All of Tesla's Current Promotions: Free Paint for Model 3P, 1.99% Financing, Free Seat Layout Options on Model X

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Tesla has several promotions running right now in the United States and a couple globally – so we’re here to help you by compiling a list of what’s available, and for how long.

Keep in mind that most promotions on this list are currently only available in the United States – not Canada, Europe, or China. We’re hoping Tesla pushes more promotions out to other markets in future quarters, but it doesn’t look like we’ll see anything else this financial quarter for other markets.

These offers are also not valid for customers purchasing a Foundation-series Cybertruck. We’d expect this to change once Tesla stops offering the Foundation Series next year.

3 Months of Free Supercharging (Global)

This specific promotion pops up often and is available globally. Tesla will offer buyers 3 months of free Supercharging – unlimited Supercharging during those 3 months. That’s quite a deal, especially for those who want to road-trip with their brand-new Tesla!

Teslas are absolutely fantastic to road trip with, and with Supercharger availability and up-time, you’ll almost never be at a loss when trying to find a place to charge. Plus, your vehicle navigation automatically suggests and calculates in for Supercharging stops.

Of note, in the United States specifically, this offer isn’t available to those who choose to do financing. Globally, this offer is for a certain number of free Supercharging kilometers rather than unlimited for three months. In Canada for example, Tesla is offering 5,000 – 10,000 free KM of Supercharging, rather than 3 months. These credits are valid for one year from the date of purchase.

Time period: To qualify for this offer, you must take delivery by August 15th, 2024.

Free FSD Transfer (Global)

As part of a promise made by Elon Musk during the Shareholder Meeting this year, Tesla is offering a free FSD transfer for customers who have purchased FSD (FSD price history) in one of their vehicles and wish to transfer it to a new Tesla.

You’ll move your FSD license from one vehicle to another during the purchase process – and you aren’t required to trade in your older Tesla. The vehicle will simply lose access to FSD, but you can always subscribe to FSD on that vehicle at any point.

For those who have Hardware 2.5 or Hardware 3 vehicles – this could be an excellent opportunity to jump into a Hardware 4 vehicle ahead of the upcoming Hardware Divergence.

Time period: To take advantage of this promo you must take delivery by September 30th, 2024.

1.99% Model Y Financing (U.S. Only)

Tesla is offering – for customers who meet the credit check requirements – 1.99% financing on any variant of the Model Y, presuming you take delivery before September 30^th. This is an excellent deal, considering that average financing rates in the US are currently sitting around 5-6%. That’s a huge difference for people interested in upgrading their current vehicle or purchasing another vehicle, as it’ll drastically drop the monthly financing rate. This is probably one of Tesla’s best promotions in terms of a deal for customers, and we’d love to see similar deals rolled out globally!

Time period: The promotional rate is valid for financing terms between 36 to 72 months, and orders need to be placed before August 31, 2024. You must take delivery of your new Tesla by September 30th, 2024

Free Paint for Model 3 Performance & Free Seat Layouts for Model X

This is one of the most unique promotions – and one we haven’t seen Tesla offer before. If you purchase FSD in the United States on a Model 3 Performance or a Model X Long Range AWD, you’ll get certain options for free.

For the Model 3 Performance, with the purchase of FSD, you can add any color option for free, which is up to a $2,000 value.

For the Model X, you’ll be able to select the six-seat or seven-seat interior config instead of the standard five-seats for free. This is a savings of $6,500 or $3,500 respectively.

If you were already thinking about getting the Model X six-seat layout, this essentially brings down the cost of FSD to $1,500.

Since FSD doesn’t count toward the total price of the car regarding the federal rebate, it also means that the Model 3 Performance (with any color) and Model X LR (with 6 or 7 seats) are now also eligible for the $7,500 US Federal EV Rebate.

Overall, an excellent deal – you get FSD, a paint option of your choice for the Model 3, and – if you’re buying the Model X LR – you can grab the six-seat config, which is the best seating option in our opinion.

Time period: Tesla hasn’t provided a timeline for this promo, but it could change at any time.

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Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

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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.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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