A Look at the Lucid Air Touring From a Tesla Perspective

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Recently, I had the opportunity to test drive the Lucid Air Touring while I was on a trip to Toronto. It was an interesting experience, so I’d like to tell you what I thought, coming from a two-year Tesla owner.

For context, I currently own a Tesla Model Y—a 2022 MYLR—and have driven both a Model S Long Range and a Model S Plaid. I use FSD nearly every day and go on road trips all the time. EVs have become a central part of my car ownership experience, and I’ve tried out everything from the original Kona EV to the Audi e-Tron and back.

I hope that my experience and perspective provide an interesting view of Lucid’s pretty amazing vehicle.

The Lucid Air

The Lucid Air is Lucid’s primary and only vehicle – until the Lucid Gravity SUV launches later this year. It’s available in various trim lines that go from lowest to highest – Air Pure, Air Touring, Air Grand Touring, and Air Sapphire.

I got to sit in the three primary models – the Air Pure, the Air Touring, and the Air Grand Touring. I intended to try out the Grand Touring as well – but more on that later. My focus for this will be on the Lucid Air Touring – the one that I had the opportunity to take to the streets with a Lucid employee sitting in the front passenger seat and a few friends sitting in the back.

The Lucid Air is a 4-seat sedan aimed at the upscale and luxury market. And from the price tag, you can tell who it is aimed at - $96,500 CAD (~$70,000 USD) for the Air Pure – without any options. The fully specced out Touring I drove cost $146,999 CAD (~$107,000 USD).

Lucid Air Touring – Options and Pricing

So, let’s get into it, starting with the specs of the car I had the opportunity to drive. The Lucid Air Touring is quite a vehicle, especially spec-wise. Lucid’s Air Touring is a dual-motor EV, with a rated range of approximately 587 km (365mi) and 620 horsepower – pulling 3.4s 0-60 mph (0-100 km/h).

Let’s talk options, as there are quite a few on the Lucid Air. The vehicle I drove was painted in the standard Infinite Black Metallic – a free paint option on any Lucid Air. All paint options only cost $1,000 CAD ($800 USD), which is quite nice.

The vehicle was equipped with an optional glass canopy. Yes – Lucid’s glass canopy is an option that goes for $5,000 CAD ($4,000 USD) and is only available on Touring or higher. The Air Pure is only available with a metallic roof. By default, the vehicles come with a platinum pillar trim which matches the rest of the vehicle. The one I drove had the Stealth package – another $4,500 CAD (~$3500 USD).

There are a few wheel options, and the Stealth package does blackout all the wheel options if it's selected, which is neat. 19” Aero Range wheels are standard, but 20” and 21” packages are available for another $2,500 or $5,000 CAD ($1750 or $3,500 USD). Once again – this vehicle had the 21” rims.

In terms of interior options, there are a few to pick from – by default, you get the Mojave PurLuxe Alternative Leather – if you pony up another $4,000 CAD ($3,000 USD), you can select from three real leather choices – Mojave (Black), Tahoe (Brown), or Santa Cruz (White). If you also choose the glass roof, the headliner, pillar trim, and sun visors on the roof interior are in Alcantara. If not, they’re in cloth.

The full leather packages also include leather or Alcantara on more surfaces within the vehicle, removing the cloth and plastic from anywhere in the interior.

The Lucid Air Touring in the showroom
The Lucid Air Touring in the showroom
Not a Tesla App

Other Features

Lucid also has an extensive list of features, including a Driver Assistance Package – DreamDrive (more on this later), an upgraded sound system, additional seating controls (12-way power seats or 20-way power seats with ventilation and massage), and a comfort package.

The comfort package includes a power frunk, heated wipers, soft-close doors, heated rear seats, four-zone climate control, heated steering wheel, and power rear window shades.

Honestly, in my opinion, many of the features in the “comfort package” should be standard. Paying for a heated steering wheel on a car that starts at $109,000 CAD is ridiculously silly in 2024.

