Tesla's Holiday Update: The 15 Undocumented Features

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While Tesla’s exciting holiday update is now behind us, it left us with amazing new features, such as weather radar, Apple Watch support, mobile Dashcam viewer, SiriusXM, and so many other great features that some of us now use every day.

However, it doesn’t end there. Tesla always includes other smaller changes that don’t make it into the release notes, and the holiday update was a big one in terms of undocumented changes.

We’ll go through all the new features that are now available in your vehicle that Tesla didn’t show in their release notes.

Precipitation Map

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While this feature did make it to the release notes, some users may still not be aware that the Precipitation Map (weather radar) is now available on all Teslas with the Intel infotainment unit (except for legacy Model S/X). This feature was requested so long ago that, honestly, we didn’t think it’d ever be released. All Model 3, Model Y and 2021+ Model S and X vehicles now have access to the weather radar map overlay.

Fart on Sit

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For the Emissions Testing Mode easter egg, you can now have your vehicle fart when someone sits down in their seat.

The sound will come from the direction of their seat. For example, a fart sound will sound from the front-right speaker when someone sits in the front passenger seat. It will play the sound selected in the fart selection box, or play a random fart if you choose "I'm so random."

This option defaults to off after every drive.

Voice Assistant

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You can now say 'Hi' or 'Hello' to your vehicle through the voice command prompt, and the vehicle will respond with "Hello!"

This is the first sign of Tesla adding a smart voice assistant to the vehicle, which is expected to be powered by Grok.

Voice Command Changes

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If you use Tesla's voice commands, there are a few changes. When you press the voice command button on the steering wheel, you may now not get audible feedback that the button has been pressed. This will depend on whether there’s music playing or other circumstances.

When sending a text message through a voice command, you may now have to press the steering wheel button again to start dictation after choosing a recipient. It’s not clear what’s causing this change, as sometimes it goes straight into dictation mode, while other times it ask you to press the button to start dictation.

Equalizer

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You can now reset the equalizer settings with the touch of a button by tapping the new circular arrow to the right of the equalizer. This will bring all settings back down to 0.

Performance Improvements

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Intel users are seeing performance improvements while using the Tesla interface, especially in more demanding areas like Tesla Theater. Videos on YouTube now stutter less and Tesla Theater can be minimized more smoothly than before.

The media controls can now control YouTube videos and other web video content as well, even after the vehicle is put into drive.

Service Mode Updates

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Several screens in Service Mode have been updated to show larger visualizations, such as the Airbags and Seats menu.

Tesla has also introduced several new visualizations to vehicles with the Intel infotainment unit, that were previously only available on AMD-based vehicles. Some of these includes Coolant and HVAC options.

The only new feature in Service Mode is for the Cybertruck under Service Mode Plus, which includes:

Connector Reference (Service Mode Plus): A new Connector Reference panel is available to help find connectors and highlight harnesses on the vehicle. Rotate the 3D model to explore or type in the search bar to find a specific connector.

Rearranged Menus

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With the addition of the Seats menu to settings, Tesla has now rearranged the menu options so that the more used options are now more easily accessible.

The Software menu has been moved up, while other options like Navigation and Trips have been moved down to be close to WiFi, Bluetooth and Upgrades.

Selected Custom Lock Sound

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The currently selected custom lock sound is now shown underneath the Lock Confirmation Sound option in the Controls > Locks menu.

Ambient Lighting Easter Eggs

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The Rainbow Road and Santa Mode easter eggs have been updated on vehicles that include the ambient lighting feature.

There are new options in these easter eggs that let you enable or disable the ambient lighting while the easter egg is active.

If enabled, the light strips will cycle through colors of the rainbow when the Rainbow Road easter egg is enabled. For Santa Mode, the interior lights will cycle between red, green and white.

Updated Energy App

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The Consumption tab in the Energy app has been updated with several changes, including:

• The last 200 miles are now shown, instead of a user-selectable, 5, 15 or 30 miles.

• Instant Range / Average Range has been removed to simplify the interface.

• The average range as moved to the top left and now shows the offset from the vehicle's EPA-rated Wh/mi

• Total energy consumption is now displayed at the bottom left.

• The colors now have different meanings. Before this update, yellow meant the vehicle was using energy, while green meant the vehicle was generating energy through Regenerative Braking. However, now, yellow means that the vehicle consumed more than the EPA average, and green means that the vehicle consumed less than the EPA average and doesn’t necessarily mean it generated energy.

Toll Roads

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When navigating to a destination, the alternative routes menu that is displayed when you first enter a destination will now show you which routes include tolls by displaying a dollar sign icon next to the travel time.

Limiting Explicit Content

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The Exlicit Content toggle under Audio Settings now applies to YouTube Music as well. This now supports LiveOne, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and TIDAL.

Charging Icons

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Tesla has redesigned the charging pins that appear on the map. Supercharger and third-party charger pins are now oval-shaped instead of circular.

Instead of just having the number of charging stalls available, Tesla has added the charging icon to make it more obvious these are charging stations.

Adjust Dashcam Viewer Speed

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You can now adjust the Dashcam Viewer's playback speed. Users can pick from 0.5x, 1x or 2x playback speeds by tapping the playback speed button.

Tire Pressure Indicator

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Tapping the tire pressure indicator will now open the tire pressure card on the left side of the screen instead of opening the Service menu under Controls > Service.

If you ever spot a change that isn’t listed in Tesla’s release notes, we’d love to hear about it!

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You Can Now Track Tesla’s Robotaxi Deployment

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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.

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Tesla FSD in Europe: June Update

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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.

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