One of the exciting new features of Tesla update 2024.14 is the improved media player for the Model 3 and Model Y.
Tesla's media player has gone through some drastic changes over the years, but this appears to be the best revision yet.
The previous media player had four states... yes, four. It made for a confusing experience, even for owners who used the car every day.
The four states included:
The "default" state included a small player closest to the driver with some of the most used buttons
The second state was the enlarged view when you dragged up on the media player that revealed additional buttons such as shuffle and search
There was also its minimized state, which placed the music player’s icon in the dock and led to confusion
And lastly, if you had a music service open fully on the right part of the screen AND minimized the media player, then the player would hop over to the top of the larger music panel on the right.
It created an inconsistent experience and all of the players had their downsides. There just wasn’t a solution that worked all of the time. Thankfully the new music player addresses most of these issues.
Tesla used to have a media player that ran along the bottom of the right part of the screen
Not a Tesla App
What’s New
The first thing Tesla did was reduce the number of states essentially down to two. You have a regular media player and a minimized player. You don't have to drag up on the player to access the shuffle or search functions and you can’t “lose” the player by minimizing it to the dock anymore.
Correction: When you minimize Tesla’s audio player and have Spotify or another music app open, the player controls will still shift to the top of the music app.
One-Tap Access to Shuffle, Repeat and Search
What Tesla did was move all of the crucial media functions from the previous larger player directly to the main player. This now gives you one-tap access to functions like shuffle, repeat, search, playback speed, audio levels, and search.
Not only were these functions hard to access before, but they were hidden underneath the player, making discovery for new owners difficult.
Improved Progress Bar
The progress bar on the previous player was difficult to see since it was just a slim line at the bottom of the player.
The new player has a thicker progress bar that separates the top portion of the player, which houses the album art, song title, and a couple of functions, and the bottom portion, which contains more controls. Tesla also added a circle to the progress bar, making it more obvious you can not only scrub through the media but also lets you easily see your current spot.
Accessing More Functions
More music player options open to the right
Not a Tesla App
Since the larger media player was removed, so was some of the functionality that it included. All the important items were moved to the main media player such as audio settings and search, however, the other functionality such as access to Favorites, Sources, Recent Songs, and Next, was moved to the larger music app.
If you tap on the new music player, it’ll open up the current music app on the right side that includes music controls, as well as access to your favorites, music sources, upcoming songs and more.
This is also the only way to view the elapsed and remaining times for the current selection, which is useful for longer median such as audiobooks or podcasts.
New Minimized Player
Although the music player doesn't minimize to the dock, it does feature a minimalist version that docks to the bottom of the screen.
When you slide down on the audio player, it'll be reduced to a simple "one-line" player. It simply shows a music icon, the name of the title being played, and an arrow showing you the player can be made larger. There is no longer a gray music icon that appears in the dock when the player is in its “minimized” state.
The new music player no longer minimizes to the dock
Not a Tesla App
Modern UI
The player itself also looks more modern, it now features a translucent background, instead of a solid color like before. The new background lets vehicle animations subtly shine through, a lot like the effects used on modern operating systems.
What Models Will Support It
According to Tesla’s social media post on X, the ‘Visual updates’ in update 2024.14 are limited to AMD Ryzen-based Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, meaning only vehicles manufactured after about 2022+. The exact timeline depends on your vehicle and region, but you can check to see which processor your vehicle includes by navigating to Controls > Software > Additional Vehicle Information.
New Player in Action [Video]
DominicBRNKMN shows off the new music player in action below.
Will We See Intel Atom Support?
The new music player isn’t doing anything crazy in this latest iteration. We believe we'll see this updated player come to Intel Atom vehicles eventually. The Cybertruck already includes the new media player, among the other design changes, so when Tesla said only for “Model 3/Y with AMD chip” on X, they likely meant in this specific update.
