All Teslas feature the ability to play games. The reasoning behind this varies, from why not, to helping pass the time when having to charge on a trip. Whatever the reason, it's a nice little addition that Tesla includes. If nothing else, it's great marketing.
Sonic game headed to Teslas
The amount of games available for your model will depend on the MCU processor in your car.
MCU 1 vehicles will have access to Atari classics, Solitaire and others. MCU 2 vehicles such as the Model 3 and Model Y will be able to play a larger variety of games, including more modern games such as Cuphead, Stardew Valley, Sky Force Reloaded and others.
While the latest Model S and Model X cars feature Tesla's MCU 3 giving them the ability to play some PS5 style games, such as Cyberpunk 2077.
Tesla is now adding to the list of games that are available in your Tesla. Last night Elon tweeted that Sonic the Hedgehog is coming to all Teslas.
Sonic, the Hedgehog, game coming to all Teslas!
-Elon Musk
Elon doesn't go into details to describe which Sonic game will be headed to Teslas, but based on historical releases, we are likely to see one of two Sonic games.
The first is Sonic Forces, one of the newest Sonic games. Sonic Forces was released in 2017 and is an action-adventure game developed by Sonic Team.
Since Elon said that Sonic is coming to all Teslas, we expect the game to at least be available to vehicles with MCU 2 and up.
If Tesla added the Sonic Forces game, it will likely be a limited version of the game due to the space constraints on MCU 2 vehicles.
Tesla did something similar with Cuphead where they included the first world of the game.
Another good Sonic game candidate is Sonic Mania, which features various classic Sonic games.
It's likely that this new Sonic game will be a part of the Tesla Holiday Update that Elon said Tesla will be releasing this holiday season.
Update:
Sega has confirmed that they're releasing the original Sega Genesis game, Sonic the Hedgehog on Tesla vehicles.
As the holiday season kicks off, it’s time to turn our attention to our Christmas list of items we’d love to see in Tesla’s annual Holiday update—a tradition that brings some of the most exciting software features of the year. From game-changing additions to fun surprises, the Holiday update has become the most anticipated update each year.
This year’s update promises to be no exception, with Blind Spot Monitoring While Parked already leaking in an employee release earlier this month.
So, grab your hot cocoa and cozy up—it’s time to see what Tesla might have in store for the most wonderful time of the year.
Smart Voice Assistant
Tesla’s current system is a list of voice commands that, while useful, leaves a lot to be desired when compared to modern voice assistants such as Google Assistant and even Alexa. However, a smart voice assistant based on an LLM that uses AI like xAI’s Grok could be coming this season. Elon previously confirmed that Grok would make its way into Tesla vehicles—and what better time than the Holiday season?
Hi-Fi Audio & Dolby Surround Support
Previously, we saw a bug where Apple Music began showing as HiFi for certain tracks in July. We assumed that Tesla would eventually support lossless Hi-Fi audio streaming, but so far, TIDAL remains the only streaming option with high-quality streaming.
Bringing Dolby Atmos support to Tesla vehicles would make even better use of Tesla’s jaw-dropping soundstages. Dolby Atmos delivers an immersive, 360-degree music experience, making it feel like the sound is coming from all around you. This would be the perfect Holiday update feature to make those bells truly jingle.
Tesla has been on a roll with adding music streaming services over the last couple of years. Tesla most recently launched Amazon Music and YouTube Music support. While the biggest players have now been incorporated into Teslas, many users would still love to see Pandora added to the mix.
Adding additional music services means that more users subscribe to Tesla’s Premium Connectivity package, so expect this one to be added as well.
SiriusXM Streaming
While SiriusXM is already available in the Model S and Model X through a satellite receiver, SiriusXM may soon be available to a lot more users. We previously reported on SiriusXM mistakenly publishing a web post revealing a web streaming version of SiriusXM for Teslas, and it has been a few months since then. It's a quick update and seems to have already been partially implemented, given SiriusXM’s website. We could expect this wishlist item to be real, and hopefully soon.
Prime Video
While video streaming integration is much less important than music streaming, it still serves its purpose, especially in vehicles with a rear screen, where videos can be watched while the vehicle is in motion. With Tesla’s addition of Amazon Music this summer, we expect Tesla to add Amazon Prime Video as well.
X Integration
While you can pop open X pretty quickly in the web browser and have a fairly OK browsing experience, it's clear the site is designed for use with a mouse, not your fingers. A dedicated X app would definitely be easier for fans of the platform. Don’t forget to follow us on X or your favorite network (we’re “NotATeslaApp” on just about all of them, including Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky).
