Each year, Tesla releases a massive Holiday Update, packed with new features, quality-of-life updates, and fixes to lead into the Holiday season, and 2025 is no exception. This eagerly awaited update will definitely be something to look forward to.
If you’re not familiar with Tesla’s holiday updates, take a look at what they released in previous years. There are plenty of features we expect to arrive, but the real fun is speculating about what else Tesla might be cooking up, and taking some user input to boot.
Last year’s Holiday Wishlists managed to get quite a few items checked off the list.
The Tesla App has come a long way since last year, with major highlights including Apple Watch support and Live Activities for Charging and for Service on iOS.
Android Watch App
Tesla most recently added Apple Watch support - but we’d love to see the equivalent for Android users as well. Adding the capability shouldn’t be too challenging, as Tesla already has most of the parts in place, especially now that they’ve developed a Watch-specific UI.
Just a matter of implementation - and for many Android users, it would be a fantastic holiday gift.
Smart Ring Support
With the next big thing for wearables being Smart Rings, it would make sense for Tesla to provide official NFC or Bluetooth support on those devices in the near future. We’d imagine such support would come when Apple releases its own planned smart ring, with support for other rings to potentially follow in the future.
Third-party rings already exist, but they rely on cloning a keycard to function. Having baked-in Bluetooth support would mean you could get into your Tesla with just a ring — no phone or awkward tap on the B-pillar required.
Improved Scheduling
While we can now set a schedule to precondition a vehicle on certain days through the app (or car), there are still some improvements that could be made. For example, instead of automatically preconditioning to the last set temperature in the vehicle, it’d be nice to be able to specify the temperature you want to precondition to.
Live Updates (Live Activities for Android)
Tesla launched Live Activities for charging and service for iOS earlier in the year - and Google just launched Live Updates, the Android equivalent, for the latest versions of Android.
Once again, ensuring parity between the two largest ecosystems is the goal here, as the design work is already done — it is just a matter of implementation.
Expanded Lightshow Support
Today, you need to use a completely clean USB for custom LightShows, set up and configured in a particular way. That means using a second USB drive that doesn’t allow for Sentry Mode or Dashcam recordings.
Tesla should first address the USB issue, then enable us to upload Lightshows directly from our phones to our vehicles - after all, the files are generally only a few megabytes, and much smaller than the Dashcam videos already available in the app.
Garage Door Controls
Your Tesla can already open your garage door if properly set up, whether with MyQ or with a standard garage door opener. However, you can only open your primary garage door, and not any of the others. Getting proper garage door controls in the app would be a fantastic addition.
Lock Sound Support
While we all love Tesla’s custom lock sounds (check out our list of hundreds of sounds), which play a custom sound file when the vehicle is locked, we’d love to see them integrated into the Tesla app.
Currently, you need to download the sound file and manually add it to the USB drive in the vehicle. While it’s an amazing feature, allowing us to add the sound file through the Tesla app would make it much more convenient, especially if you like to switch up your sound once in a while.
FSD Stats
Tesla recently added FSD Stats with FSD v14.2, letting drivers see exactly what percentage of miles are driven on FSD. While owners with Tesla Insurance can already see similar stats, it’d be a great addition to see these new FSD Stats in the Tesla app, letting users easily look at and share their own statistics.
Autopilot Status
The Tesla app is great and gives you a lot of insight into the vehicle, including where it's headed, its arrival time, and its current speed. However, we’d love to see whether the car is being driven on Autopilot or manually.
Arrival State of Charge
A popular request among Tesla owners is the ability to set a desired battery charge percentage upon arriving at a destination. Last year’s holiday update added this feature to the vehicle software, but the app has yet to see a similar feature.
Tesla has added several features to the app’s Trip Planner, including waypoints. Although the app lets you choose a starting charge percentage, it does not allow you to select the state of charge at your destination.
If you’re traveling somewhere without a nearby charger, this becomes an issue. It’d be nice if the Tesla app let users pick their desired state of charge at arrival, the same way it lets you select it in the car.
Precondition Battery Button
Similar to an in-vehicle preconditioning button for third-party chargers, the Tesla App should also have a button to precondition the battery. This will make it easy for users, especially those who don’t have home charging – to get their vehicles ready for DC Fast Charging before departing.
Additional Visualizations
The Tesla app already has some amazing visualizations that leverage the same 3D models used in the vehicle.
Recently, Tesla launched charging visualizations in the vehicle. We’d love to see these same visualizations added to the app. Tesla could also add other visual components that show up in the vehicle such as other vehicles, parking lines, etc.
Improved Music/Video Controls
While the Tesla app lets you control some aspects of music in the vehicle, they’re limited to volume control, pausing/playing, and previous/next song.
We’d love for Tesla to expand these options so that users in the rear have more control over the vehicle’s music. This could include selecting the music source and searching for and playing a specific song or playlist.
While all of these features won’t be a part of this year’s holiday update, we may see one or two of them implemented this holiday season. Which one are you looking forward to the most?
Other Wish Lists
Be sure to check our our other holiday wishlists, including some features that we expect will be included in this holiday’s update.
