Tesla Releases Update 2024.26 – Automations for Climate and Charging, Weather and New Music Services

July 3, 2024

By Karan Singh

Tesla is introducing the ability to schedule preheating/precooling

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently launched 2024.26 to employees, and this update is packed with so many features, that we may as well call it the Summer Update.

The update has been pushed to “wave 1” employee testers, who usually receive feature updates ahead of time to test for bugs and other issues.

This update has brought some hotly requested features, so let’s go over some of them in detail.

Updated Climate Screen

There is a redesigned climate control panel, which will allow users to “select their comfort settings with ease”. We haven’t seen any images of the updated climate control panel just yet, but we’re scheduling to be built in and have all features on one screen instead of having the front and back seats separated.

Fan Speed Adjustment during Phone Calls

On 2024.26, with climate controls on Auto, fan speed may automatically lower to reduce the sound of ambient noise during a phone call. A similar feature was previously introduced last year in 2023.26, so we expect this to be an improvement to the same feature.

Navigate to Sub-Destinations

As part of the bigger navigation updates coming soon, Tesla has added another feature that uses the updated Google Places API. You will now be able to navigate to sub-destinations, including specific terminals at airports.

This is a change that will be absolutely necessary for Robotaxi but is also extremely helpful for drivers trying to figure out the monstrous interchanges and signs that most modern airports have. Hopefully, this integration continues to be expanded, and we receive additional sub-destinations such as specific parking lots or floors for parking garages, enabling users to park their vehicles as close as possible to the relevant mall or building entrance.

The sub-destination menu mockup preview

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Schedule Charge & Conditioning

With the newly revamped climate menu, Tesla is adding features that have been requested for quite some time. This includes the ability for more granular control of scheduled charging and preheating/precooling options – including scheduling one-off or specific days and times of the week for charging or vehicle conditioning. And it’s all location dependent!

This same feature will also arrive in the Tesla app, which means users will be able to manage all their locations, charge start and stop times, and climate start times as needed.

More Music Services, Games, Weather and More

Music and Weather

Tesla also added a few other awesome features to this update, including YouTube Music and Amazon Music, as well as an updated Weather widget, featuring a weather report and Air Quality Index. Read about it here.

Parental Controls

Tesla has also added Parental Controls to its feature package – focused on safer driving by limiting vehicle top speed, and acceleration, as well as enforcing safety features. Read about the details on this one here.

Games

Tesla has updated some of the games in the Arcade, including an update for Battle of Polytopia and Vampire Survivors, two of its most popular games. Additionally, support has been added for TeslaMic, which works with the updated Caraoke Mode. The TeslaMic may also soon become available for purchase in North America when this update goes to customers – if it matches the Chinese store price, it will cost approximately $160 USD ($220 CAD).

Zoom Meetings

With this release, Zoom meetings will now resize to full screen when the car enters Park, or default to full screen if the car is already parked.

Additionally, you’ll now be able to log in by scanning a QR code on a device that’s already logged into Zoom! That’s a feature we hope comes to more of Tesla’s third-party integrations.

Release Date

Given that it just went to wave 1 employees today, and will most likely need some minimum bug fixing, this could be at least a week or two before it hits customer vehicles. If you’re on the FSD branch, don’t expect to receive this update for a while, as people on FSD V12.3.6 (2024.14.X), are waiting for FSD V12.4.2 on 2024.15.10.

You Can Now Track Tesla’s Robotaxi Deployment

June 15, 2025

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Thanks to Tesla Yoda on X, we have found out that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet is registered on the Texas Department of Transportation’s public-facing Automated Vehicle Deployment website. This makes the fleet’s movements publicly viewable and trackable, and marks a first for Tesla.

This isn’t just any old FSD test - this is the first officially acknowledged, government-tracked, and sanctioned deployment of a Tesla Model Y operating as a ride-share vehicle. But that’s not all - Texas DOT’s tracker notes that the Tesla does not have a safety driver.

View on the Map

Visitors to the Texas DOT website can filter for “Tesla”, and see, currently, a single active vehicle operating in the Austin Metro area. According to the state’s official data, here’s what we know:

Company: Tesla

Description: Ride-share service

Status in Texas: Testing

Safety Driver: No

The final point is definitely the most significant here. While Tesla has been testing FSD with safety drivers for some time in Austin and LA for employee-only testing, this is the first time that a vehicle has been officially registered and deployed on public roads without a human behind the wheel for safety.

