Tesla recently added support for YouTube Music and Amazon Music in its most recent update – 2024.26.3. Tesla now offers 9 music services in its vehicles: Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Online Streaming (through LiveOne, formerly Slacker Radio), Caraoke, TuneIn, and traditional FM radio.
That’s quite a slew of options, but there are a few popular services remaining — notably SiriusXM and Pandora. While Tesla doesn’t cover every niche, this list now covers most users.
Amazon Music - Free Tier
On the music front, we recently reported that Tesla may soon offer Apple Music with Hi-Fi support, but it seems like Hi-Fi support isn’t being included with Amazon Music – even with a Premium subscription. However, unlike Spotify, which requires a premium subscription to play on a Tesla at all, Amazon Music can be played in a free tier.
The Amazon Music Interface
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In the free tier, you’ll be able to access music, curated playlists, Amazon Radio, and podcasts. You’ll still have ads, and you won’t be able to pick the specific songs you want. The next tier, Amazon Music Prime (through Amazon Prime), will provide you with ad-free music, and song selection. Both services are limited to one device streaming per account.
The highest tier – Amazon Music Unlimited, also provides lossless Hi-Fi audio and bit-perfect Hi-Fi, but not in Teslas. We could hope that this changes in the future, and Amazon and Tesla expand their offerings to include Hi-Fi audio in-vehicle. In terms of streaming, there are individual and family plans, supporting one device or up to six at once for the Unlimited tier.
YouTube Music
YouTube Music doesn’t offer lossless or offline support but does come bundled with YouTube Premium – which you can use by logging into the YouTube app on your Tesla to get ad-free video.
There is an individual plan for single-device streaming and a family plan for up to 5 concurrent devices.
Interface Commonality
The YouTube Music Interface
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One of the nicest things that Tesla has done here is to make the interfaces between the streaming services very similar. This means that each music service has a consistent, similar, Tesla-orientated interface. You can swap through them and maintain the same basic set of controls. Tesla works hard to integrate third-party services and we’re use many users will enjoy these additional streaming options.
Both of these services are available without Premium Connectivity while on WiFi or connected via a phone’s hotspot, but they require Premium Connectivity to stream while on LTE.
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For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.
Price Increase
The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.
The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series.
The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.
Free Lifetime Supercharging
For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.
There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.
We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.
Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.
Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.
Optimus is Blind
Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.
Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.
Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.
What’s Next?
Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.
Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.
There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.
We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.
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