One of Tesla’s latest features included in the 2021.24.4 release is Car Wash Mode. The feature was initially available for all Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and it has more recently been added to the redesigned Model S and Model X. Unfortunately, it’s not available for the older Model S or Model X models.
For the most part, this feature doesn't add anything new. You could already turn off most of these car wash related features manually, but using Car Wash Mode makes it much easier. It also provides a useful status of each feature that is relevant during a car wash so that you can use it as a checklist.
Car Wash Mode can help prevent damage to cars for many owners when using automatic car washes. For example, it’ll lock your charge port door to prevent it from opening when a brush pushes against it. It also disables your wipers, preventing them from coming on and getting tangled or caught in a car wash’s felt strips.
After arriving at a car wash, you can enable Car Wash Mode by going to Car Controls > Service > Car Wash Mode. The car will immediately perform a variety of things for you to get your car ready.
Your vehicle will automatically close your windows and other things to prevent water from getting into the car. This includes the charge port, windows and if your car is equipped with an automatic trunk, it’ll close the trunk for you as well.
It does quite a bit more than just close your windows for you though. It’ll disable your wipers, lock the charge port door, turn off Sentry Mode, disable walk-away door locking and even disable the parking sensor chimes to prevent unwanted beeping during the car wash.
For automatic car washes that use conveyor belts, you will need to put your Tesla into neutral. Now, if you’ve never done that before, it’s not very obvious how to do it in a Tesla.
It requires you to have your foot on the brake pedal while pushing the gear stalk up or down and holding it for a second. Car Wash Mode now makes it very easy to get your car into Neutral. There’s an “Enable Free Roll” button that you can easily tap in Car Wash Mode. You'll need to be in drive and have your foot on the brake pedal for the button to be enabled. No need to mess with the gear stalk anymore.
One of the nicest features of Car Wash Mode is the great overview it gives you of your car and all of its features that are relevant during an automatic car wash.
It’ll display a list of each feature and give you a red or green status light to alert you of any issues. For example, if you left your trunk open, it would show a red light and display “Trunk: Open.”
It’s sort of a car wash checklist with a live status for each feature. It’ll even show you the status of the climate system, which you likely want to turn off or set to recirculating while in the car wash.
On the Car Wash Mode screen, you also have easy access to Screen Clean Mode and the ability to fold your mirrors if needed.
You can exit Car Wash Mode by tapping the exit button or simply by putting your car into Drive and going above 10 MPH.
Car Wash Mode is a nice addition that certainly doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do before, but it sure makes it easier and more enjoyable.
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It was a rainy April 1st when a news-searching author went on a delve into the depths of April Fools to find fact from falsehood. And while we found a lot of fantastic jokes, we also found some good ideas.
So, with a shoutout to MarcoRP on X, whose April Fool’s Joke gave us a good run for our money for a couple of minutes, we thought to ourselves - what would a Cybercab Charging Station / Cleaning Hub really look like?
Cybercab Wireless Charging Sites
Now, before continuing, we’d like to point out that the image up top is a joke from Marco - it isn’t an accurate or real site map submission from Tesla. However, it gave us the impetus to think critically about what is required for a Robotaxi fleet, based primarily on the Cybercab, to be able to service a city.
Requirements
Tesla will likely need to charge a small fleet of Cybercabs at a single time and in a single place. That means that the site needs to be large enough to cover a major metro area while also still being compact enough to not cost too much money to build out.
In addition, we need to factor in charge times. The Cybercab is likely to launch with a battery around 50 kWh, which will result in a range of approximately 300 miles. With that much range, the average Cybercab may not need to charge more than once or at all during daytime shifts, so instead, most of the vehicles will charge overnight.
MarcoRP
Math and Charge Times
The overnight charging means that most of these vehicles could be charged slowly. When we did some back-of-the-napkin math last year, we determined that Tesla’s wireless charger will likely peak around 17 kWh (for comparison, Tesla’s Wall Connector at 32 amps charges at about 7 kWh). If we scale Tesla’s wireless charger down slightly to 10 kWh, accounting for some energy loss and the potential size of the site, that means a Cybercab will be able to charge in about 5 hours.
