Tesla Gets 75 New Games - Titles Such as Cut the Rope Arrive Thanks to YouTube Playables

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Teslas have had games through Tesla Arcade for many years, but now thanks to Google’s new initiative, they just gained access to 75 new, full-screen titles. YouTube Playables lets you enjoy games using just a web browser, whether it’s on your phone, computer, or in your vehicle.

YouTube’s new Playables include fairly popular mobile game adaptions, including classics like Cut the Rope, Chess, Daily Crossword, Element Blocks, and others.

How to Access Playables

The easiest way to access the new games in your car is to open up the YouTube app in Tesla Theater. YouTube is requiring users to sign in to use Playables. Once you’re signed in, you can navigate to Playables or open search, and type “Youtube Playables.” The list of Playables will appear as a horizontal bar. On the right side of the bar, a “See All” button will appear.

There are currently more than 75 games on YouTube Playables, and YouTube intends to add more as time goes on.

Full Screen or Windowed Play

You can also play games in a smaller window view

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Thanks to Tesla opening up YouTube in a full-screen window, you can enjoy games full-screen, just like Tesla’s other Arcade titles. However, you can also play the games in a smaller windowed version by tapping the icon on the top-left corner. This is useful if you want to access other vehicle controls such as climate as well.

Game Compatibility

YouTube Playables works on Intel and AMD vehicles, and since they just use the browser, they don’t require a download. On Intel-based cars, there’s a noticeable lag in some games, but most games are still enjoyable and playable on the older MCU. While the loading experience is fine on AMD vehicles, it is fairly slow on Intel vehicles. All games use the vehicle’s touchscreen and don’t currently support controllers, however, these are adapted mobile games which rely on having a touchscreen device.

Future of Games on Tesla

With Tesla recently removing Steam from newer vehicles, and now with YouTube’s announcement of 75+ browser-based games, it seems that Tesla’s game ambitions may change. While YouTube Playables can’t compare to the titles that were available on Steam, most users don’t need to play Triple-A titles in their car. If they choose to load up a game, it’s mostly to pass a little bit of time.

Now that Teslas have access to almost a hundred games on top of what Tesla already offers, we may see Tesla’s efforts change since the casual gaming need is already being fulfilled by someone else. Tesla may instead choose to pour time and resources into other Tesla features or provide a unique gaming experience like they’re doing with the addition to Beach Buggy Racing - Supercharger Races. This special edition of the game lets you set the fastest lap at your local Supercharger and climb up your Supercharger’s leaderboard.

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A how-to on accessing 75 new and free games in your Tesla using Youtube’s new Playables list!!! pic.twitter.com/Fr3s87MCEK

— Parker (@TeslaEnthusist) June 2, 2024

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Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

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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.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

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.

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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

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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

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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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