Make your Tesla unmistakably yours!

Time to introduce our recent additions to our Tesla Essentials shop:

We also added this handy Water Cup Mat for Model Y Juniper / Model 3 Highland.

Find more essentials in our shop:

PS! We currently offer FREE SHIPPING on all orders.
Just use the code FREE when checking out. US & Canada only.

Elon dropped a gem this week on the longer horizon:

This is also the "And one other thing that is arguably most significant by far” he mentioned but didn't specify when talking about SpaceX’s valuation the other day, when refuting that SpaceX is raising money at $800B.

Elon follows up with saying: "Exawatts or you’re not really trying"

He also wrote “Once there are lunar factories, robots and mass drivers on the Moon, such that the entire loop is closed, the system probably decouples from conventional currencies and operates autogenously in watts and tonnage”

Here’s what Tesla has been cooking for the owners among us for the Holiday software update:

Grok with Navigation Commands (Beta)
Grok can now add & edit navigation destinations if you tell it to, becoming your personal guide. (There’s a video that shows Tesla navigation changing based on a voice prompt from the driver).

Nice to see Tesla bringing actual agentic AI workflows into Teslas.

Tesla Photobooth
Located in Toybox menu, you can now turn your car into a photobooth, taking selfies with the internal camera & “give yourself a makeover with fun filters, stickers, and emojis.” You can share it with others right from the Tesla app. Here it is on video.

Dog Mode Live Activity
I love this one. When Dog Mode is active, you’ll see a Live Activity on your iPhone featuring periodic snapshots of your vehicle’s cabin along with live updates on temperature, battery & climate conditions:

Dashcam Viewer Update
Dashcam clips now include additional details such as speed, steering wheel angle & self-driving state

Santa Mode
…gets an upgrade, adds festive snowmen, trees, a lock chime & snow effects for a 3D visual treat. There’s also a new Light Show called Jingle Rush.

Custom Wraps and License Plates on screen
You can now personalize your Tesla avatar with window tints, custom wraps & license plates. Use one of many preloaded designs or create and upload your own using a USB flash drive to make your vehicle unique. Location: Toybox > Paint Shop

Navigation Improvements

Reorder your navigation favorites & set Home or Work by dropping a pin anywhere on the map. You can also view suggested destinations based on your recent trips and habits while parked

Supercharger Site Map
This one is my favorite. You can now see a 3D view of select Tesla Superchargers by tapping "View Site Map". When navigating to a pilot location, the site layout and live occupancy (Available / Occupied / Down) will be displayed upon arrival. Here is a video of what it looks like in action.

Max from the Supercharging team said:

“It's amazing what Tesla can do with its vertical integration. This should make Supercharging a little more magical, especially at larger & busy sites. We'll keep refining it and enable it for all Superchargers.”

Automatic HOV Lanes Routing
Navigation now includes an option to use high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) carpool lanes. Your route will automatically select the carpool lane when eligible, based on time, location, passenger count & road restrictions

Phone Left Behind Chime
Your vehicle will chime a few seconds after the doors close if a phone key is inside the cabin or a phone is left on the wireless charger and no occupants are detected. Phone key detection requires UWB-supported devices.

Charge Limit per Location
You can now save a charge limit for your current location while parked & it will be applied automatically next time you charge there

SpaceX ISS Docking Simulator (in Arcade)
Yes, really. What a nice cross-reference in Muskonomy! “Become an astronaut and prove your skills by docking with the International Space Station. Control & guide the spacecraft in this 3D docking simulator game using a set of controls based on actual interfaces used by NASA astronauts.”

Some smaller improvements:

Of course, as always the feature availability subject is to vehicle hardware & region… but we usually see most of these trickle down to most regions and most hardware over time. There’s usually a few ‘undocumented’ changes included in these updates, so we’ll report back when the rollout is done and Tesla geeks have inspected every bit. :)

Actually, one of those already dropped: New Storage Space for Dashcam feature, that shows how much space you have used and remaining on your USB drive.

Tesla held an event over the weekend called Autonomy Visualized in Miami Design District for The Future. Here's a video from the spot, and here's the teaser video saying:

"Every day, petabytes of driving data are processed by Tesla vehicles across North America. All of the following renders are generated using this real-world driving data. This is the world through the eyes of Full Self-Driving.”

This event also seems to have provided the absolute funniest video I could imagine with Optimus. Yes, I still root for Tesla’s Optimus to come to life en masse, but this one is still funny to watch.

The fall seems to have been caused by the operator taking off the headset.

If you’re liking the Tesla Space newsletters, you’ll love the Tesla Space Insider membership.

Robotaxi app is now live to be able to download (don’t mistake this with the service itself being live) in all countries where FSD is also available… and then some: US & Canada & Mexico, and Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Macau, New Zealand.

Remember how I showed you ~2k miles of FSD driving with no interventions last week?

It seems we have a new record: 3,000.2 miles.

And yes, this is important. It’s the first time we’re seeing such long stretches driven without interventions, and it’s looking a lot closer to fully unsupervised driving.

However, don’t take the media headlines saying Elon now endorses texting and driving too seriously. As usual, they blow it larger than it is. Here’s what Elon actually said:

What he is saying is that when you previously got nagged/disengaged for watching your phone while you had to be supervising the car, you’ll see less of that now if Tesla deems the conditions right.

Btw, Tesla now allows owners to gift FSD (Supervised) in the US as a monthly gift card.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, in a new interview on Elon Musk being the first customer for his next-gen DJX1 GPU ten years ago:

“When I announced this thing, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, except for Elon. He goes, ‘I have a company that could really use this.’

Tesla introduced the “Charging Passport” in the Tesla app, a new yearly summary of your charging, showing badges for visiting specific chargers, all kinds of info.

Just tap on “Charging” from the home page of Tesla app and you’ll see it:

Tesla said Supercharger usage in the U.S. hit an all-time record high over the 5-day Thanksgiving holiday:

→ 11.4 sessions/day/stall and only 0.76% waiters

→ 2 M+ sessions and 70+ GWh delivered

Starlink is set to receive $661 million in government funds as all 50 states move forward with their plans to expand high-speed internet in underserved regions; to deliver satellite internet to 478,073 locations across the US.

SpaceX has also filed to trademark "Starlink Mobile" and "Powered by Starlink".
Is it getting serious about a mobile carrier launch?

And… here’s the kind of some swag SpaceX holiday party had this year:

Oh, and here’s a cool peek behind the scenes: New Starbase building lobby in Texas has a giant floating Mars on top of the admin desk:

Neuralink hosted a discussion (video here) with Synapticure, where Brad, Jake, and Nick shared their experiences living with ALS and using their Neuralink devices as participants in our clinical trials.

‘Also, here's a great 21-minute video from Neuralink visting a school to provide an overview of the company. Some new info bits as well, for example, they said Neuralink has over 10,000 people on the waiting list to receive their Telepathy brain chip!