up to 20 Track Mode profiles to suit your preferences or driving scenario, or customize for a specific track. A new settings profile can be created by tapping Track Mode Settings and; Add New Settings, entering a name for the settings profile, then adjusting settings including Handling Balance, Stability Assist, Regenerative Braking, Post-Drive Cooling and Compressor Overclock. Refer to the Owner’s Manual for more information regarding each setting.

You can now save a video and data of the Track Mode driving session to a plugged in USB flash drive which must contain a folder named “TeslaTrackMode” (without the quotation marks). When “Save Dashcam for Laps” is enabled, Track Mode stores a video of each lap in a driving session when using the Lap Timer. Track Mode also stores the car status and telemetry data including details about the vehicle’s position, speed, acceleration, and use of accelerator which is stored as a .CSV file on the USB flash drive.

Here’s a video that goes into a lot of those features:

Electrek’s Take

This is awesome. We knew that the customization was coming and this sounds like a decent update for that alone, but add the track map and lap recording and this makes this update truly impressive.

It’s like having a racing video game widget representing your actual track performance inside your car.

Then, you can also export a video of each lap with all the data that comes with it.

If Sentry Mode and TeslaCam weren’t enough to convince you to set up a storage system in your Model 3, this should do it. I recommend using a Samsung portable SSD, which is going to have tons of capacity for all three features, and I also recommend Jeda’s Model 3 USB hub, which is going to allow you to still use the other plugs and hide your SDD.

Now we just need a way to overlay the data on the Track Mode video and I wouldn’t even need my Dragy anymore.