Tesla’s upcoming V4 Supercharger unit can currently handle 1.5MW per cabinet, but this slower-speed charging is A/C, not DC, which means there is a step-down loss of about 3-5%. Let’s make that a comfortable 10% for any other overages, but we can estimate around 1.35MW of power. That 1.3MW will easily handle charging up to 100 Cybercabs at once - all wirelessly, using Tesla’s unique beam-forming and beam-steering technology to keep efficiency high at every single stall.
Within about 5 hours, a whole fleet of 100 Cybercabs could be charged overnight when electricity rates are cheaper and still be out in time for the morning commute.
While this is all just hypothetical, it really does make sense that Tesla will be establishing these sites that won’t require much space or a ton of energy.
Tesla recently curtained off a large section of the parking garage at Giga Texas, as well as some of their chargers on the eastern end of the facility, leading us to believe they may just be testing this at scale internally.
There’s a lot to look forward to with Tesla’s V4 Supercharger deployment coming this year and with Robotaxi launching in just a couple of months.
Tesla released its Q1 2025 delivery and production numbers this morning, reporting 336,681 vehicles delivered and 362,615 produced—marking the company’s weakest quarter since 2022. Deliveries declined 13% year-over-year and fell well short of Wall Street estimates, which ranged from 360,000 to 370,000. Some analysts had forecast as many as 407,000 units.
Despite the shortfall, Tesla stock is actually up about 4% this morning, not only suggesting the market had already priced in weaker performance, but that this may be seen as the low point for the company. Tesla began delivering its refreshed Model Y in March, and production across all four Gigafactories was impacted by several weeks of downtime as Tesla retooled lines to accommodate the newer model. However, there’s no doubt that there is some brand impact from Elon Musk.
Comparing Numbers
Most of the deliveries—323,800 units—came from the Model 3 and Model Y lineup, while the “Other Models” category (including the Cybertruck, Model S, and Model X) accounted for 12,881 deliveries. That’s a 31% drop for Model 3/Y and a sharper 45% drop for the Other Models category compared to the previous quarter. However, comparing it to a more applicable Q1 2024, these numbers are only down about 13% for the Model 3/Y and down about 24% for the Model S/X and Cybertruck.
In terms of production, Tesla built 345,454 Model 3/Y vehicles and 17,161 from its “Other Models” line. The company attributed the production drop to the Model Y changeover but said the ramp is “going well.” This still leaves a large gap between production and delivery numbers, although they may not be as large as many had feared.
Q1 2025
Q1 2024
Q4 2024
Model 3/Y Deliveries
323,800
369,783
471,930
Model 3/Y Production
345,454
412,376
436,718
Other Models Deliveries
12,881
17,027
23,640
Other Models Production
17,161
20,995
22,727
Total Deliveries
336,681
386,810
495,570
Total Production
362,615
433,371
459,445
Cybertruck
One major weak point in Tesla’s numbers seems to be Cybertruck deliveries. While Tesla previously expected the Cybertruck to sell more than 250k units per year, we’re already seeing a decline in numbers. This is likely due to several factors, including the higher-than-expected price point of the truck, the unavailability of the RWD model, and the Cybertruck’s polarizing design, which may attract unwanted attention right now.
While the Cybertruck was ramping up production in 2024, making the lower numbers reasonable, the deliveries for Q1 2025 dropped drastically compared to the previous quarter. Cybertruck deliveries are estimated to be in the 5- 6k unit range for the quarter.
The good news to take away here is that the Single Motor variant of the Cybertruck appears to be nearing release. The price of the RWD version is expected to be about $60k USD before any incentives.
Q1 Earnings Call
Tesla announced their quarterly numbers this morning and posted on social media that they’ll live stream their Earnings Call on April 22nd.
This post was later edited to change “Q1 Earnings Call” to “Q1 Company Update.” It’s not clear whether there’s any significance in this change, but it could mean that Tesla has more to announce during the call.
The Company Update will occur on April 22nd at 2:30 PM PT / 5:30 PM ET. The standard Q&A session with executives and Musk is expected to follow the release of additional financial results for the quarter.
Tesla is set to launch its long-awaited Robotaxi service in June, and a cheaper, mass-market model is also planned for this year. With delivery numbers coming in soft and the refreshed Model Y just hitting the road, all eyes will be on forward-looking commentary during the update.
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