Productivity Apps
Zoom is the highlight of Tesla’s productivity apps—and it’s also the only one. With YouTube Music recently arriving, we could see Google Hangouts, Google Meet, and even Microsoft Teams making inroads as productivity applications to have in your Tesla. However, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Tesla App Store
While a suite of productivity apps would be a nice addition, it’s likely not a practical solution for Tesla. With so many available services, it would be a challenge to integrate each one individually.
Elon Musk once hinted at the possibility of an App Store for Tesla vehicles, where developers could create apps specifically designed for Teslas. However, we haven’t seen this come to fruition yet. So, the question remains: Is Tesla still working on an App Store, or is the expectation that users will rely on tablets and computers in their cars?
If Tesla does plan to launch an App Store, they would need to find a way to leverage existing platforms instead of building each app from scratch. One possibility is running Android apps through an emulation layer, allowing access to a wide array of apps from the Google Play Store, such as video streaming, video conferencing, and messaging platforms like Discord and Slack.
Another approach, similar to what Tesla already does with video streaming services, could involve using web-based versions of apps. While many services offer web versions, not all perform as well or provide the same functionality as native apps.
Both solutions are feasible, but we have to consider: What does Tesla gain by allowing users to run any existing apps on the car’s screen instead of using a separate device? While such apps could be useful, we believe Tesla will likely focus on integrating them where it makes sense—like music services—where a custom implementation improves the user experience and keeps the user interface consistent between services. For most other apps, users will probably continue to rely on their phones and other nearby devices.
Steam Games on AMD Vehicles
Tesla previously removed games from its vehicles, as it removed the dedicated gaming GPU in favor of AMD’s all-purpose APU. However, the all-purpose APU can hold its own while gaming, and in fact, the 45-watt 4-core Ryzen chip is fairly beefy. It could definitely hold its own against the mobile Steam Deck, especially since that also uses an AMD-based platform.
Using Valve’s Proton Compatibility Layer would allow AMD Teslas to game, and game pretty well!
This is our third wishlist in our series of features we’d love to be included in this year’s Holiday update. It shouldn’t be too long before we find out exactly what’s in it, but for now, keep those requests coming!
According to a recently published article by Bloomberg, the Trump administration intends to introduce a federal framework for autonomous vehicles. According to members of the administrative transition team, this new framework will be part of the Transportation Department’s list of priorities.
This places Tesla in a good position to begin working towards establishing and expanding its Robotaxi network and getting production, validation, and approval of the Cybercab off the ground.
Legal Limits
Today’s laws have fairly strict requirements for any vehicle that travels on the road—it needs to have steering wheels, pedals, mirrors, and plenty of driver-awareness or driver-assistance safety features. None of these are needed on a Robotaxi, and Tesla’s Cybercab also has none of these items. Instead, with no pedals and no steering wheel, it takes passengers from origin to destination with minimal user input.
The framework for autonomous vehicles could be spearheaded by former Uber executive Emil Michael, who could potentially take on the Transportation Department under the new administration. Uber previously worked on their autonomy program and is potentially a direct competitor to Tesla’s Robotaxi network.
The current regulation, in addition to having stringent hardware requirements, caps the number of autonomous vehicles a single company can operate at 2,500 units per year. This could drastically limit how Tesla’s Robotaxi network functions, especially since it doesn’t need additional high-resolution mapping to work in a specific location. FSD is extremely adaptable and learns on the fly.
Rather than deploying just a couple thousand units a year, Tesla needs to be able to deploy tens of thousands - the more units on the road, the faster they can collect data and iterate, especially with the recent deployment of their new Cortex Supercomputer.
State Laws
There’s one more obstacle to the mass deployment of autonomous vehicles—state regulations. Every state has its own set of regulations, and even with federal guidance and regulations becoming less limiting and more open, every state can choose to establish exactly how much autonomy it wants.
Tesla and other companies like Waymo, which are pursuing autonomous transportation, will have to navigate a regulatory maze to get their vehicles approved at a state-by-state level.
Tesla has already taken steps to get its Robotaxi network off the ground in Palo Alto, an affluent city that has been struggling to provide affordable transportation for its residents. With looser federal regulations, Elon’s timeline of deployments in Texas and California by late 2025 may move even sooner.
This is definitely a framework to watch — with Tesla’s stock up 8% this morning on the news, unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi could be coming quicker than anyone expects.
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