Kimbal Musk Predicts when Driving will be Fully Autonomous
YouTube/Graham Bensinger
Kimbal Musk, stepping out from the shadow of his famous brother, Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, is the focus of a series of interviews on the YouTube channel Graham Bensinger. The video showcases Full Self Driving technology in action, with Musk engaging FSD on his Model S to navigate autonomously to their location. This demonstration, particularly striking to Bensinger, who appears unaware of Tesla's advancements, really illustrates the potential of FSD and how many people don’t understand it.
The Road to Full Autonomy: Challenges and Breakthroughs
However, Musk is candid about the challenges ahead, particularly the regulatory hurdles that Tesla must overcome. He predicts that full autonomy could be achievable within five years, contingent upon navigating the intricate landscape of government regulations and ensuring the technology meets rigorous safety standards.
During the interview, Musk parallels the seismic shift from gas cars to Teslas, like the Blackberry to the iPhone. The host seems unaware of many of Tesla’s features, including asking about the “custom” steering wheel. It is a yoke steering wheel which Musk explains is not merely a design novelty but a strategic step towards the future of autonomous driving. Musk envisions a scenario where traditional steering mechanisms become obsolete, making way for vehicles that drive themselves with minimal human intervention. Drawing an analogy between the shift from Blackberry to iPhone, Musk captures the essence of technological evolution, where radical changes often become the new normal.
The Future of the Automotive Industry: Tesla's Impact
Tesla's journey from the Model S launch to the most recent Cybertruck unveiling encapsulates a decade of unparalleled innovation. Musk highlights the Model S as a hallmark of Tesla's achievements, emphasizing its role not just as an electric vehicle but as a symbol of luxury, performance, and sustainability. His preference for the Model S stems from its spaciousness and pioneering status, which he likens to the revolutionary impact of the Model T Ford.
As interesting as Kimbal Musk's comments were, the short video's most striking element is the lack of awareness the host has about FSD and Tesla. The host is not alone. If you have FSD, you’ve likely seen the same surprised expressions when your car starts navigating independently. It serves as another reminder that Tesla most make the public more aware of the technology and counter the negative attention given to FSD through mainstream media.
One of the upcoming features of the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update is the ability for Tesla owners to make custom wraps for their vehicles. The wraps will be displayed in the vehicle’s visualizations and in the Tesla app. You’ll also be able to select one of the wraps Tesla has provided if you prefer not to make or download your own.
This feature will roll out to the Cybertruck next week with the Holiday update, but it will be available for other models in the future as well.
Making your own wrap is super easy and takes just a few minutes. It doesn’t even require any special tools or software because Tesla provided a template.
Making a Custom Wrap
We’ll walk you through the steps to create your custom wrap. All you’ll need is an image editing program and an image editing program.
Download the Template
Tesla has all the details on their Github repository for Custom Wraps, but you can simply download the template below and open it in your favorite image editor like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP or even Windows Paint on Windows 11. Any software that supports layers will work.
Image Editor
Open the template in your image editor and create a new layer on top of it. You’ll want to edit on this new layer, not on the template layer, which we’ll hide later.
The template, in all its glory.
Not a Tesla App
Create the Wrap
Go ahead and work your artistic magic—here, we’ve taken a graffiti rendition of Not A Tesla App and our logo and placed it within the template's bounds.
Flex those creative muscles!
Not a Tesla App
Hide the Template
Go ahead and hide the template layer - you can also delete the layer if you want. This standalone image doesn’t look like much, but this is what we need for the final step.
Looks a bit simple right?
Not a Tesla App
Export
You’ll want to export the image with transparency - so it needs to be a .png file. You'll be good to go as long as it's the same dimensions as the template. We’ve gone ahead and exported our custom NATA wrap here - feel free to download it and let us know how it looks once you get the 2024.44.25 update.
The completed product.
Not a Tesla App
A couple of technical limitations:
The image must be 1024x768 pixels.
File Size max is 1MB.
You can’t use any special characters in the file name, and it must be shorter than 30 characters.
PNG is the only acceptable file format
You can load up to 10 images on your USB drive
Add Wrap to USB Drive
The last, and easiest step. Grab your USB drive, and create a folder called “Wraps” at the root level of the drive. Place your images in there, and you’re all set.
Load a Custom Wrap
Not a Tesla App
After placing the images on your USB drive and inserting it in your vehicle, you can then open Toybox > Paint Shop, and tap on Wrap. From there select your wrap from the custom list of images.
Tesla’s upcoming Holiday update introduces exciting new personalization features, giving you even more ways to customize your vehicle.
Building on the existing Colorizer feature, which lets you change the car’s color, the update will allow you to add a custom wrap and a license plate to the vehicle’s visualization. Both of these features will affect the vehicle's visualization on the screen and in the Tesla app.
While these features were originally announced to be exclusive to the Cybertruck, Tesla has now clarified and said that they will be available for other models in a future update. We expect them to be introduced for the Model 3 (new and old), Model Y, and the redesigned Model S and Model X.
Wrap & license plate customization coming to other models in future updates
Tesla announced custom wrap visualizations as part of the 2024 Holiday update for the Cybertruck. They’ve provided a template and instructions on how to design your own custom wrap and also included a few in-house designs, including the “unhinged” Doge wrap, the Cybertruck Graffiti wraps from the Baja Off-Road testing, and the Release Candidate wraps, amongst plenty of other simple ones. In all, it looks like Tesla will be providing 27 designs.
However, making your own wrap is actually very simple, and we’ll be providing instructions on how to create your own. Once these arrive for other vehicles, the instructions will likely be the same.
License Plate Visualization
Not a Tesla App
You’ll also be able to create custom license plates to show on your vehicle visualization. You’ll be able to choose custom text, and then also include a background - with plain colors, a stock image, or upload your own image.
If you have custom plates in real life, this is your chance to make your visualization perfectly match your vehicle.
Release for Other Models
Tesla hasn’t provided a timeline but said the feature would arrive in “future updates” in their post on X. It seems that it won’t be arriving with the upcoming Holiday update for all vehicles but will instead make its way to the S3XY lineup over the next few months.
We expect it to arrive sometime in early 2025. We’re super excited to see these come to more vehicles, so in the meantime, show us your best custom Cybertruck wrap on social media or our forums.
