The Most Requested Tesla Features

Not a Tesla App

Every Tesla comes standard with tons of features – many of which aren’t provided by other automakers or they come at an additional cost. Since Teslas receive software updates regularly, there are always a ton of requests on what Tesla should add next. So let’s take a look at some of the most requested features.

We’ll categorize everything as best we can, but let’s start on the outside of the vehicle.

Exterior Features

Better Puddle Lighting

Tesla's official puddle lights accessory in China

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Tesla China has already gotten some gorgeous puddle lights as a store accessory. Nothing is stopping Tesla from making these puddle lights standard – it's simply a design formed into the plastic of the puddle light.

Bumper Camera

A front bumper camera would be extremely useful on most Teslas – and Cybertruck owners are already pointing out saying how useful it is when parking. We’ve heard that the Model S and Model X will eventually be getting them and the refreshed Model Y Juniper is expected to have it as well.

Rain Sensors

Rain Sensors are something we’ve talked about in great depth – and there are physical limitations to how well Tesla can detect rain with its existing cameras. While cameras work fine for FSD, the current implementation makes it difficult to drive with auto wipers in light rain.

Improved Front License Plate Mount

The provided front license plate mount for Tesla is held on with 3M double-sided adhesive. It falls off in car washes, heavy rain, and in general just doesn’t adhere well over time. We’d love to see a better OEM option. While many people remove their front license plates, there are plenty of districts that still require them throughout the world.

Interior Features

Adjustable Cup Holders

This one is an oddball – why doesn’t Tesla have properly adjustable cupholders? The rubber pieces in the cupholders barely adapt to anything but the biggest objects – but we do appreciate how big the cupholders are. They can fit a 16oz mug in them just fine.

Not a Tesla App

Better Acoustic Door Damping

Quite a few vehicles use acoustic foam or insulation in the vehicle doors – especially those closer to the price point of the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck. We’d love to see Tesla fill the empty spaces in the doors with better acoustic damping material. Some users we’ve heard from have filled the empty spaces in their Model Y or Model 3 doors and found a noticeable improvement in road noise reduction.

Motorized Rear View Mirror

When you step into a Tesla, it immediately adapts to your user preferences while you’re using a phone key. However, the one single item that doesn’t adapt is the rear-view mirror. Some premium brands have begun to ship motorized rear-view mirrors, or rear-view mirrors that provide a video display of the rear-view camera. These would be some fantastic features for Tesla to bring to its more premium vehicles.

Frunk Drain Plug

The frunk needs a drain plug. If it fills with water, you’ve got three real options – vacuum it up with a wet/dry vacuum, let it evaporate, or take apart a good chunk of the frunk to remove it and drain it. You’d also be able to use the frunk as a cooler – putting in ice and cold drinks without having to keep them in a separately insulated container.

Heads-Up Display (HUD)

This one is a bit of a pie-in-the-sky request since Elon Musk has already turned it down, but having a heads-up display for the driver does seem pretty futuristic and high-tech. Modern fighter jets airliners, and even ships use this technology to get information right in front of the user, and it does have its use case.

Some luxury brands have already begun to provide this as an option for their vehicles, and upon trying it in the Audi e-Tron, it felt smooth once you got used to where it displayed navigation, speed, and other key information.

Bring Back Massaging Seats

Tesla once had massaging seats in the Model S and Model X. This is a feature that many users are missing now, in Tesla’s constant search for a reduction in vehicle unit cost. Massaging seats are another standard premium vehicle option, and we’d like to see these return at some point.

It would help to reduce the luxury gap felt between the Model S and the Lucid Air or other luxury vehicles.

Improved Wireless Phone Chargers

Tesla’s wireless phone chargers – in every one of their vehicles – have commonly been derided as phone heaters. Many modern phones are capable of efficient 35-watt or higher charging, so there’s no reason for Tesla to skimp with relatively tiny 15-watt chargers in an electric vehicle. We’d love to see Tesla bring better phone chargers to its vehicles, and we know they can do it – the portable wireless charger available in the Tesla shop is already much better than what comes in any Tesla.

Musk previously said that Tesla will add the option to turn off Tesla’s wireless chargers if you don’t use them.

Software Features

Altitude

Tesla has been adding more weather information and improving maps in update 2024.32. Some users would love to see the vehicle’s current altitude displayed on the screen.

