Tesla is adding ‘Trailer Profiles’ – techAU

A number of Tesla’s vehicles can and do tow trailers. For those who tow trailers, may be familiar with Tow Mode, which can be activated via the vehicle’s touchscreen by navigating to Controls > Towing. Once engaged, it adjusts various vehicle parameters to handle the additional load and dynamics of towing.

Tesla hacker@greentheonly has revealed that Tesla’s 2024.45.32 software update contains a new ‘Trailer Profiles’ option.

In a personal context, you may have a trailer for taking rubbish to the tip, and a caravan. In the commercial context, a vehicle may be connected to a different trailer every day and for these reasons, a profile for which trailer you’re towing makes a lot of sense.

Given trailers lack an odometer like a vehicle, we need a system to measure the distances traveled to monitor serviceable items like brakes and tyres. Thankfully Tesla’s software team is coming to the challenge, allowing trailer profiles to track millage.

Green says the data points around trailers will need to be entered manually, but hopefully will be available via the Tesla mobile app, website and have an export data option.

The 2024.45.32 software allows users to specify the trailer type i.e. open or enclosed, for better energy use estimation. I think many Tesla owners would benefit from being able to select from default trailer categories (horse trailer, flatbed, bike trailer, caravan etc).

Green also references there’s be capacity to store up to 20 suc profiles. SUC stands for Saved User Configurations and I expect work similarly to Driver Profiles today.

He expresses disappointment in the lack of Tesla Vision in this application, presumably expecting the automatic detection of a trailer based on the video coming from the rear camera and automatically switch profiles.

This certainly would be a neat feature, and may very well come in the future, but I suspect that’s a decent way down the priority list.

Feature photo credit: @Cybertruck0001