Tesla has made changes to its Premium Connectivity offerings in Europe, Australia, and North America. The company will no longer include ad-free music streaming through the “Streaming” app, now called LiveOne. Similarly, in Europe, Tesla used to offer a free Spotify Premium account in the vehicle, but now this account will be limited as well. We initially covered this rumor last week, thanks to an insider’s tip.
These changes will be made as of December 1st, 2024, and users who previously used Tesla’s Premium Connectivity to avail themselves of either Slacker (Now LiveOne) or Spotify Premium will now be relegated to the free versions of those services.
North America – Streaming/LiveOne/Slacker
In North America, Tesla offered a free Premium subscription to LiveOne (previously known as Slacker) Radio through the “Streaming” app with the orange icon. This subscription wasn’t cheap—$10 USD a month. It offered unlimited song skipping and improved audio quality.
This feature has now been removed, and users will be prompted to sign into LiveOne when they open the Streaming/LiveOne app in their Teslas. Users can either continue to use a free version of LiveOne or sign up for LiveOne Premium to continue using it.
LiveOne Premium will cost $3 USD a month (a discounted price) for Tesla-specific use going forward.
Europe – Spotify Premium
In Europe and Australia, Tesla offered a free Premium subscription to Spotify instead, as part of its Premium Connectivity package. This subscription was actually fairly expensive in comparison to the North American equivalent - $10 USD a month and offered unlimited song skipping and improved audio quality as well.
Just like in North America, this has been removed. Users will have to sign into a Spotify account to continue using Spotify, or they can now use the basic tier of Spotify, which includes ads, limited skips, and some other limitations. A Premium account will be required to use the Premium functionality.
Not a Tesla App
Lifetime Premium Connectivity
However, these changes do not affect everyone. Tesla used to offer lifetime Premium Connectivity for free with every Tesla purchase before Premium Connectivity was introduced in July 2018. Tesla also offers a lifetime subscription to Cybertruck Foundation owners. These owners will still receive the benefits of either LiveOne or Spotify Premium in their respective regions. These Lifetime plans are guaranteed until the vehicle changes hands – at which point Tesla will also wash its hands of the ongoing cost of paying for that vehicle’s Premium Connectivity.
This set of changes is somewhat disappointing, as it has been a core part of Tesla’s Premium Connectivity for many years. The good news is that users will be able to continue using the same service but with some limited functionality and ads. We’re not sure if Tesla will be bringing a new set of features to make up for this gap or if they’ll be reducing the price of Premium Connectivity to match the reduction in service, but in all likelihood, Tesla just wanted to reduce costs.
There are plenty of competing apps that people use, especially with Tesla recently introducing YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music in recent updates. Amazon Prime subscribers can enjoy Amazon Music for free since it’s included with their membership.
Tesla’s Head of Autopilot and AI, Ashok Elluswamy, has confirmed on X that legacy Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles will get Actually Smart Summon in Q4 2024. The end of Q4 2024 for Tesla would be approximately January 24th, 2025.
That’s still a few months away, but for legacy vehicle owners, it's still a sigh of relief – as there was nothing mentioned in the release notes, or anywhere in Tesla’s AI Roadmap of when and if legacy vehicles would be receiving these features.
Legacy Vehicles
These legacy vehicles, in particular, were vehicles before the refresh in 2021 but after the arrival of MCU2 (Intel) and Hardware 3. Legacy vehicles can be updated from MCU 1 (NVIDIA) to MCU 2 (Intel) and from HW 2.5 to HW3, so all vehicles after 2016 could gain access to Actually Smart Summon.
According to Greentheonly, the cameras in these vehicles are implemented differently than in other Tesla models, where raw camera feeds are supported. This makes it harder for Tesla to stream video from the vehicle’s cameras to the Tesla app, which Actually Smart Summon uses.
