Tesla Launches Third Party App Support: Granular Sharing Options and Support for Tesla Solar

By Kevin Armstrong
Tesla will allow you to chosoe which data to share
Tesla will allow you to chosoe which data to share
Not a Tesla App

It wasn't long ago when we spotted a seemingly innocuous addition to the Tesla account settings - a "Third Party Apps" option under Profile Settings. Though initially without functionality, this subtle hint sparked speculation about Tesla's plans to support third-party apps.

Fast forward to today, and the rumors have materialized into reality, marking a transformative chapter in Tesla's growth. Standard Fleet's integration is leading the charge, a milestone showcasing the promise and potential of such partnerships.

Standard Fleet: Offering Security and Functionality Like Never Before

Created by Apple veteran and Tesla enthusiast David Hodge, Standard Fleet is the first third-party service to be officially supported by Tesla, marking a turning point in Tesla's relationship with external developers.

Standard Fleet is an intelligent solution designed with Tesla owners in mind. It offers seamless management of Tesla ride-sharing and EV-sharing without additional hardware. Instead, users can sign in with Tesla, and they have the assurance that their passwords and accounts remain confidential, thanks to the OAuth protocol. It’s a new way to manage fleets, and it’s as simple as signing in with your Tesla account.

The platform has already won the trust of major players in the industry, including Revel in New York and MisterGreen Electric Lease in Europe. These businesses are leveraging Standard Fleet's features to effectively manage thousands of Tesla vehicles. Hodge briefly commented on this breakthrough to Teslarati, “Teslas are fantastic fleet vehicles. We have nearly 100,000 EVs connected and are thrilled to make this step to improve how we can support our innovative EV Fleet customers.”

Data Sharing With Privacy In Mind

Tesla's new Third-Party Apps management feature allows users to easily manage supported third-party services, letting owners view or discontinue use of any service at any time. Since authorization goes through Tesla, third-party services would lose access to the owner's data when the user removes the service from their account. However, more importantly, Tesla also allows granular control over what data is shared.

When granting access to a third-party service with 'Sign in with Tesla,' you'll be able to choose the data you want to share. Tesla breaks down the data for Tesla products in the following categories.

Profile Information

Contact information, home address, profile picture, and referral information

Vehicle Information

Vehicle live data, location, eligible upgrades, nearby superchargers, ownership, and service scheduling data

Vehicle Commands

Commands to access Sentry Cam, add or remove driver, unlock, wake up, remote start, and schedule software updates

Vehicle Charging Management

Vehicle charging history, billed amount, charging location, commands to schedule, start, and stop charging

Solar Energy Data Sharing

Tesla isn't limiting data sharing Tesla vehicles either. You'll be given the option to share and let third-party services manage your Tesla Energy products such as Tesla Solar and Powerwall as well. Similar to sharing data for your vehicle, you'll also be able to choose from two categories for solar.

Energy Product Information

Energy flow history, saving forecast, tariff rates, grid import, calendar, site status, time of use, and ownership

Energy Product Commands

Update storm mode

These new options bring a new layer of privacy and choice to Tesla owners, allowing them to limit whether third parties can unlock, wake up, or start their vehicles.

The Future Lies Ahead

Although Standard Fleet is the first and currently only third-party service to be supported, exciting possibilities such as Apple Maps EV routing and enhanced functionality on other services are now within reach. It's only a matter of time before Tesla opens up official support to more services.

Tesla Plans Massive 10x Robotaxi Expansion: A Look at the Potential New Area

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

With Tesla’s first major expansion of the Robotaxi Geofence now complete and operational, they’ve been hard at work with validation in new locations - and some are quite the drive from the current Austin Geofence.

Validation fleet vehicles have been spotted operating in a wider perimeter around the city, from rural roads in the west end to the more complex area closer to the airport. Tesla mentioned during their earnings call that the Robotaxi has already completed 7,000 miles in Austin, and it will expand its area of operation to roughly 10 times what it is now. This lines up with the validation vehicles we’ve been tracking around Austin.

Based on the spread of the new sightings, the potential next geofence could cover a staggering 450 square miles - a tenfold increase from the current service area of roughly 42 square miles. You can check this out in our map below with the sightings we’re tracking.

If Tesla decides to expand into these new areas, it would represent a tenfold increase over their current geofence, matching Tesla’s statement. The new area would cover approximately 10% of the 4,500-square-mile Austin metropolitan area. If Tesla can offer Robotaxi services in that entire area, it would prove they can tackle just about any city in the United States.