The fact that there is no safety driver officially shifts the liability from the occupant of the driver’s seat to Tesla, for the first time in a public setting. That’s already pretty significant - we previously dove into how Tesla plans to insure its own vehicles, and potentially owner vehicles in the Robotaxi fleets.

The status currently lists Tesla as “Testing,” confirming that the service isn’t available to the public, but this is expected to change in the coming weeks.

This testing phase is likely part of a short but crucial period that lets Tesla capture data on the safety levels of its current iteration of Unsupervised FSD without a driver supervising. Tesla already stated that they’d be avoiding difficult areas, so this testing can also expose additional areas Tesla may want to avoid, such as school zones or blind driveways.

Tesla will need to prove, both internally and externally, that FSD Unsupervised has the necessary performance to safely navigate the streets without any incidents.

Regulatory Milestone

For years, the concept of a Tesla Robotaxi has been a future promise. Now, it's a present-day reality, albeit in a testing capacity.

Having an official government body list a Tesla as an active, driverless vehicle shows that they’ve been able to clear regulatory hurdles, which Tesla has often pointed to as the issue. It demonstrates a level of confidence from both Tesla and Texas regulators in the system's capabilities.

While it's just a single vehicle for today, we’ll likely see this list slowly expand over time. Alongside being able to track Robotaxi incidents at the City of Austin’s website, we’ll be able to closely watch Tesla’s progress with its first Robotaxi deployments.

Tesla FSD in Europe: June Update

June 14, 2025

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

The road to bringing FSD to Europe has been a long and complex one and filled with regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles. Elon Musk, as well as other members of Tesla’s AI team, have previously voiced their grievances with the regulatory approval process on X.

However, it appears that there is finally some progress in getting things moving with recent changes to upcoming autonomy regulations, but the process still seems slow.

Waiting on the Dutch

Elon commented on X recently, stating that Tesla is waiting for approval from Dutch authorities and then the EU to start rolling out FSD in Europe. Tesla is focusing on acquiring approvals from the Dutch transportation authority, which will provide them with the platform they need to gain broader acceptance in Europe. Outside of the Netherlands, Tesla is also conducting testing in Norway, which provides a couple of avenues for them to obtain national-level approval.

The frustration has been ongoing, with multiple committee meetings bringing up autonomy regulation but always pulling back at the last second before approving anything. The last meeting on Regulation 157, which governs Automated Lane Keeping Systems, concluded with authorities from the UK and Spain requesting additional time to analyze the data before reaching a conclusion.

Tesla, as well as Elon, have motioned several times for owners to reach out to their elected representatives to move the process forward, as it seems that Tesla’s own efforts are being stymied.

This can seem odd, especially since Tesla has previously demoed FSD working exceptionally smoothly on European roads - and just did it again in Rome when they shared the video below on X.

FSD Supervised testing in Rome, Italy

Pending regulatory approval pic.twitter.com/TXh3uQIfrx
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) June 12, 2025

DCAS Phase 3

While the approval process has been slow, Kees Roelandschap pointed out that there may be a different regulatory step that could allow FSD to gain a foothold in Europe.

According to Kees, the European Commission is now taking a new approach to approving ADAS systems under the new DCAS Phase 3 regulations. The Commission is now seeking data from systems currently operational in the United States that can perform System-Initiated Maneuvers and don’t require hands-on intervention for every request.

This is key because those are two of the core functionalities that make FSD so usable, and it also means that there may not be a need to wait years for proper regulations to be written from scratch. Now, the Commission will be looking at real-world data based on existing, deployed technology, which could speed up the process immensely.

What This Means

This new, data-driven regulatory approach could be the path for Tesla to reach its previous target of September for European FSD. While the cogs of bureaucracy are ever slow, sometimes all it takes is a little data to have them turn a bit faster in this case.

Alongside specific countries granting approval for limited field testing with employees, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for FSD in Europe, and hopes are that a release will occur by the end of 2025. With Europe now looking to North America for how FSD is performing, Tesla’s Robotaxi results could also play a role.