I could imagine seeing this as an option for BMW – who allows customers to part out every piece of their higher-end vehicles (for a premium), but for an EV vendor like Lucid? It feels almost disappointing. Most interesting is that nearly every inventory vehicle that Lucid has in stock in North America has the package included by default.

Upgrade Chart

Here’s a chart showing the available upgrades and their prices for the Touring.

Feature

Price (CAD)

Price (USD)

Paint Options

$1,000

$800

Glass Canopy

$5,000

$4,000

Stealth Package

$4,500

$3,500

19” Wheels

Included

Included

20” Wheels

$2,500

$1,750

21” Wheels

$5,000

$3,500

Mojave PurLuxe Alternative Leather Interior

Included

Included

Leather Interior Options

$4,000

$3,000

DreamDrive

Included

Included

DreamDrive Pro

$3,500

$2,500

Surreal Sound System

Included

Included

Surreal Sound Pro

$3,800

$2,900

Comfort Package*

$4,000

$3,000

14-Way Heated Power Front Seats

Included

Included

20-Way Power Seats with Ventilation and Massage

$5,000

$3,750

Comfort Package includes Power Frunk, Heated Wipers, Soft-Close Doors, Heated Rear Seats, Four-Zone Climate Control, Heated Steering Wheel, Power Rear Windows/Side Window Sunshades

If you add up all those features, it costs an additional $35,800 CAD in options – or $26,950 USD for a fully loaded Touring. Those same costs apply to the Grand Touring as well. It's slightly less for the Pure – there are fewer options, including not being able to equip it with a glass roof. The Sapphire, on the other hand, comes fully equipped at $327,300 CAD, or $249,000 USD.

Battery and Motors

Lucid’s biggest bragging points are its battery and motor technologies. The Lucid Air Grand Touring has a 718km EPA range-estimated battery, leaving behind its closest contender – the Tesla Model S Long Range, at 647km. However, the Grand Touring costs 1.5 times more than the Model S.

Besides the absolutely fantastic range figures – Lucid also brings an astonishing 5 mi per kWh, while the Model S only reaches 3.2 mi per kWh. The Model 3 narrows the gap at 3.9mi per kWh, but Lucid is still head and shoulders above in terms of efficiency. Of course, that efficiency comes at a cost – as even the Air Pure is far more expensive than a Model 3 Performance.

Here's a table comparing some key specs between the Lucid Air trims, the Model 3 and the Model S.

 

Air Pure (RWD)

Air Touring

Air Grand Touring

Model 3 Performance

Model S Long Range

0-60 mph (0-100km/h)

4.5s

3.4s

3.0

2.9s

3.2s

Horsepower

430 hp

620 hp

819 hp

510 hp

1020 hp

Range (km)

676 km

653 km

824 km

487 km

647 km

Range (mi)

420 mi

406 mi

512 mi

303 mi

402 mi

Starting Price (CAD)

$96,800

$109,300

$152,300

$69,990

$103,990

Starting Price (USD)

$69,900

$78,900

$110,900

$54,990

$74,990

Lucid has some pretty extreme competition for the price and specs – but those aren’t all that matter. The interior, materials, fit, and finish are truly up to par for what you pay for.

Exterior

Let’s take a look at the outside of the vehicle. Overall, it's stylish, with nice, clean lines. If you opt for the default Stellar White Metallic, the vehicle looks good – even if you choose to have a metallic roof.

If you opt for the Glass Roof, it looks much better. However, you’ll want the Stealth Package on any color other than the Stellar White Metallic or Cosmos Silver Metallic. The platinum trims just stand out too much and take away from the car. All three wheel sets, including the base Aero wheels, are fairly stylish – especially so in the Stealth package.

Interior

On the interior, especially in the driver’s seat, the Lucid Air Touring with the extended real leather package is quite something to behold. Lucid has put a lot of care into designing the interior of the vehicle, with some subtle but clean ambient lighting highlighting the curves of the dash and interior of the vehicle.