From Urban Core to Rural Roads

The locations of the validation vehicles show a clear intent to move beyond the initial urban and suburban core and prepare the Robotaxi service for a much wider range of uses.

In the west, validation fleet vehicles have been spotted as far as Marble Falls - a much more rural environment that features different road types, higher speed limits, and potentially different challenges. 

In the south, Tesla has been expanding towards Kyle, which is part of the growing Austin-San Antonio suburban corridor spanning Highway 35. San Antonio is only 80 miles (roughly a 90-minute drive) away, and could easily become part of the existing Robotaxi area if Tesla obtains regulatory approval there.

In the East, we haven’t spotted any new validation vehicles. This is likely because Tesla’s validation vehicles originate from Giga Texas, which is located East of Austin. We won’t really know if Tesla is expanding in this direction until they start pushing past Giga Texas and toward Houston.

Finally, there have been some validation vehicles spotted just North of the new expanded boundaries, meaning that Tesla isn’t done in that direction either. This direction consists of the largest suburban areas of Austin, which have so far not been serviced by any form of autonomous vehicle.

Rapid Scaling

This new, widespread validation effort confirms what we already know. Tesla is pushing for an intensive period of public data gathering and system testing in a new area, right before conducting geofence expansions. The sheer scale of this new validation zone tells us that Tesla isn’t taking this slowly - the next step is going to be a great leap instead, and they essentially confirmed this during this Q&A session on the recent call. The goal is clearly to bring the entire Austin Metropolitan area into the Robotaxi Network.

While the previous expansion showed off just how Tesla can scale the network, this new phase of validation testing is a demonstration of just how fast they can validate and expand their network. The move to validate across rural, suburban, and urban areas simultaneously shows their confidence in these new Robotaxi FSD builds.

Eventually, all these improvements from Robotaxi will make their way to customer FSD builds sometime in Q3 2025, so there is a lot to look forward to.

Caught on Video: Tesla FSD Tackles a Toll Booth — Here’s How It Pulled It Off

By Karan Singh
@DirtyTesLa on X

For years, the progress of Tesla’s FSD has been measured by smoother turns, better lane centering, and more confident unprotected left turns. But as the system matures, a new, more subtle form of intelligence is emerging - one that shifts its attention to the human nuances of navigating roads. A new video posted to X shows the most recent FSD build, V13.2.9, demonstrating this in a remarkable real-world scenario.

Toll Booth Magic

In the video, a Model Y running FSD pulls up to a toll booth and smoothly comes to a stop, allowing the driver to handle payment. The car waits patiently as the driver interacts with the attendant. Then, at the precise moment the toll booth operator finishes the transaction and says “Have a great day”, the vehicle starts moving, proceeding through the booth - all without any input from the driver.

If you notice, there’s no gate here at this toll booth. This interaction all happened naturally with FSD.

How It Really Works

While the timing was perfect, the FSD wasn’t listening to the conversation for clues (maybe one day, with Grok?) The reality, as explained by Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI, is even more impressive.

FSD is simply using the cameras on the side of the vehicle to watch the exchange between the driver and attendant. The neural network has been trained on enough data that it can visually recognize the conclusion of a transaction - the exchange of money or a card and the hands pulling away - and understands that this is the trigger to proceed.

The Bigger Picture

This capability is far more significant than just a simple party trick. FSD is gaining the ability to perceive and navigate a world built for humans in the most human-like fashion possible.

If FSD can learn what a completed toll transaction looks like, it’s an example of the countless other complex scenarios it’ll be able to handle in the future. This same visual understanding could be applied to navigating a fast-food drive-thru, interacting with a parking garage attendant, passing through a security checkpoint, or boarding a ferry or vehicle train — all things we thought that would come much later.

These human-focused interactions will eventually become even more useful, as FSD becomes ever more confident in responding to humans on the road, like when a police officer tells a vehicle to go a certain direction, or a construction worker flags you through a site. These are real-world events that happen every day, and it isn’t surprising to see FSD picking up on the subtleties and nuances of human interaction.

This isn’t a pre-programmed feature for a specific toll booth. It is an emergent capability of the end-to-end AI neural nets. By learning from millions of videos across billions of miles, FSD is beginning to build a true contextual understanding of the world. The best part - with a 10x context increase on its way, this understanding will grow rapidly and become far more powerful.

These small, subtle moments of intelligence are the necessary steps to a truly robust autonomous system that can handle the messy, unpredictable nature of human society.

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