This, I believe, is the real point of failure. The value of reorganizing the icons into sub-menus can be debated, but some of the details that were removed in the course of this change appear to have been critical.

There is a concept in UX design called "information scent" – the combination of spatial, contextual, and cultural cues that clue a user in to where they can find what they're looking for. Simply keeping the fan icon next to the temperature display/button might have been enough to make the mental connection for the OP (and likely countless others).

Of course, this is the kind of thing that tends to shake out in user testing, and I'm very surprised that this appears not to have shown up in the testing I would assume Tesla must do with any change to the dashboard, certainly one this fundamental.