Sentry Mode Live Access
Legacy vehicles also don’t have access to Live Sentry Mode cameras – they can’t upload that data live to Tesla’s servers, and then off to the owner’s app. In order to get Actually Smart Summon functional on these legacy vehicles, Tesla will have to essentially implement Live Sentry Mode – which could be a big win for legacy vehicle owners.
Legacy Vehicles are missing more than just that, though. Due to hardware restrictions, different screen ratios, and more, they’re also missing additional features such as auto seat heaters and blind-spot/turn signal camera feeds. However, getting Sentry Mode Live Access would be a very welcomed feature if Tesla decided to add it with the addition of Actually Smart Summon.
It’s highly likely that all the camera rendering and upload pipeline is tied closely together with Actually Smart Summon, and that the lack of processing capability is the restricting condition for these vehicles.
Tesla released FSD V12.5.4.1 with software update 2024.32.10, just a day after launching FSD V12.5.5 in update 2024.32.20. This is good for several reasons, but they’ve also included improvements for Actually Smart Summon, which Tesla mentions in the release notes.
This build was released to early access testers last night and will likely roll out wider within the week.
Update 2024.32
First, non-FSD builds have been on 2024.32 for quite a while now, and it looks like this will be the big branch merge to bring FSD V12.5.4 (and V12.5.5) to the latest feature branch. Once 2024.32.10 begins to roll out en masse, owners in North America will soon be able to subscribe to FSD and get the latest FSD version.
Update: This is now rolling out this update to users who have bought Enhanced Autopilot as well, and not just vehicles with FSD. This is the first step to expanding Actually Smart Summon globally. Summon capabilities are included for vehicles with Enhanced Autopilot or higher. Enhanced Autopilot is still available for purchase in some regions, but hasn’t been available in North America since Tesla lowered the price of FSD.
Actually Smart Summon Changes
The changelog for Actually Smart Summon for this build is short but adds a few items that users had already identified as needing some work. Tesla is pushing these updates out all in short order – all ahead of the upcoming Robotaxi event.
Improved Public/High-Speed Road Aborts: This one is fairly valuable, as Actually Smart Summon does not function on public roads or anything that has a higher speed. On the current build of A.S.S., it will just stop the vehicle before turning onto a public road. We’re hoping to see the vehicle either properly pull over, or turn around as required and continue back into the parking lot.
Improved Blocked Camera Aborts: The next update is improved block camera aborts, which should be similar, except instead of stopping for public roads or high-speed roads, A.S.S. stops when the cameras are covered up. This improvement should reduce false-stops and increase confidence.
Reduced False Positive Collision Mitigation Aborts: Third we’ve got reduced false positive collision mitigation aborts – again – A.S.S. stops if it believes there will be a collision. It has been fairly cautious in the current build, leaving a wide berth between it and any obstacles. Now that Tesla has gotten training data from the many drivers who have been using it since it was released, there will be fewer false positives going forward.
Refined Dumb Summon: We’re not sure what improvements are here, but it looks like there are general improvements to the previous forward/backward Summon version.
Update: We initially uncovered new summon options in FSD 12.5.4, where you could now have the vehicle play a sound when Summon completes or is aborted. We covered the new options as an undocumented change in our release notes, but Tesla has now expanded its functionality.
With update 2024.32.10, Tesla now lets you pick from a custom sound from your USB drive to play when Actually Smart Summon completes. This is in addition to the previous sound clip choices of Applause, Ta Da, Ba-dum Tiss and a random sound. Tesla also added “fart” as one of the sound choices, which was previously only played when Actually Smart Summon was aborted.
For now, FSD users can look forward to getting improvements to Actually Smart Summon and the features in update 2024.32 and non-FSD users can look forward to subscribing to FSD and receiving the latest FSD build in the near future.
![Tesla Launches FSD for the Cybertruck With Update 2024.32.20 (FSD 12.5.5) [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/cybertruck-full-screen.jpg/20136002e8c6c2b1ecc74a27e07a9602/cybertruck-full-screen.jpg)