The screens are mostly comfortably spaced (more on this in the UI section), but if you’re tall, you’ll find it a struggle to see around inside the vehicle. The A-pillar is extremely low and prevents taller people from seeing to the front left of the vehicle. This can be annoying when doing a left turn – you’ll find yourself leaning forward to see around the pillar.

However, the driver seat is fantastically comfy and holds you well in place when you put the vehicle into a higher speed mode and put your foot down to really take advantage of that acceleration. A well-placed reverse mirror and pop-up repeater cameras assist in making lane changes.

Backing up to the passenger side, the seats are super comfortable. If I had to choose a vehicle to be chauffeured around in – the Lucid Air with the extended real leather would be up there. It's fantastically built and very comfortable. The only thing missing is rear-ventilated seats and a better display. The rear display is only for accessing the rear climate controls since the vehicle is equipped with a quad-zone climate system. The rear screen currently has no other functionality – a big miss from the newer Model 3 Model S and Model X in my eyes, especially for those hoping to move their small families around in comfort.

Lucid has taken the rear passenger seats to the next level – they’re super comfortable and super spacious. In fact, my passengers found it to be more spacious than the Rivian R1T Quad Max we test-drove just an hour prior – and more comfortable. Behind those seats, in the trunk, you can find a fairly deep amount of space. Unlike Tesla’s long hoods that provide plenty of vertical space, the Lucid Air’s trunk is more similar to one you may find on a regular sedan but extremely deep. Plenty of space for several suitcases.

The frunk is massive. In fact, it's bigger than any Tesla frunk – a big win in my eyes, especially with the automatic frunk in the comfort package. I’d love to use the frunk on my Model Y more often – but having to manually open and close it means it's mostly relegated to storing safety equipment, a spare first-aid kit, and a portable air compressor. The Lucid Air’s frunk is fantastically large – you could easily fit three full gym bags up front, with space for a bit more stuff as well.

The Lucid Air Touring's interior in extended real leather
The Lucid Air Touring's interior in extended real leather
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Drive and Handling

The Lucid Air has three drive modes – Smooth, Swift, and Track (and one called Sapphire – on the same-named model). Smooth is effectively Eco mode and is nice, soft, and accelerates easily. It also limits horsepower to around 430 hp (the same as the Air Pure) if you’re on the Touring or Grand Touring.

Track mode disables much of the traction control and drive assists and also unlocks 100% of the vehicle’s power. Track mode has some sub-modes for racetracks, including Dragstrip, Hot Lap, and Endurance. Interestingly, Swift doesn’t unlock all of the horsepower, but reduces the amount of traction control and driver assists similar to Track. If you want all the horsepower, you’ll need to up it to Track mode.

Overall, while on Smooth, the Lucid Air handles extremely comfortably. In addition, while the vehicle doesn’t have air suspension, its adaptive suspension handles exceptionally well – the pothole-ridden roads we drove over were pretty much unnoticed by the passengers and myself. Lucid has done an absolutely spectacular job of fine-tuning the driving experience for comfort.

In Swift, the car handles a bit more robustly, and you can feel it start to come to life. Sadly, I didn’t have the opportunity to test track mode on Toronto’s congested streets. However – fret not – I have made plans with a friend to take a Lucid Air Grand Touring to the track in the future. Sadly, there are no Sapphires in my future – but if a reader has one and you’re in the Toronto or Ottawa area, let us know.

Overall, I enjoyed driving the car for the luxurious experience. However, it didn’t feel particularly sporty or snappy and felt more like driving a high-end ICE vehicle with an EV’s instantaneous response times. Overall, a good feeling in terms of ride quality and handling for a day-to-day driving experience.

Honestly, if Tesla could replicate Lucid’s absolutely spectacularly comfortable driving experience, that would be amazing, especially in the Model S and X. There’s definitely room for Tesla to improve – even past the “comfort” suspension they added in the 2023 Model Y. And that’s pretty evident – third-party suspension upgrades like those from Unplugged Performance are far superior to Tesla’s, especially in the comfort factor.