Bird’s Eye View

YouTube/AI DRIVR

Tesla has mostly solved this feature request with the updated Park Assist, but we’d still like to bring some color and texture to the picture. It can help drivers pick out important information that is sometimes missed, even with the exceptionally detailed rendering that Park Assist provides.

Phone Left on Charger Alert

A simple alert that a phone has been left on the charger – one for the driver and one for the passenger when the door is opened, would be nice for those forgetful folk. Someone you know has probably left their phone on the charger when you’ve dropped them off, or maybe you’ve left yours.

Add More Cameras to Camera View

The Camera View in vehicle currently only displays 3 cameras – the side repeaters and the rearview camera. Tesla should allow all cameras on the vehicle to be easily displayed in the Camera View, especially when the vehicle isn’t moving. The Cybertruck, which includes a front bumper camera, can also swap between the front and rear cameras, but both can’t be displayed at the same time.

Tesla App Store

Elon Musk once mentioned that Tesla vehicles would receive an App Store, and developers could create apps specifically for Tesla vehicles. Sadly, we haven’t received anything of the sort, and we’ve only recently received additional music functionality like Apple Music, YouTube Music, and SiriusXM streaming is also coming soon.

Even Zoom came as a vehicle update – but there are plenty of users of other conferencing or communications software like Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet that could be brought onboard through an App Store.

Expanded Voice Control/Grok Support

Tesla’s current voice control scheme is pretty light in functionality. You can do some basic tasks, but ask it to compose a text message, and you’re going to get something that isn’t as useful. In addition, Elon previously mentioned in-vehicle Grok support – and Grok is eventually going to get voice support. We’d love to see this combined and get a proper AI assistant in-vehicle to handle voice tasks. Tesla has already added a smart assistant in China, so we’re hopeful this is coming soon.

Kickdown in Chill

This one is pretty simple. If the car is in chill mode, and you put the accelerator pedal to the floor, the car should “kickdown” and go to Standard. On vehicles with 3 drive modes, kickdown in Standard should go up to Plaid, Insane, or Beast mode.

Preconditioning Battery for 3^rd party chargers

Currently, there’s no way to manually precondition your Tesla’s battery for faster charger at a 3^rd party charger. Tesla currently automatically preconditions the battery for Superchargers and select third-party chargers in Europe. It’d be useful if Tesla expanded the feature to additional regions and also added an option to manually precondition the battery in certain scenarios. You may be navigating to a fast charger that’s not on the map, or if you have a Supercharger that’s nearby the short drive isn’t enough to precondition the battery. Letting users start the preconditioning manually and earlier would save them time at the charger.

Outside of Europe, you can trick the vehicle into preconditioning the battery navigation to a nearby Supercharger – you can navigate there and just not drive there. But other than that, Tesla offers no easy way to begin preconditioning your vehicle for DC charging. A simple button in the charging UI would solve that.

Entry Music/Chime

Selectable entry music or a selectable entry chime would be neat – just another way of making your Tesla yours. We’ve already got custom lock sounds, so why not?

Facial Recognition for Driver and Passenger Profiles

Teslas already automatically recognize drivers and automatically load vehicle profiles based on the cell phone closest to the driver’s side door. However, this sometimes doesn’t work properly, especially if someone has a Phone Key setup, and someone else is using a keycard.

Having facial recognition on entry to automatically correct and adjust the driver profile and the passenger profile would make this process more reliable, and simpler. Tesla already has a patent for facial recognition to load user preferences, so maybe this one is already in the works.

Set Minimum Battery at Destination

Being able to set the minimum battery when you arrive at a certain destination would be a useful feature – especially when you’re going somewhere, and then plan to drive around or won’t have a charger nearby. As it stands, Tesla’s Trip Planner will leave you with a minimum amount of battery — just enough to get to the nearest Supercharger.

While the optimized approach is nice, we’d love a slider to adjust the preferred arrival state of charge.

Tesla App Features

Watch Support

@niccruzpatane

It would be great to have official support for the Apple Watch and Android Wear. Other manufacturers, even legacy auto now support smart watches and Tesla needs to catch up in this regard. The app doesn’t need to do anything fancy, but being able to easily start your climate, unlock your vehicle, or use your watch as a vehicle key would be a huge addition. Musk has even confirmed that watch support is coming. Can we expect it as part of Tesla’s 2024 holiday update?

