New Cybertruck Photos Reveal New Steering Wheel, Center Console and More

May 26, 2023

By Kevin Armstrong

New photos reveal several aspects of the Cybertruck's interior

Cybertruck Owners Club

Tesla's revolutionary Cybertruck, now just months away from the kick-off of its production, has been the subject of much speculation and anticipation. The curtain over its interior features is finally lifting thanks to recent prototype sightings, one of which was notably displayed at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting earlier this month.

Unorthodox Design: The Cybertruck Steering Wheel

The newly-leaked photos provide a fascinating driver's perspective view, including an up-close examination of the Cybertruck's steering wheel. A fusion of designs from Tesla's Model S and Model X, the Cybertruck steering wheel challenges conventional design norms. The design amalgamates the yoke and round wheel styles, excluding stalls but featuring touch-sensitive buttons. It's a unique steering wheel, echoing the groundbreaking ethos of Tesla.

Minimalist Magic: The Cybertruck Dashboard and Center Console

The images reveal the expansive depth of Cybertruck's dashboard, which aligns with the geometric cabin design. A unique texture covers the dashboard, potentially cloth or Alcantara, further accentuating its minimalist allure. However, the anticipated transformation of the center console into an additional seating arrangement may no longer be a feature. We already know about its expected, 18.5" display.

Questions abound regarding the apparent absence of a sixth seat. This minimalistic design approach, characterized by straight lines and manual sliders, seems to create an expansive and futuristic cabin environment. Still, the lack of the sixth seat could be a point of contention for some potential owners.

New photos reveal several aspects of the Cybertruck's interior

Cybertruck Owners Club

From Prototype to Production: The Evolution of Cybertruck's Design

With production slated to begin later this year at Giga Texas, many are speculating whether this is the final Cybertruck prototype or if Tesla is saving the final design reveal for its delivery event. Notably, the prototype boasts an improved yoke steering wheel, which seems to amalgamate a traditional round design with the unique yoke style, perhaps in response to mixed reviews and the popularity of the round steering wheel retrofit for the Model S and Model X.

From a cool Cybertruck-themed seat control panel to a tonneau cover reminiscent sliding console cover, Tesla appears to have paid meticulous attention to the minute details in the Cybertruck's interior. The cover will play a significant role in Tesla's next step in development - mounting points.

Cybertruck remains a bold proposition, challenging established norms of vehicle design. From its origami-like exterior to its innovative interior, it represents a radical reimagining of what a pickup truck can be. Despite its divisive features, Tesla's Cybertruck continues to generate massive anticipation, proving that society is ready to embrace the new and different when it comes to automobile design.

Tesla Smoking While Supercharging? A Look at What's Actually Happening

February 12, 2025

By Karan Singh

Hot_Engineering3140 on Reddit

Winter is here, and temperatures are dropping, so one of the most common Tesla questions is about to resurface.

If you’ve landed here after frantically searching about “smoke” coming from your Tesla while Supercharging, take a deep breath—it’s completely normal.

Tesla Smoking While Charging

If you’re Supercharging in freezing weather—even with preconditioning—you might notice steam rising from your Tesla. But rest assured, your car isn’t smoking.

Your Tesla’s heat pump is hard at work warming both the cabin and battery to keep you comfortable and ensure optimal charging temperatures. Over time, condensation and ice build-up in the heat exchanger coils.

Why Does It Happen?

When you reach a Supercharger with your vehicle, the heat pump is still running hot, but without the cold air from driving to keep the heat exchanger coils cool, the ice and condensation quickly start to evaporate—creating what looks like smoke.

Since this typically happens near the front of the vehicle, where a car would traditionally have an engine, new vehicle owners can be startled by the discovery. However, rest assured that it’s just water vapor and it’s completely normal in cold weather.

In fact, this behavior can be experienced in any EV with a heat pump in cold climates. So, if you saw steam coming out of your vehicle and panicked, don’t worry—you’re not alone.

Now that you know what’s happening, go ahead and Supercharge with confidence.

Tesla Improves YouTube App With Smoother Playback

February 12, 2025

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Tesla made a lot of improvements in the 2024 Holiday Update, including more than 15 undocumented improvements that were included in the release. One of these was a stealthy performance improvement to the YouTube app.

Several people have mentioned they’ve seen improved performance on YouTube since this year’s Holiday Update - and there’s an interesting reason why.

YouTube Improvements

The improved YouTube performance in Tesla vehicles comes from an unexpected source—Tesla actually rolled back support for YouTube’s newer AV1 video encoding. Instead, vehicles now default to the older VP9 encoding standard.

While AV1 is highly efficient in terms of bandwidth, it requires considerably more processing power to decode and display videos. VP9, on the other hand, is less computationally demanding but uses more bandwidth to achieve the same video quality. This trade-off means smoother playback and better overall performance, even if it comes at the cost of slightly higher data usage.

Intel Inside

The VP9 video codec that the YouTube app is now using is much easier to decode, making it less taxing on the vehicle’s processor. This change is particularly beneficial for Tesla vehicles with Intel processors, which previously struggled to stream video at just 720p. When using AV1, these vehicles often experienced stuttering, sometimes forcing the YouTube app to automatically downgrade playback to 480p.

With this update, Intel-based Teslas should now be able to stream at 1080p smoothly. Streaming at 1440p is also possible, although occasional stutters still occur as the system keeps up with the decoding process.

Intel-based vehicles are the big winners with this change, but this appears to affect AMD Ryzen-based infotainment units as well, providing even smoother playback.

Chromium Web App

Tesla’s Theater apps aren’t native applications; instead, they run as chromeless web apps, leveraging the open-source browser built into Teslas known as Chromium (the open-source version of Chrome). Although this works quite well, there is a severe limitation - Chromium hardware acceleration isn’t supported on Linux, the operating system Tesla uses for their OS.

As a result, Tesla vehicles rely on software decoding instead of hardware decoding, which would otherwise handle video playback far more efficiently. A potential solution could be for Tesla to transition away from Chromium-based web apps in favor of a Mozilla Firefox-based browser, as Firefox does support hardware acceleration on Linux. This switch could also open the door to better streaming performance and the possibility of expanding Tesla’s in-car entertainment options.

However, Tesla’s choice of Chromium likely stems from Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements for streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix, which rely on DRM-enabled playback. Firefox on Linux has had inconsistent support for DRM due to codec availability and variations in operating system versions.

We’re hopeful that Tesla will either adopt Firefox or develop a fully native application to improve video streaming, rather than continuing with the current web-based Tesla Theater. This shift could also pave the way for additional in-car applications built on Tesla’s native Linux environment—perhaps even reviving the long-rumored Tesla App Store.

Regardless, this update is a welcome improvement, particularly for YouTube, which remains one of the most widely used Theater Mode apps due to its accessibility, free content, and mix of short and long-form videos. It remains to be seen whether similar improvements are made for Netflix, Disney+, or other streaming platforms.

If you’ve noticed improved performance in Theater Mode, now you know why.