Tesla's Colorizer feature lets you customize the color of your Tesla
Not a Tesla App
Changing your Tesla’s color – whether through PPF/Vinyl or Paint, is a definite possibility. But how do you show those colors throughout the car’s software? Easy! Tesla’s Colorizer feature offers the ability to adjust the vehicle’s color in software.
You can even change what kind of wheels appear in the visualizations – a quick and easy way to match whatever you have on the car – as long as it’s a first-party wheel.
Where to Find the Colorizer
There are two ways to access Tesla’s Colorizer feature. You can go to the ToyBox app and choose Colorizer, or you can go to Controls > Software and tap on the colored square underneath your vehicle. Keep in mind this feature can only be accessed while the vehicle is parked.
Once enabled, you’ll be presented with the vehicle color wheel and menu – which offers a set of options to cater to your preferences. We’ll tackle some of those options a bit further down.
Where the Colorizer Feature Applies
Tesla's Colorizer feature even applies in the Beach Buggy Racing game
Not a Tesla App
So where do these colorizer changes apply? All throughout the vehicle, and in unexpected places too! It will display the chosen color directly in the visualization, both when parked and moving. These changes will also appear throughout settings and different parts of the car, including the mobile app, and even the Beach Buggy Racing game.
Keep in mind that the Colorizer is only available on Intel or AMD-based vehicles (MCU2+) vehicles – which means legacy vehicles won’t be able to benefit from these software color changes.
Colorizer Settings
The colorizer primarily offers a color wheel for easy selection of whatever hue you’d like to go with – whether for the day, or for longer. It also offers two other options – paint style, and trim style.
The three paint styles – Solid, Matte, and Metallic – are similar to regular car paints. The solid paint style is a flat color that matches most of Tesla’s paint offerings. The matte paint style is a bit smoother, and metallic is much more reflective. In our testing, matte often looks the best on screen.
Tesla also gives you two trim color options. Most legacy vehicles nowadays have chrome trims – and if you’d like to match that or you prefer chrome – you can also choose a chrome trim. Most modern vehicles have black – and it is selected by default.
Saving and Removing Presets
The Colorizer also offers you the ability to save presets – and to switch back to your car’s default paint – whatever it shipped with from the factory. The factory preset is located on the bottom right and quickly swaps the color back to the factory option if you can’t find one you’d like.
You can create new presets after deciding on a new color and pressing the plus box on the bottom left corner of the menu. This will add a new preset to the right of the plus icon. If you want to delete a preset, tap and hold on one, and an X will pop up – allowing you to delete that preset.
Changing Wheels in Software
You can also change your Tesla’s wheels from the car. Everywhere the Colorizer applies – these same changes apply.
You can access this by going to Settings (the grey vehicle icon), and then going down to the Service Menu. From there, select the Wheel and Tire sub-option on the right. You’ll be presented with a list of options.
However, keep in mind that selecting wheel options that do not match your current wheel size will impact your vehicle. Tesla provides a warning in this menu to not mismatch the wheel sizes – as it will impact range estimates and the vehicle’s speed display.
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Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
This morning, in response to Dan Burkland, Wes shared that Tesla had significantly rewritten the backend portion of Trip Planner. These improvements, made by several engineers, were designed to improve Trip Planner’s accuracy and open the door to future features.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.
![First Look at Tesla’s New 'Blind Spot While Parked' Feature [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/model-3-2024/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg/4cdcb11af7b1c7cf021ba96588fd4f1a/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg)
![Video Reveals the Cybertruck's Unique User Interface [Video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2023/cybertruck-ui-1_300w.jpg)
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