User Interface

Lucid’s overall user interface felt smooth, quick, and slick to operate. There were no delays or lag when switching back and forth between modes (like the Q4 e-Tron…). The upper displays show key vehicle information on the right and center and navigation or audio information on the right side. The center display also shows the repeater cameras when signals are active.

The larger display at the bottom is used primarily for options, drive mode swaps, and the 360º parking view. However, it feels like it's not being fully utilized—it’s there and very available, but it's next to useless. If I could display a full-screen nav or more media controls there, that’d be a huge improvement.

I may be spoiled by having everything on a single display on my Tesla and being comfortable with it – I personally don’t love the instrument cluster on the Model S and X. It’s great for your next turn and speedometer, but some features like the smaller visualizations and Autopark feel much less intuitive since you can’t tap or drag the screen.

DreamDrive and DreamDrive Pro

The Grand Touring I drove was equipped with DreamDrive Pro, Lucid’s version of FSD, but due to the lack of time and location, I didn’t have the opportunity to test it out. I’m hoping to do that sometime soon, but the Lucid Air comes with DreamDrive standard and DreamDrive Pro as an optional upgrade.

The standard version includes a long list of features, many of which are standard on a Tesla:

  • 3D Surround View

  • Blind-spot Monitoring

  • Driver Monitoring system to warn against distractions

  • Front / Rear Cross-traffic Protection

  • Automatic Emergency Braking

  • Forward Collision Monitoring

  • Lane Departure Protection

  • Adaptive Cruise Control

  • Traffic Drive-off Alert (think the Green Light Chime on a Tesla)

  • Traffic Sign Recognition

  • Auto Park in and out (parallel and perpendicular)

  • Park Distance Warning

  • Rear View Camera

That sounds like a lot of stuff, but it's mostly standard features that are available on a Tesla.

Pro also promises future-capable ADAS for driving and parking, along with Highway Assist—including active lane centering with adaptive cruise control—essentially Autopilot.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, the Lucid Air Touring is a compelling vehicle for its target market—older, well-off buyers who desire a more relaxed, luxurious, and comfortable EV. While I am absolutely in love with its adaptive suspension and luxurious interior, I really prefer the active dynamic of driving my Telsa.

If I did have a bunch of extra money, I think the Lucid Air would be a fantastic second vehicle for road trips – future models will have NACS ports and current models should be getting adapter capabilities. My friends and family would absolutely appreciate sitting in the comfortable cabin, and I’m sure the DreamDrive Pro would do a fairly good job of getting me around on highways during a trip.

Tesla Provides Update on FSD: Region-specific Training, Europe, Future Price Hike, FSD Unsupervised for Customers

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s autonomy stack has been one of the primary focuses of Tesla’s earnings calls for quite some time. It is also crucial to achieving Tesla’s larger ambitions, such as its robotaxi network and humanoid robots like Optimus.

Now, with FSD Unsupervised being prepared for the robotaxi launch in June, there’s a lot of new information being shared by Tesla on what to expect.

FSD Supervised

The version currently available to customers, FSD Supervised, has been available since its rebranding with the launch of FSD V12 last year. However, it has been a while since we saw an update - in fact, over 100 days since the last public FSD update. 

Tesla has been gathering and processing data at an unprecedented rate. In the shareholder’s deck, Tesla revealed that there had been over 7.7 million miles driven per day this past quarter in North America and China. Tesla’s recently deployed Dojo units are likely running at full tilt doing automated data labelling.

FSD in Europe

The launch in China earlier this year was the first launch of FSD outside of North America. Most interestingly, Tesla conducted that launch without any region-specific training data besides videos found online. Tesla needed to find a workaround, as Chinese data cannot be uploaded outside the country's physical boundaries due to local regulations.

FSD for Europe remains in the wings - Tesla is awaiting regulatory approval and appears hopeful that it will be able to begin deploying FSD Supervised in Europe before the end of 2025. That may be an optimistic goal, especially considering Tesla is facing additional regulatory delays. With UNECE regulators not addressing autonomy in the next several meetings, Tesla will rely on per-country exemptions, starting in the Netherlands.