Start Lightshows from the App

Currently, the only way to start a Tesla Lightshow is in the vehicle itself. You’re currently unable to start one from the Tesla App. This would make it very simple to pick and choose a Lightshow saved on your USB drive and admire it from the outside at your convenience, rather than having to hop into the vehicle. We’d also love it if you could loop Lightshows, to keep the party going once it's started.

Precondition Battery Button

Similar to an in-vehicle preconditioning button for 3^rd party chargers, the Tesla App should also have a button to precondition the battery. This will make it easy for users, especially those who don’t have home charging – to get their vehicles ready for DC Fast Charging before departing.

Garage Door Controls

For Tesla owners who choose to equip their vehicles with HomeLink, or those whose vehicles came with HomeLink already installed, you have control of your garage door from inside the vehicle. While Tesla lets you open your first programmed garage door through the app, you’re limited to just the first one. It’d be nice to be able to choose which garage door you’d like to open when pressing the HomeLink button. This would be a pretty useful tool – especially in combination with Actually Smart Summon, whenever that arrives.

FSD / AutoPilot Features

More FSD Transfer Opportunities

While Elon previously stressed that the latest FSD Transfer opportunity is the last – we really hope that Tesla keeps bringing more opportunities like this – especially once Hardware 3 becomes legacy and AI5 is introduced. This is an excellent way to keep customer goodwill going.

Smart Summon Range Increase

As it stands, Smart Summon’s Range is very limited. It’s a lot shorter than the average parking lot – only 210 ft, or 65m. Once Actually Smart Summon arrives, we hope that Tesla increases that range, otherwise it's still only usable at certain times.

Other Feature Requests

Improve Service Times and Expand Mobile Service Rangers

Tesla recently cut quite a bit of staff in early 2024, and Tesla Service was one of the sections hardest hit. Because of this, many locations are experiencing heavy service loads and extended times to see vehicles. Tesla needs to focus on improving service times and also expanding its Mobile Service Rangers. This will help Tesla keep its reputation as a brand.

Referral Program

When we initially wrote this, we included the request for Tesla to bring back its referral program. Tesla ended their Referral Program earlier this year with Elon Musk citing that it was an additional cost that Tesla had to carry on each vehicle. In addition, Tesla also began issuing tax forms to US-based referral users, impacting their tax statements.

Just this past weekend, Tesla reintroduced its referral program in the U.S. Not only that, but they actually improved it over the previous program that only let you buy certain store items.

Vehicle-to-Load/Vehicle-to-Home Functionality

The Cybertruck finally introduced Tesla Power Share to Tesla vehicles, with Vehicle-to-Home functionality. This is a fantastic first step – but we’d like to see this across the entire lineup. This is especially important since recently a third party demonstrated that bidirectional charging does work on Tesla vehicles – namely on a 2022 Model Y.

This should be a standard feature across the Tesla lineup.

Wireless Vehicle Charging

This feature is likely to come with the Robotaxi first – but we’d like to see Tesla bring wireless or automated charging capabilities to its vehicles. Tesla previously purchased Wiferion – a company working on wireless EV charging and showed off a Wiferion charging mat underneath a Tesla parked in a garage. Since then, we haven’t heard anything on this front – but more on this on October 10^th most likely.

So that’s everything we’ve thought of. If you’ve got more ideas or want to discuss, head over to our forums and comment.

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Tesla Debuts Super Manifold V2 in the New Model Y—But Not Every Car Has It Yet

Tesla Service Manual

The Super Manifold is Tesla’s solution to reducing the complexity of a heat pump system for an EV. Tesla showed off its engineering chops back with the original Model Y in 2019, where it introduced a new 8-way valve (the Octovalve) and a new heat pump alongside the uniquely designed Super Manifold to improve efficiency.

Now, Tesla is launching an improved version with the refreshed Model Y - the Super Manifold V2. We got to hear about it thanks to Sandy Munro’s interview with Tesla’s Lars Moravy (Vice President of Vehicle Engineering) and Franz Von Holzhausen (Chief of Vehicle Design). You can watch the video further below.

What Is The Super Manifold?

The Super Manifold (get it, Superman?), is an all-in-one package that brings in all the components of a heat pump system into one component. The Super Manifold packs all the refrigerant and coolant components around a 2-layer PCB (printed circuit board).

