Tesla Cybertruck Video Reveals New UI Features; Undergoes Bulletproof Testing

New Cybertruck video reveals updated to the user interface

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The Cybertruck is Elon Musk's new daily driver. Tesla's CEO said he would trade in his Model S for the stainless steel beast, and it appears he did so after taking a public drive over the weekend.

An Electric Appearance at the Formula 1 Race

Musk and his son surprised Formula 1 fans when they appeared at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. The event, situated close to Tesla's Gigafactory, became even more of an extravaganza when the Cybertruck was spotted at the Circuit of the Americas. It's hard to take any attention away from the F1 cars and drivers, but fans swarmed Musk and his Cybertruck.

It's worth noting that this isn't Musk's first rodeo with the Formula 1 world. Earlier this year, he engaged in insightful discussions on aerodynamics and battery technology during the Miami Grand Prix. He even floated the idea of a race merging electric vehicles and traditional F1 machines, suggesting a face-off between EVs and gas/hybrid F1 vehicles. While critics were quick to point out the existence of Formula E, Musk's vision indicates a profound interest in the melding of traditional racing and electric vehicle technologies.

Closer Look at the Cybertruck UI

We recently had a closer look at the Cybertruck's UI which revealed the Cybertruck will have its apps lined up vertically along the left side of the screen. However, one of yesterday's videos, shown below, shows that the passenger will also have access to its own set of app icons alongside the right side of the screen.

In the video, the passenger's app icons appear to mimic the driver's, although it's likely that the passenger will be able to customize their own apps in the dock. At the top right and bottom right corners of the screen there appear to be other icons, although it's too blurry to make out what they could be. The bottom right icon almost appears to resemble a profile icon, which could be Tesla's long awaited "passenger preferences" feature. Passenger presets would let the passenger have their own set of preferences such as seating presets, favorite apps, playlists and more.

It's worth noting that this isn't Musk's first rodeo with the Formula 1 world. Earlier this year, he engaged in insightful discussions on aerodynamics and battery technology during the Miami Grand Prix. He even floated the idea of a race merging electric vehicles and traditional F1 machines, suggesting a face-off between EVs and gas/hybrid F1 vehicles. While critics were quick to point out the existence of Formula E, Musk's vision indicates a profound interest in the melding of traditional racing and electric vehicle technologies.

In the photo, we can also see that Tesla is experimenting with or moving the repeater cameras to the top of the rear camera view in the app. The Cybertruck will have a front bumper camera that is expected to be available in the camera app as well.

Lil X waves goodbye to the crowd while riding in Cybertruck pic.twitter.com/QWZHHDUalr

— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) October 23, 2023

Cybertruck's Bulletproof Claims Put to Test

Tesla conducted a bulletproof test on the Cybertruck; you read that right. Pictures and video made the rounds on social media, showing a Cybertruck marred by what appeared to be bullet holes. Still, upon closer inspection, they were dents caused by bullets.

Elon Musk didn't leave fans in suspense for long. He promptly confirmed that the Cybertruck had been shot at "Al Capone style" with a Tommy gun, adding that none of the bullets breached the passenger compartment. Despite initial skepticism stemming from the truck's glass-shattering incident during its unveiling in 2019, the recent test bolsters the Cybertruck's claim of being impenetrable.

Bed Racks Showcase more Customization

The Tesla Cybertruck is spotted with a roof/bed rack

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Adding to the list of Cybertruck features, roof/bed racks were spotted on the vehicle during recent sightings. These are the same that were seen during the truck's Baja run that was used to support a Starlink dish.

These racks add an element of utility and style to the already unique vehicle. Tesla has hinted at the possibility of several third-party accessories being available for the highly capable truck. The bed racks indicate the diverse accessory ecosystem accompanying the Cybertruck upon its official release.

As the delivery event looms, we await more details about this bold, bulletproof, stainless steel, "best product ever made," Cybertruck. The price may be helpful. With more than one million reservations, many people are waiting to see how much they will spend to get a Cybertruck. See you on November 30.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

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.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

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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.

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