Tesla makes odd move and limits Standard Connectivity; will no longer include nav and more after 8 years

Tesla to limit Standard Connectivity to eight years

Tesla

Tesla has stopped offering free unlimited Standard Connectivity for new vehicle orders.

According to Teslarati, vehicle orders placed after July 20, 2022 will include free Standard Connectivity for a period of eight years.

The EV automaker will notify owners when their free Standard Connectivity is about to expire. Tesla’s Connectivity section on their Support page reads:

“All new Tesla vehicles ordered on or before July 20, 2022, will have Standard Connectivity features at no cost for the lifetime of the vehicle (excluding retrofits or upgrades required for any features or services externally supplied to the vehicle - e.g. telecommunications network). As additional features and services become available in the future, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your connectivity plan.”

At $9.99 per month or $99 for a year, Premium Connectivity is worth the upgrade right now.

The contrast between Standard and Premium Connectivity is quite drastic; there aren’t many reasons to argue for staying on Standard. I think the live traffic visualization and music streaming are worth $9.99 alone.

The features included in Premium Connectivity further enhance the vehicle’s features and are important for the full experience of owning a Tesla. Premium Connectivity also includes live traffic visualization, satellite-view maps, video streaming, Caraoke, live Sentry Mode view, and a few others.

“An important part of all Tesla vehicles, further enhancing the driving experience providing access to features that require data usage - including streaming music and media, live traffic visualization, and more,” reads the Tesla Connectivity page on their Support section.

Tesla has yet to say what the price of Standard Connectivity will be since the first cars to expire are still eight years away, but we can speculate it may end up being somewhere around $5/month.

Currently if you do not subscribe to Premium Connectivity, you can still use some of the premium features such as music streaming or watch Netflix if you're connected via a Hotspot or WiFi connection. However, Tesla has added a new footnote to their site that suggests this may not always be the case.

The new footnote reads that items such as music and video streaming, internet browsing, Caraoke and others are "Currently available over Wi-Fi for Standard Connectivity."

It appears that Tesla either has plans to make these features exclusive to Premium Connectivity subscribers or that they're at least leaving the door open to change their minds in the future.

Although Tesla doesn't explicitly call it out on their website, it's expected that you will not need Standard Connectivity to use the Tesla app and that functionality will remain intact with or without Standard Connectivity.

Tesla compares their Standard and Premium Connectivity options

Tesla

The features that will no longer work without Standard Connectivity will include maps, navigation and voice commands. There may be others as well if Tesla adds any new features that require connectivity in the coming years.

Tesla will still include WiFi and cellular connections in the vehicle so that the app and software updates continue to function properly, so this comes across as a small money grab by Tesla.

The actual bandwidth costs for Tesla are very small since Standard Connectivity doesn't feature any bandwidth extensive features. To take away a feature like navigation seems odd, especially since it takes up two-thirds of the screen in a Model 3 or Model Y and the owner has no way to replace the maps with anything else.

It may have been preferred for Tesla to raise the price of their vehicles by a few hundred dollars (assuming Standard Connectivity would cost $5/month or $60/year) rather than reduce the functionality of the vehicle.

If we look at this in a slightly different way, it looks like Tesla is essentially going to charge a monthly subscription for the use of its navigation system, which isn't a great look for the leader in car software.

This is one feature I hope Tesla backtracks on.

Follow

Follow

Follow

Tesla Denies WSJ Report Claiming Board is Replacing Elon Musk

YouTube/NYT Events

Tesla has issued a strong denial in response to a Wall Street Journal report (Paywall) which claimed that Tesla’s Board of Directors had initiated a search for a new CEO.

In a statement posted directly on Tesla’s X account, Board Chair Robyn Denholm denied the report unequivocally. As per the statement, Tesla’s board did not reach out to recruiting firms in search of a new CEO.

Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company.

This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published).

The CEO of Tesla is…

— Tesla (@Tesla) May 1, 2025

Board Supports Elon

The statement reaffirmed the board’s position on Tesla’s current leadership and that the board is highly confident in Elon’s ability to continue executing Tesla’s plans and future growth.