This Super Manifold would normally have 15 or 20 separate components, but Tesla managed to integrate them all into one nice package. That presented Tesla with a new challenge: how to integrate a heat pump—capable of both heating and cooling—into a single, efficient platform?

Several years ago, Tesla designed the Octovalve. It combines inlets and outlets and can variably change between heating or cooling on the fly - without needing to be plumbed in different directions. This is especially important for EVs, which may need to heat the battery with the waste heat generated from the motors or the heat pump while also cooling the cabin - or vice versa.

Original Super Manifold V1.1

Tesla launched the Super Manifold V1.1 back in 2022, and it provided some minor improvements to the waste heat processing of the heat exchange system. It also tightened up the Octovalve, preventing the leakage of oils into the HVAC loop that could cause it to freeze at extremely low temperatures.

Tesla has been using the V1.1 for several years now, and it has really solved the vast majority of issues with the heat pump system that many older Model Ys experienced.

Super Manifold V2 Coming Soon

Now, Tesla is introducing the Super Manifold V2 in the new Model Y. It will improve the overall cooling capacity provided by the original Super Manifold, but unfortunately, not every single new Model Y will come with it equipped. Tesla will be introducing it slowly across the lineup and at different rates at different factories, depending on part availability.

Eventually, the Super Manifold V2 will also make its way to other vehicles, potentially including the upcoming refresh for the Model S and Model X, but initially, it’ll be exclusive to the new Model Y. Tesla expects to have the new manifold in every new Model Y later this year.

If you’re interested in checking out the whole video, we’ve got it for you below.

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Breaking Down Tesla’s Autopilot vs. Wall “Wile E. Coyote” Video

Mark Rober

Mark Rober, of glitter bomb package fame, recently released a video titled Can You Fool A Self-Driving Car? (posted below). Of course, the vehicle featured in the video was none other than a Tesla - but there’s a lot wrong with this video that we’d like to discuss.

We did some digging and let the last couple of days play out before making our case. Mark Rober’s Wile E. Coyote video is fatally flawed.

The Premise

Mark Rober wanted to prove whether or not it was possible to fool a self-driving vehicle, using various test scenarios. These included a wall painted to look like a road, low-lying fog, mannequins, hurricane-force rain, and bright beams.

All of these individual “tests” had their own issues - not least because Mark didn’t adhere to any sort of testing methodology, but because he was looking for a result - and edited his tests until he was sure of it.

Interestingly, many folks on X were quick to spot that Mark had been previously sponsored by Google to use a Pixel phone - but was using an iPhone to record within the vehicle - which he had edited to look like a Pixel phone for some reason. This, alongside other poor edits and cuts, led many, including us, to believe that Mark’s testing was edited and flawed.

Flaw 1: Autopilot, Not FSD

Let’s take a look at the first flaw. Mark tested Autopilot - not FSD. Autopilot is a driving aid for lane centering and speed control - and is not the least bit autonomous. It cannot take evasive maneuvers outside the lane it is in, but it can use the full stable of Tesla’s extensive features, including Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warnings, Blind Spot Collision Warnings, and Lane Departure Avoidance.

On the other hand, FSD is allowed and capable of departing the lane to avoid a collision. That means that even if Autopilot tried to stop and was unable to, it would still impact whatever obstacle was in front of it - unlike FSD.

As we continue with the FSD argument - remember that Autopilot is running on a 5-year-old software stack that hasn’t seen updates. Sadly, this is the reality of Tesla not updating the Autopilot stack for quite some time. It seems likely that they’ll eventually bring a trimmed-down version of FSD to replace Autopilot, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Mark later admitted that he used Autopilot rather than FSD because “You cannot engage FSD without putting in a destination,” which is also incorrect. It is possible to engage FSD without a destination, but FSD chooses its own route. Where it goes isn’t within your control until you select a destination, but it tends to navigate through roads in a generally forward direction.

The whole situation, from not having FSD on the vehicle to not knowing you can activate FSD without a destination, suggests Mark is rather unfamiliar with FSD and likely has limited exposure to the feature.

Let’s keep in mind that FSD costs $99 for a single month, so there’s no excuse for him not using it in this video.

Flaw 2: Cancelling AP and Pushing Pedals

Many people on X also followed up with reports that Mark was pushing the pedals or pulling on the steering wheel. When you tap on the brake pedal or pull or jerk the steering wheel too much, Autopilot will disengage. For some reason, during each of his “tests,” Mark closely held the steering wheel of the vehicle.

