Tesla is looking to score thanks to its Super Bowl surge. For the past couple of years, Tesla sales have substantially increased following the big game - despite not advertising. Now, as the king of the EV sector has started social media marketing, it has to get aggressive to cash in on that extra attention.
No Model Y Refresh This Year
With any campaign, the talking points must be sent out beforehand. Tesla has reported to its delivery advisors to not expect a Model Y refresh this year, at least in North America. The memo that was sent out, according to Teslascope, states:
“We heard your feedback that some customers are waiting to place their Model Y order as they anticipate a refresh similar to Model 3. It is important that we communicate transparently that there is no refresh for Model Y launching this year. There is no better time for customers to start driving the world's best-selling vehicle. “
Evidently, the company has taken insights from the Highland rollout to heart. When word spread of the imminent Highland release, sales of the previous model dipped significantly. Quashing rumors is a shrewd move, yet the challenge remains: how will Tesla safeguard against the leaks that stripped the Highland launch of its element of surprise?
Model Y Goes on Sale
Tesla has strategically reduced the prices of the Model Y, signaling an aggressive push to boost sales. For the rest of February 2024, customers can enjoy a $1,000 discount on the Model Y RWD and Long Range models. Tesla has also rolled out enticing incentives, such as free Full Self-Driving transfers, lifetime free Supercharging for early adopters, and additional discounts for early Cybertruck reservation holders.
Tesla investor Gary Black pointed out the potential missed opportunity for Tesla, suggesting that even a single Super Bowl ad could have significantly bolstered consumer interest in the brand and been cheaper than giving a discount. With a $7 million investment for a 30-second spot, Tesla would only need to sell an additional 875 vehicles, assuming a gross profit of $8,000 per car, to cover the ad cost. Black suggests that the resulting surge in consumer interest could far outweigh the immediate expense. In contrast, Tesla's current approach opts for a short-term sales boost, reducing the Model Y price by $1,000, equating to a $40 million monthly expenditure.
At $7M for a 30 second Super Bowl ad, $TSLA would have to sell 875 incremental cars (@$8k gross profit per car) to justify the cost of the ad. And the follow up interest from TSLA paying for a Super Bowl ad would be huge. Instead $TSLA cuts price by $1,000 per Model Y in the US… https://t.co/ZrqxUpRCcB
The transparency in Tesla's communication and its pricing strategy is designed to keep the sales momentum high, especially as competitors showcase their electric offerings through high-profile advertising campaigns. Despite not participating in the advertising blitz of events like the Super Bowl, Tesla remains steadfast in its approach, relying on direct communication and a robust offering of incentives to engage and retain customers.
Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.
Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.
Steam Launch
When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.
In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.
However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.
SteamOS Update
The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.
Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.
Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles
Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.
AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.
While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.
The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.
Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?
The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.
While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.
We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.
As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.
However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.
Not a Tesla App
Weather At Destination
When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.
Note the weather under the arrival time
Not a Tesla App
You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.
You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.
And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.
Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.
The weather pop-up above the ETA
Not a Tesla App
One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.
Weather Radar Overlay
As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.
You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.
Requirements / Data
Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.
As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
![Tesla Updates Santa Mode & Rainbow Road to Use Ambient Lighting and Updates SteamOS [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.webp/bd6dd7459fc8963516a33efd3bd54466/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.jpg)
![Tesla Builds Cybertruck Tunnel While Production Lines Pause [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2024/cybertruck-tunnel.webp/822a2c10124f46fe13e0d45cefdd9d33/cybertruck-tunnel.jpg)
![Tesla Adds HEPA Filter to New Model 3, Will it Get Bioweapon Defense Mode? [Update: Tesla Edits Post]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2023/new-model-3-hepa-filter_300w.jpg)
![Impressive Tesla FSD Videos: Making Room for Vehicles & Mastering Tight Maneuvers [WATCH]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2023/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg/9c0bfda120e9fecc4ddb111b350565ac/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg)
