Tesla has officially removed the Sonic game from its vehicles in 2022’s holiday update.
The Austin-based automotive company added Sonic the Hedgehog with its 2021 holiday update, so the game was only available to owners for one year and required a USB controller to play.
In early 2022, Tesla added Sonic to vehicles that did not have data-capable USB ports in the front (only in the glovebox). “A game controller plugged into the glovebox USB port is required,” reads the version 2022.28.1 release notes.
Sonic the Hedgehog in a Tesla
Sonic the Hedgehog is a platform video game that was released in 1991 by Sega for their Genesis gaming system. Players control a blue hedgehog, named Sonic, to run at fast speeds on a mission to overtake Dr. Robotnik, a mad scientist who has locked away animals inside robot bodies while chasing after the Chaos Emeralds.
It’s currently unclear as to why Tesla has removed the game or if it’ll be back. The game may be gone due to a bug or license expiration. Sega first announced that Sonic the Hedgehog was coming to Teslas in December 2021.
With the addition of Steam to some of its vehicles, Tesla may be transitioning away from adding games itself. Instead, they’ll focus efforts on ensuring Steam is running as smoothly as possible on its operating system so users can enjoy the vast catalog of games within Steam's library, including a plethora of Sonic games.
If you have a Model S or Model X with Steam integration, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 is available in the Sonic Origins game; a paid game available on Steam.
Will Tesla add Sonic the Hedgehog back to its own gaming library? It's anyone's guess at this point, but the removal of Sonic was not mentioned in the 2022 holiday update release notes, so it could have been accidental. Tesla is the only one that knows how often these games are played and whether it's worth their time and money adding them. It may make more sense for Tesla to focus on building out other features for owners to use and enjoy.
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Tesla’s refreshed Model Y is currently being manufactured as Tesla prepares for its first deliveries next month. While we’ve already seen quite a few cool new features, there’s more that has yet to be revealed. A recent video interview with Tesla’s engineering team hosted by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley reveals that the vehicle includes a new 4D cabin radar.
4D Radar
While Tesla has included an in-cabin radar since 2022, this appears to be a new, more capable radar. The current cabin radar is used to verify seat occupancy, but Tesla plans to add more functionality to this new system.
This updated radar will be used to provide a lot more detail than the current radar or cabin camera can provide today. The radar is located in the same location as the current version, directly above the rearview mirror.
Classify Passenger Size
This new radar has several new safety-focused features, and they’re all quite exceptional. First off, the radar will detect and classify passenger size to determine which airbags to deploy dynamically. That means that if a shorter individual is sitting up front, the dashboard airbag may not activate - but the curtain airbag will.
That will reduce injuries in impacts from airbag activation while also reducing repair costs by not activating unnecessary airbags. By having a better idea of the passenger’s size, height, and weight, the vehicle can also better determine when to activate the airbag.
Children Left in Car
But that’s not all - because of that classification system, the radar can differentiate an adult passenger from a baby or child sitting in the second row - and automatically make the necessary dynamic safety adjustments.
The cabin radar will also detect heart rate and breathing, and Tesla will automatically send a reminder through the Tesla app if it detects a child is left unattended in the vehicle. If this occurs, the vehicle will perform a variety of functions, the first being to turn on the HVAC system and send you a reminder. And if that’s not enough - in the case of an emergency, your vehicle will automatically call emergency services for you and report its location.
It’s important to note that while vehicles outside North America have eCall capabilities, in North America, they cannot call 911 unless a phone is connected to the vehicle via Bluetooth. We hope that Tesla can contact 911 via an alternative method or add eCall capabilities to these vehicles.
While the refreshed Model Y will be shipping in March, this new radar and its associated features won’t be available immediately. Tesla intends to activate these new safety features in Q3 2025 - so sometime in late summer or early fall. We’ll dive into this new feature once it’s available later this year.
A member of Tesla’s AI development team, Kalena Brown, took to X to mention that an update is on its way for AI 4 vehicles on older FSD V13.2 builds.
It seems that Tesla has caught an issue that has been preventing vehicles from safely updating from FSD V13.2.2 to newer builds such as FSD V13.2.4 or V13.2.6.
The Bug
Tesla usually catches these issues early in testing, but sometimes, they make their way out into the wild, necessitating a stop to a rollout. In this case, the rollout was likely halted to prevent this issue from spreading to other vehicles.
There have been a lot of comments on social media that users haven’t seen an update since late December or early January. While that’s not completely abnormal, this update, version 2024.45.25.5 includes an issue that prevents it from being updated.
Please be patient! Found an issue specific to that update path, but fix is coming soon
Many folks on older builds also waiting and we're working hard to get everyone covered 🙂
Brown says that Tesla is aware of the issue and is working hard to get a build with the fix released soon. It may be a couple of weeks before it’s ready, but you can expect Tesla to roll this one out slowly to make sure the issue is addressed.
The issue appears to be specific to FSD V13.2.2, so anyone on another update should not be affected. Keep an eye out on our feeds - and we’ll let you know once the update is released.