FSD to Feature Region-Specific Parameters

While FSD continues to expand, Tesla has acknowledged that certain conditions, like snow, are posing difficulties. They intend to increase the comfort and safety level of driving in inclement or locale-specific conditions in the future by adding parameters that are explicitly trained on those types of conditions and regions.

Tesla’s team specifically mentioned that these new parameters aren’t a legal necessity to get FSD Unsupervised or Supervised approved but will instead increase reliability and comfort for users. They also addressed concerns about sun glare, sand, dust, and fog impacting road conditions.

With sun glare in particular, as Tesla uses a photon-count analysis before processing the digital signal, its cameras are not as blinded as they may appear on-screen. FSD performs its analysis before the data is turned into an image, meaning that it can still perceive things even when a human may not be able to from the camera feed.

FSD Price Changes

Tesla’s executive team also raised an interesting point, but one we’ve heard before in 2023. As FSD’s capabilities evolve and increase, they believe that pricing will also be subject to change. The value of FSD, once it is fully Unsupervised, will rise greatly, and the current subscription option is far too inexpensive, according to Tesla.

It appears that Tesla is considering different pricing options for FSD Unsupervised in the future, but for now, the $99 monthly subscription remains in place. It’s possible we may see different prices for FSD Supervised versus FSD Unsupervised.

Ongoing Challenges

Tesla’s current challenges with working on FSD can be described as the march of nines. This is the exponentially increasing work needed as you need to take the system closer and closer to 100%.

Validation primarily remains a challenge due to the difficulty of encountering and then solving edge cases. The internal QA fleet in Austin can operate for multiple days without a single intervention, making it challenging to measure the progression and regression.

Tesla noted that, on average, an intervention is currently required every 10,000 miles. That is equivalent to the average North American driving for an entire year. Therefore, a substantial amount of data is necessary to continue improving the current issues. With 7.7 million miles driven by FSD every day, Tesla has, on average, 770 events to review each day.

Tesla is also continuing to deploy and expand its AI training centers. Cortex, Tesla’s latest, is already online at Giga Texas and crunching through immense amounts of data to train FSD.

FSD Unsupervised

The ultimate goal, of course, is FSD Unsupervised. A fully autonomous experience that can take you from Point A to Point B without needing any human supervision or intervention at all.

Tesla has already deployed FSD Unsupervised to take its Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertrucks from the production line to the outbound lot at both Giga Texas and Fremont, saving considerable man-hours. These vehicles are also autonomously interacting with traffic on their way over to the outbound lot - and it’s an expression of Tesla’s confidence in the system.

Fleet Capabilities

Tesla also mentioned that the vast majority of its fleet on the roads today will be capable of FSD Unsupervised. In particular, Elon mentioned the Model S, 3, X, and Y. Interestingly, this is the fourth event (We, Robot, Q4 Earnings 2024, All-Hands, and Q1 Earnings 2025) without mention of the Cybertruck being capable, likely meaning that FSD development for the Cybertruck is further behind as we’ve seen.

Hardware 3 Retrofit

There was no mention of the limitations of Hardware 3 or Tesla’s exact plans for a future retrofit at this time. While Tesla has already promised to replace HW3 with a future iteration of an AI computer, as we haven’t seen any FSD updates recently, so it’s hard to say whether any future FSD updates will arrive for HW3 besides bug fixes.

We believe Tesla is planning to solve FSD first and then work backward from there. At this point, they’ll know the compute power required for FSD Unsupervised and could make a retrofit that fits into a hardware 3 vehicle with the power and space constraints it imposes.

Unsupervised for Customers

Tesla’s goal is to launch FSD Unsupervised for customers ideally by the end of 2025. The executive team specifically mentioned that their key restrictions are twofold here.

One is that they need to be sure that FSD Unsupervised is meaningfully safer (10x, as per Q4 2024) than a human driver. Tesla has a focus on safety and intends to be extremely careful with the rollout of Unsupervised to ensure there are no incidents or accidents.

