Tesla’s Halloween Mode is officially here. After teasing it last week, Tesla is now rolling out the feature with software update 2026.38.3, and it goes well beyond just a new car avatar. In its announcement on X, Tesla says the update turns your car into “a haunted house on wheels.”
Halloween Mode joins Santa Mode as Tesla’s second holiday transformation. The release notes invite owners to “spread holiday fear year round,” which suggests it’ll stay in the Toybox after October, much like how you can play around with Santa Mode any time of the year.
Your Tesla Turns Into a Ghost
Once enabled, you can turn your car’s avatar into a ghost: a glowing white sheet draped over the vehicle, complete with soulless eyes. In Park, the full-screen visualization swaps its usual backdrop for a graveyard with a full moon, a haunted house, withered trees, glowing jack-o'-lanterns, and a zombie hand clawing out of the dirt. Open a door, and the ghost car opens its door too, with the fabric cloth still covering the vehicle.
The theme carries over to driving. On the visualization, your car remains a ghost while nearby vehicles turn green as if infected with ectoplasm, and pedestrians become walking skeletons. If you’re using Full Self-Driving (Supervised), the path ahead also changes from blue to purple.
Trick or Treat, Light Show, and a Scary Voice
Trick or Treat works like a spookier Sentry Mode. Turn it on, and when you exit the vehicle, your Tesla will play spooky sounds and flicker its lights when visitors approach, while still recording footage like Sentry Mode normally does.
There’s also a new Halloween light show, new lock sounds (we have a few more if Tesla’s doesn’t tickle your spooky bone), and Halloween-themed wraps, including a black finish covered in white ghosts and bats. Photobooth gets a holiday makeover too, framing your shots as Polaroid-style prints captioned “Happy Halloween” and “Trick or Treat,” and introducing spooky new stickers.
Boombox joins in as well. Speak through the Tesla app, and your car will repeat it in a new scary voice instead of the usual robotic one. Tesla warns that side effects of these shenanigans “may include neighborhood notoriety.”
What Else Is in Update 2026.38.3
Halloween Mode is confirmed for vehicles with AMD-powered infotainment systems, while support for Intel-based models hasn’t been confirmed yet. Intel-powered vehicles won’t get the fullscreen parked scene or Photobooth knick-knacks since those features are exclusive to the graphics horsepower of newer AMD Ryzen systems anyway. However, Intel vehicles already support custom wraps and lock sounds, so those should carry over. The Halloween-themed driving visuals, though, remain a question mark for now.
The same update also brings Emergency Drive Away, which lets you immediately break away from a Supercharger in an emergency, and Powershare Home Backup for new Model 3 and Model Y.
Update 2026.38.3
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With Halloween just over three weeks away, update 2026.38.3 should reach most owners before trick-or-treaters start showing up.
