Tesla now offers an extended warranty in some regions
Not a Tesla App
Tesla has begun offering an extended warranty called Extended Service Agreement (ESA) in the U.S. The service provides further coverage for eligible vehicles following an accidental leak last year on their mobile app.
You may recall Tesla unintentionally revealed a new extended warranties program when version 4.11.0 of the mobile app went live in July 2022. A new item appeared in the Upgrades section titled Tesla ESA, priced at $7,700.
The description was unclear, with several grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and poor formatting, suggesting that it was not ready for public consumption. It was unknown whether the ESA was being prepared for all models or if the price was a placeholder.
Fast forward to today, Tesla's Vehicle Extended Service Agreement (Vehicle ESA) is now officially available for eligible Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y owners. The Vehicle ESA commences when the Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty expires and ends upon reaching the selected time or mileage threshold, whichever comes first.
Eligibility and Coverage
To be eligible, the new vehicle must be purchased directly from Tesla, and the Vehicle ESA must be purchased no later than when the Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty expires.
Pricing
The pricing for the Vehicle Extended Service Agreement (in USD) is:
Model S (2 years or 25,000 miles, whichever occurs first): $3,100.00
Model X (2 years or 25,000 miles, whichever occurs first): $3,500.00
Model 3 (2 years or 25,000 miles, whichever occurs first): $1,800.00
Model Y (2 years or 25,000 miles, whichever occurs first): $2,000.00
These prices are notably lower than the previously leaked $7,700 price tag. The Vehicle ESA purchase price does not include applicable state and local taxes.
The new ESA covers Model S built between 2012 and 2020, and Model X built between 2015 and 2020. There are no similar production date limitations for Model 3 and Model Y.
Unfortunately, there is no grace period. The ESA must be purchased before the Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty expires (4 years or 50,000 miles). This means 2018 and some early 2019 Model 3 sedans are not eligible.
Exclusions and Deductible
The ESA covers the repair or replacement necessary to correct defects in the materials or workmanship of most parts manufactured or supplied by Tesla during the coverage period. However, it does not include the high-voltage battery or drive unit, which have their own standard 8-year warranty.
Tesla clarifies that the ESA is not a Maintenance Plan and will not cover wear and tear items like brake pad replacements.
The deductible for Model 3 and Model Y is $100 per visit, and it's believed it will be $200 for Model S and Model X.
How to Get ESA
To purchase the ESA, open the Tesla mobile app, go to the 'Upgrades' tab, and select the 'Extended Service Agreement' option. Follow the prompts to complete the purchase, and the ESA will be added to your account. It's important to note that the ESA only takes effect after your Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty expires. It can be transferred to the next owner, which the company says can improve aftermarket value.
Tesla's Vehicle Extended Service Agreement has evolved from last year's accidental leak to its current official offering. This additional protection aims to provide greater peace of mind and an improved ownership experience for Tesla customers.
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Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.
Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.
Steam Launch
When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.
In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.
However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.
SteamOS Update
The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.
Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.
Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles
Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.
AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.
While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.
The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.
Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?
The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.
While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.
We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.
As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.
However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.
Not a Tesla App
Weather At Destination
When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.
Note the weather under the arrival time
Not a Tesla App
You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.
You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.
And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.
Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.
The weather pop-up above the ETA
Not a Tesla App
One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.
Weather Radar Overlay
As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.
You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.
Requirements / Data
Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.
As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.