The second is that regulatory approvals will continue to be a limitation. However, as more cities and states begin to approve FSD Unsupervised in their locales, Tesla will be able to roll it out faster and faster. The intent is to have FSD Unsupervised available throughout the United States by the second half of 2026, according to Tesla.

Tesla also confirmed their intent to have a Model Y deliver itself from Giga Texas or Fremont to a customer by the end of 2025. This will likely be a local customer, and we did a deep-dive into the potential advantages and disadvantages of this delivery method.

While it may be a slow period for FSD updates right now, there are a lot of changes happening this year with the launch of FSD Unsupervised, the robotaxi network and the expansion to Europe.

A Visual Look at Tesla’s 2025 Spring Update Features

By Karan Singh
@niccruzpatane on X

Tesla’s 2025 Spring Update has arrived and is now going out in larger waves. Although this update isn’t as large as last year’s Spring Update, there are several exciting features in this year’s Spring Update.

In this article, we’ll take our first look into some of the newest features.

Custom Trunk Height per Location

The trunk height for Model Ys, Model 3s with automatic trunks, and the 2021+ Model S and Model X will now be customizable by location. While you could previously apply a maximum general height, you can now also apply a height at a given location.

This is especially helpful if you don’t want the vehicle to open the trunk all the way in your garage, but would like it to open all the way elsewhere.

To set it, you can manually adjust the liftgate to your preferred height when at the location and then press and hold the trunk close button until you hear a chime. Alternatively, you can open the liftgate with the on-screen controls and then press the pause button and have it remember this height.

If you have a Cybertruck, the process is similar to save the frunk height.

B-Pillar Sentry & Dashcam

The new B-Pillar options are displayed at the bottom of the dashcam viewer.
The new B-Pillar options are displayed at the bottom of the dashcam viewer.
Not a Tesla App

For newer hardware 4 vehicles, Sentry Mode and Dashcam will now also record video from the B-pillar cameras on your vehicle. This brings the total number of cameras recorded to six, up from just four. This also means that the vehicle is now covered practically in 360 degrees. The only cameras not recorded are the alternative front camera, the front bumper camera (on the new Model Y and Cybertruck for now), and the interior camera.

While most of the other cameras wouldn’t provide much improvements in terms of security, adding the interior camera would be a really nice addition. However, we imagine there are privacy reasons why Tesla isn’t adding this one.

You can check out the new angles in the improved Dashcam viewer under “Left Pillar” and “Right Pillar”, which are located at the far right.

For AI3 vehicles and the Cybertruck, this feature isn’t available, however, we expect it to be added to the Cybertruck soon.

Dashcam Viewer

The Dashcam and Sentry Mode Viewer have received an improved interface to go along with the new B-pillar camera recording. However, like the new cameras, this feature is only currently available on HW4 vehicles. While the B-pillar camera records are unlikely to arrive on HW3 vehicles due to technical constraints, we may see this improved Dashcam Viewer arrive on other vehicles in the future.

The new viewer now displays all the cameras along the bottom, rather than having one at each corner.

Tesla has also added a jump back or forward 15-second button; however, the recent improvement to adjust the playback speed from 0.5x, 1x, and 2x appears to have been removed.

There’s also a new button at the top right corner of the video, which lets you easily jump to the next video clip.

Reverse Camera

The new angle is a little bit wider than the original.
The new angle is a little bit wider than the original.
Not a Tesla App

For HW4 vehicles, Tesla has also improved the visible angle of the rearview camera. Tesla’s cameras actually capture angles slightly wider than the ones displayed in the vehicle UI and the Tesla app - so it’s nice to see them increasing the viewing area.

These same vehicles have now also been updated to have the fender cameras displayed at the top of the Camera app instead of the bottom.

Adaptive Headlights for North America

Adaptive headlights have finally been enabled for vehicles with matrix headlights in North America with this Spring Update. You can check them out in action below. If you’re unsure whether your vehicle includes matrix headlights, our guide can help.