This comes off as rather odd - at the extremely short distances he was enabling AP at, there wouldn’t be enough time for a wheel nag or takeover warning required. In addition, we can visibly see him pulling the steering wheel before “impact” in multiple tests.

Over on X, techAU breaks it down excellently on a per-test basis. Mark did not engage AP in several tests, and he potentially used the accelerator pedal during the first test - which means that Automatic Emergency Braking is overridden. In another test, Mark admitted to using the pedals.

Flaw 3: Luminar Sponsored

This video was potentially sponsored by a LiDAR manufacturer - Luminar. Although Mark says that this isn’t the case. Interestingly, Luminar makes LiDAR rigs for Tesla - who uses them to test ground truth accuracy for FSD. Just as interesting, Luminar’s Earnings Call was also coming up at the time of the video’s posting.

Luminar had linked the video at the top of their homepage but has since taken it down. While Mark did not admit to being sponsored by Luminar, there appear to be more distinct conflicts of interest, as Mark’s charity foundation has received donations from Luminar’s CEO.

Given the positivity of the results for Luminar, it seems that the video had been well-designed and well-timed to take advantage of the current wave of negativity against Tesla, while also driving up Luminar’s stock.

Flaw 4: Vision-based Depth Estimation

The next flaw to address is the fact that humans and machines can judge depth using vision. On X, user Abdou ran the “invisible wall” through a monocular depth estimation model (DepthAnythingV2) - one that uses a single image with a single angle. This fairly simplified model can estimate the distance and depth of items inside an image - and it was able to differentiate the fake wall from its surroundings easily.

Tesla’s FSD uses a far more advanced multi-angle, multi-image tool that stitches together and creates a 3D model of the environment around it and then analyzes the result for decision-making and prediction. Tesla’s more refined and complex model would be far more able to easily detect such an obstacle - and these innovations are far more recent than the 5-year-old Autopilot stack.

While detecting distances is more difficult in a single image, once you have multiple images, such as in a video feed, you can more easily decipher between objects and determine distances by tracking the size of each pixel as the object approaches. Essentially, if all pixels are growing at a constant rate, then that means it’s a flat object — like a wall.

Case in Point: Chinese FSD Testers

To make the case stronger - some Chinese FSD testers took to the streets and put up a semi-transparent sheet - which the vehicle refused to drive through or drive near. It would immediately attempt to maneuver away each time the test was engaged - and refused to advance with a pedestrian standing in the road.

Would FSD hit a transparent film wall?
This test showed it just avoids it.

Added English subtitles.

Credit: Douyin 第一智驾 pic.twitter.com/IU8IyuRG01

— Aaron Li (@boolusilan) March 18, 2025

Thanks to Douyin and Aaron Li for putting this together, as it makes an excellent basic example of how FSD would handle such a situation in real life.

Flaw 5: The Follow-Up Video and Interview

Following the community backlash, Mark released a video on X, hoping to resolve the community’s concerns. However, this also backfired. It turned out Mark’s second video was of an entirely different take than the one in the original video - this was at a different speed, angle, and time of initiation.

Mark then followed up with an interview with Philip DeFranco (below), where he said that there were multiple takes and that he used Autopilot because he didn’t know that FSD could be engaged without a destination. He also answered here that Luminar supposedly did not pay him for the video - even with their big showing as the “leader in LiDAR technology” throughout the video.

Putting It All Together

Overall, Mark’s video was rather duplicitous - he recorded multiple takes to get what he needed, prevented Tesla’s software from functioning properly by intervening, and used an outdated feature set that isn’t FSD - like his video is titled.

Upcoming Videos

Several other video creators are already working to replicate what Mark “tried” to test in this video.

To get a complete picture, we need to see unedited takes, even if they’re included at the end of the video. The full vehicle specifications should also be disclosed. Additionally, the test should be conducted using Tesla’s latest hardware and software—specifically, an HW4 vehicle running FSD v13.2.8.

In Mark’s video, Autopilot was engaged just seconds before impact. However, for a proper evaluation, FSD should be activated much earlier, allowing it time to react and, if capable, stop before hitting the wall.

A wave of new videos is likely on the way—stay tuned, and we’ll be sure to cover the best ones.

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