There's nothing that’s more computationally intensive about this new player except for maybe the translucent background, however, that’s already being done on Intel-based vehicles for some of the navigation modules. There isn’t anything new that the slower Intel processor couldn't handle.
It’s in Tesla’s best interest to keep a common interface between vehicles. Tesla wouldn't want to drastically change the way a common item like the "radio" works between different Model 3 and Model Y years if they didn't have to. That would complicate issues with service and documentation. Tesla wants owners to have the same UI as much as possible, so we there’s a good chance that we’ll see the new media player apply to Intel in the future.
Hopefully, in an upcoming update, Intel owners will receive this streamlined music player. Update 2024.14 is currently rolling out slowly to some vehicles.
Tesla has been struggling to provide FSD updates for vehicles with Hardware 3 (HW3). What was once thought to be enough compute power to solve autonomy, is no longer able to handle the latest FSD updates.
Yesterday, Tesla finally confirmed that vehicles with HW3 will need to be upgraded to achieve Unsupervised FSD.
HW3 Upgrade Finally Confirmed
Musk had previously suggested that an upgrade might be necessary and Tesla would upgrade these vehicles if needed. However, during yesterday’s earnings call, Musk admitted that HW3 vehicles will, in fact, need to be upgraded. Tesla said that these upgrades will be performed free of charge for owners who have purchased the FSD package, leaving subscribers wondering what will happen to their cars.
Musk stated, “That's going to be painful and difficult, but we'll get it done. Now I'm kinda glad that not that many people bought the FSD package haha.” This appears to confirm that Tesla doesn’t plan on upgrading HW3 on vehicles that subscribe to FSD.
What About Subscription-Based FSD Owners?
While there are a lot of questions, one of the bigger ones is what happens to owners who have subscribed to FSD. Tesla didn’t touch on the topic, but if they’re not planning to upgrade HW3 subscribers, then they could potentially offer a paid retrofit. When the Model 3 was first released, it came standard with HW 2.5. At the time, Tesla said that you won’t need anything better unless you plan to buy FSD. Tesla ended up upgrading owners who had bought FSD for free, but non-FSD owners were required to pay for an upgrade.
Based on previous hardware upgrades—such as the HW2.5 to HW3 transition—a paid upgrade could cost between $1,000 to $3,000. However, it’s not clear what the upgrade to HW3 vehicles will be or how much it will cost even if a paid upgrade becomes available.
FSD on HW3
Musk also hinted that FSD was not selling as well as Tesla had hoped, which likely influenced the introduction of subscription-based FSD.
Meanwhile, Tesla continues to improve HW3-based FSD. FSD V12.6 offers major improvements in smoothness and is considered a “baby V13” with notable improvements over V12.5.4.2. Reverse capabilities are also expected to arrive in a future release for HW3 vehicles, so Tesla hasn’t stopped development just yet. However, Musk was clear that HW3 will continue to lag behind HW4 releases moving forward.
FSD V14 and the Future of HW3
Tesla has stated that FSD V14 will be another significant step toward achieving Unsupervised FSD. The increasing complexity of FSD models and their growing context sizes mean that HW3 is already not able to run the larger FSD V13 models, but according to Tesla, V14 will increase the AI model even further, making it nearly impossible to run on HW3. As AI models become increasingly larger and AI5’s impending arrival approaches, one wonders how long before HW4 can’t run the latest models.
However, Tesla appears confident that HW4 will be sufficient, given its plans to launch FSD-powered robotaxis later this year.
What Will the HW3 Upgrade Look Like?
While Tesla has confirmed the HW3 upgrade, specific details remain unknown. We know that it won’t just be an upgrade to hardware 4 since that computer consumes more power than HW3’s electrical harness can provide, and it also has a different form factor, making retrofitting difficult.
Instead, Tesla will likely have to develop a new FSD hardware unit tailored for the retrofit or modify existing components to fit HW3-equipped vehicles. The hardware will need to be at least as computationally capable as HW4, but use the power of a HW3 unit.