This confidence behind Elon follows his recent statements made during the Q1 2025 Earnings Call that he would be stepping back from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the coming days and significantly reducing time spent there. Instead, he would be returning to focus on Tesla’s operations and the upcoming deployment of Robotaxi.

Shortly after the denial was posted, Elon Musk also commented on the report, specifically tagging the Wall Street Journal and criticizing their handling of the report.

It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the @WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors! https://t.co/9xdypLGg3c

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2025

We’re glad to see Tesla and Elon set the matter straight, but there could have been a better way to spread this message and maybe even prevent the report from WSJ from going out.

We recently published an opinion piece on why Tesla needs its PR team back, and this specific incident is a good example. Relying solely on platforms like X for critical corporate communications - and in this case, late at night (1 AM EST), with limited reach outside the existing follower base seems like an ineffective way of communicating important company information.

We’d love to see Tesla really put some thought into managing its image, as it seems that several recent reports from major financial news organizations have apparently been wrong.

Either way, the board’s stance is clear - there is no active search underway, and Elon has the full backing and support of the board to lead Tesla toward the future.

Follow

Follow

Follow

Tesla Megapack: How Tesla Is Reinventing Global Energy Infrastructure

Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s Megapack is rapidly becoming a key component in energy storage and grid modernization efforts worldwide. Though often associated with powering AI infrastructure or industrial operations, Megapack’s true strength lies in its ability to stabilize electrical grids during blackouts and brownouts.

In a recent behind-the-scenes reveal, Tesla showcased the impressive scale of Megapack production at its Mega Lathrop facility, along with real-world examples of how these systems are already transforming energy resilience across the globe.

Mega-Scale Megapack

Tesla is operating the largest utility-scale battery manufacturing facility in North America at Mega Lathrop, which has the capacity to produce 10,000 Megapacks annually. Thanks to a highly automated assembly process that uses over 30 welding robots to assemble the core Megapack structure. This is the largest manufacturing fixture Tesla uses— likely to only be matched by future developments at Mega Shanghai.

Tesla uses a highly automated powder coating process, utilizing over 90 robotic paint atomizers to apply more than 140 pounds of powder coat to each Megapack. This process delivers Tesla’s signature white reflective finish, engineered for long-term durability and corrosion resistance that lasts up to 20 years, even in harsh coastal or high-heat environments.

All of Megapack’s power electronics are designed and built in-house. Each Megapack uses 24 battery modules, electrical busing, and thermal management systems to ensure grid reliability and help to maximize energy density. The architecture pairs each inverter with a battery module to maximize energy availability and overall uptime. Plus, before each Megapack ships its way across the world, Tesla performs rigorous on-site quality control to ensure that the installation process is as seamless as possible.

Watch Tesla’s video of the manufacturing process below:

Megapack’s Real-World Impact: Hawaii

The core purpose of Megapack is to make power grids more stable and resilient while also reducing reliance on dirty peak power plants like coal. They achieve this by balancing energy supply and demand in real-time, smoothing out fluctuations from variable renewable sources like solar and wind, which helps to prevent grid shortages.

Hawaii actually provides the most real and down-to-earth example of Megapack’s impact. In mid-2024, the Kapolei Energy Storage facility in Hawaii came online. Hawaii utilized 258 Megapacks with a combined capacity of 565 MWh, successfully replacing the state’s last coal-fired power plant. This single facility can power approximately 20% of Oahu’s peak electricity needs by itself for approximately 4 hours.

The project is more than just removing coal plants, though. It serves as an example of Megapack’s grid integration and grid forming technology. The Kapolei Energy Storage facility can manage grid fluctuations caused by weather changes impacting renewable energy, improving stability and preventing blackouts. Thanks to their rapid inverter response times of under a millisecond, Megapacks participate in complex grid balancing activities, including fast frequency and voltage support, which helps to maintain grid balance throughout the day. Beyond that, Kapolei also allows Hawaii to black-start the grid in case of a major power outage that takes out a large section of the grid.

This functionality would be especially useful in Spain, where black-starting the grid took over eight hours recently and is still disrupting the day-to-day life of people there.

You can check out Megapack’s real-world impact in this video from Tesla below:

Follow

Follow

Follow