Tesla Enhances App with Destination Charger Integration and Ability to Filter and Sort

October 17, 2023

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla is testing adding more charging options to its app

Not a Tesla App

Tesla lets you easily view and navigate to nearby Superchargers in their app, but they're now testing out some additional features that will give you more charging destinations and options to find the best charger.

Destination Chargers

In Tesla's latest app update, v4.26, Tesla is testing adding more charging locations to the app. The app will now display Destination Chargers alongside its own Superchargers. This modification has appeared in the app north of the border, but our Canadian friends can also see Destination Charger locations in the U.S.

Adding thousands of chargers in the Tesla app drastically broadens the charging options available to Tesla owners. Right now, Tesla only includes Superchargers and Destination Chargers in the app, but this may soon open the door to third-party charging solutions as well.

Filter and Chargers

Further enhancing user experience, the Tesla app in Canada now gives users more control. Owners can filter charging points based on power and charger type, whether private or public. But it goes further by filtering for available amenities such as restrooms, restaurants, shopping, Wi-Fi, lodging, cafes, and open 24 hours. This targeted approach ensures drivers find the most compatible and convenient charging station.

The app also introduces the ability to sort available chargers in various ways. You can now sort by distance, power (low to high, or high to low), as well as availability. As Tesla adds more chargers to the app, these filters become increasingly useful.

Reduced Dependency on Third-Party Apps

Third-party charging apps like PlugShare, ChargePoint, and Electrify America have been indispensable tools for EV owners. They offer comprehensive charging station lists, real-time availability, user reviews, and more. But Tesla's new feature could reduce the dependency on such apps for its car owners. By integrating some of these features within their own app, Tesla aims for a streamlined user experience.

In Europe, Tesla already displays third-party fast chargers in the vehicle to provide a more comprehensive look at available chargers. Tesla may offer the same capability in other parts of the world in the future, either through the app or the maps in the vehicle.

Supercharger Monitoring & Predictive Analysis

Tesla's Supercharger monitoring system

Not a Tesla App

Tesla places a big emphasis on providing fast and reliable charging solutions. They closely monitor their Superchargers and recently announced that they will go beyond displaying real-time details of Superchargers and predict the availability and possible wait times of a Supercharger at your arrival.

Tesla's move to integrate Destination Chargers into its app demonstrates its commitment to the great charging experience. While it's still early days and only available in Canada, Tesla is likely to expand the feature in an upcoming update. If rolled out globally and refined further, Tesla owners might need a single app for all their EV charging needs. As the electric vehicle ecosystem evolves, seeing how other brands and third-party apps respond to these innovations will be interesting.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

December 11, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

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.

Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

December 11, 2024

By Karan Singh

Robert Rosenfeld / YouTube

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.