Tesla has also said that it has no plans to replace cameras during the upgrade, despite HW3 cameras having significantly lower resolutions than HW4’s. While Tesla appears confident that this won’t be an issue, owners have reasons to be concerned as Tesla recently increased video processing resolution on HW4 cameras to improve FSD performance.
Tesla’s confirmation of an HW3 upgrade certainly makes more owners comfortable. However, the lack of details leaves subscribers and others wondering what will happen to their vehicles. It also doesn’t do much to ease the frustration of dealing with slower and less capable FSD releases, especially when they pay the same amount as HW4 owners, who receive more features and a smoother ride.
While free upgrades will be available for those who bought FSD outright, subscription-based owners are left in limbo, with no details on potential paid upgrade options.
With FSD V14 on the horizon and HW3 vehicles already struggling with the latest models, this upgrade will be crucial to keep existing owners happy.
Tesla continues to find efficiencies that lower vehicle production costs. In fact, at their earnings call, Tesla announced that their cost of goods (COGs) are now the lowest they’ve ever been. The other day, Tesla completed the Cybertunnel, an underground tunnel that goes underneath a highway, making it easier to get Cybertrucks to their loading lot, and now they’re incorporating FSD into the process.
Tesla announced that newly built vehicles at its Fremont factory now autonomously drive themselves from the end of the production line to the logistics lot, where they are prepared for delivery. This again increases efficiency and lowers vehicle costs.
Unsupervised FSD
Tesla isn’t just using FSD for this. For the first time outside of testing and the Robotaxi event, Tesla is using Unsupervised FSD.
While Unsupervised FSD is not yet ready for widespread public use, Tesla has implemented it in a controlled setting on private property. Without human intervention, the vehicles navigate a 1.2-mile route from the Fremont factory to their designated loading dock lanes. This allows Tesla to refine the software in a real-world environment while avoiding regulatory hurdles that apply to public roads.
One hurdle Tesla needed to overcome was camera calibration. Vehicles typically need to be driven for 20-25 miles on clearly marked roads for the cameras to be calibrated. Only once this process is complete, does FSD become available to the driver.
This meant that new owners weren’t able to experience FSD right after delivery and instead usually needed to wait a day or two before calibration was completed. However, Tesla now calibrates the cameras at the factory with presumably new methods so that the vehicle doesn’t need to be driven a bunch of miles before FSD is ready.
Calibration is now done automatically as the vehicle moves through the manufacturing line.
With Tesla’s Fremont factory successfully deploying Unsupervised FSD, attention now turns to Giga Texas and other factories globally. Fresh lane markings have recently been noticed at the logistics lot in Texas, suggesting that Tesla may soon introduce a similar process there.
Tesla recently completed the Cybertunnel, an underground tunnel connecting Giga Texas to the Cybertruck’s loading area. This tunnel shortens transportation time for Cybertrucks moving from the production floor to the logistics lot. When Tesla shared the Cybertunnel video, you could clearly see employees driving the Cybertrucks through the tunnel, but it’s likely just a matter of time before Cybertrucks navigate the Cybertunnel autonomously.
This new move by Tesla helps them continue testing and refining Unsupervised FSD while also reducing costs by eliminating manual driving from production to shipping lots. It also improves the new customer experience by having cameras calibrated and FSD ready to go at delivery. Tesla said years ago that one day, you’ll be able to order a Tesla, and it’ll drive itself to you. This process would further eliminate costs and speed up delivery times. While this may still be years away, it seems like we’re now one step closer.
![Teslas Now Drive Themselves From Factory to Delivery Lot [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/giga-factories/fremont-drive-themselves.webp/b17351960eaf5949a047314c3287c773/fremont-drive-themselves.jpg)
![Police React to Trying Tesla Patrol Vehicles [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2025/upfit-cybertruck-defense.webp/45b4df6681a888faba03d8b2fbd9ca6f/upfit-cybertruck-defense.jpg)