Model S / X Turn Signal Cameras

These optionally placed repeater turn signal camera images are a huge improvement!
These optionally placed repeater turn signal camera images are a huge improvement!
@niccruzpatane on X

The Model S and Model X have received some much-requested love from Tesla. The blind spot camera feature, which displays the fender cameras on screen when the turn signal is active, is being moved to the instrument cluster.

Until now, the feature has shown the cameras on the infotainment display, much like the Model 3 and Model Y. If you prefer to keep them on the main display, you can adjust it under Controls > Display > Automatic Blind Spot Camera.

New Navigation Options

Tesla added three new routing options to the Spring Update, which now lets you choose between faster and more frequent charging stops or longer and less frequent stops. The long-awaited avoid highways option is finally included in this update as well.

Fastest: This offers the quickest path to the destination, disregarding any attempts at efficiency or stopping more frequently to perform short charges.

Best Amenities & Fewer Stops: This routing mode minimizes your charge stops in exchange for making them longer, but also allows you to stop near highly rated restaurants, shops, and restrooms for a more relaxing trip.

Avoid Highways: This highly requested feature allows you to keep your navigation routing away from highways unless absolutely necessary to reach your destination. Hurray for the country roads and relaxed driving.

Phone Icon Update

The new contact image is displayed above the phone number and name (censored by user)
The new contact image is displayed above the phone number and name (censored by user)
@max_bracco on X

Tesla has updated the in-vehicle Phone app to display contact pictures from your phone, along with the name and phone number.

The new contact photos will also appear in the dialog window that opens when you receive an incoming call.

Search Filters for Music

The list of sources is selectable to help fine-tune your search.
The list of sources is selectable to help fine-tune your search.
Not a Tesla App

When searching for music, the results are now filtered by the music service, rather than displaying all results in a single view.

When you prefer a search, the results will be limited to the currently selected music source. Results for other services will be displayed in separate tabs organized by service. This is a really nice addition, but we’d also love to see an “All” results tab, similar to the previous experience, that lets you view results across various services.

Keep Accessory Power On

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Tesla is finally giving users the ability to charge devices with 12V sockets and USB ports when there’s no one in the vehicle. While 12V sockets and USB ports are turned off when the vehicle goes to sleep, many users work around this by enabling Sentry Mode to keep the ports powered.

The good news is that this new feature is even more efficient than before because owners no longer need to keep Sentry Mode on just to keep these ports powered.

To enable power for the USB ports and 12V sockets, navigate to Controls > Charging and scroll down to Keep Accessory Power On. Keep in mind, similar to Sentry Mode, this feature uses additional energy, even if devices aren’t being charged — so use it selectively.

Music Improvements

Tesla has made several other music-related improvements in this update besides the updated search results screen.

Amazon Music: You no longer need a premium subscription to Amazon Music to use the streaming service in the car. Your free account will work just fine.

Apple Music: Apple Music’s shuffle function has been improved so that it now shuffles the entire playlist of music, instead of just the first 100 results in the playlist.

YouTube Music: The next song in a playlist will now be displayed in the Up Next section. You view this section by tapping on the album artwork in the music player.

Other Improvements

Not a Tesla App

Tesla has made several other improvements. One nice addition, currently limited to the Cybertruck, is that the vehicle's visualization will now display the actual distance a door is open.

Tesla also improved the hotspot feature. If you typically use the hotspot on your phone to connect to the vehicle, this feature will now be automatically enabled each time the vehicle is put into drive.

While Tesla has already shown third-party chargers in Europe, Tesla is now giving users the ability to view them in other regions for the first time. The feature is off by default, but you can go to Controls > Navigation and enable third-party chargers. Tesla explains that your vehicle will not automatically navigate to these chargers, but they will show up in the list of available chargers.

When viewing a Supercharger, Tesla now provides a list of all nearby amenities as well, making it easier to see places nearby.

Not a Tesla App

While this update’s big features are the Sentry Mode and Dashcam Viewer improvements, which don’t apply to everyone, there are a lot of smaller charging and music improvements that make using and charging the vehicle better. Hopefully, we’ll see Grok come in Tesla’s next major update.

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