First Look at Tesla’s New 'Energy App' Feature in the Tesla App

By Nuno Cristovao
Tesla will let you view how your vehicle is consuming energy via the Tesla app
Tesla will let you view how your vehicle is consuming energy via the Tesla app
Not a Tesla App

Another new feature has landed in the Tesla app. With Tesla app 4.16.1 Tesla appears to be testing the new 'Vehicle Range' feature that breaks down how your vehicle used energy during its last trip and while parked.

Richard Lopes from Watts on Wheels, a fully electric car rental service in Portugal noticed Tesla is testing this feature in select regions. The new Vehicle Range feature is very similar to the new Energy App that was introduced in vehicles last year with update 2022.36.

Vehicle Range

Vehicle Range lets you view how your vehicle used energy during its last trip and while parked. Similar to the vehicle's Energy App, Vehicle Range breaks down energy use into several categories including Driving, Climate, Elevation, Battery Conditioning and Everything Else.

If you're already familiar with the Energy App in the car, then you can expect to see almost the same thing in the app, with a few exceptions. It appears Tesla removed a few features to presumably simplify the interface on your phone. The app appears to only allow you to view the overall expected range called 'Trip,' while in the vehicle you can switch between Tesla's projected range and the rated range. The trip projection takes driving, road and environmental factors into account, such as the driving speed, road elevation, ambient temperature and the direction and speed of the wind.

The feature will be available in the Service area of the app and can be accessed by tapping Service then Vehicle Range.

Tesla app source code revealed that this feature was coming to the app in a future update, but it looks like Tesla may soon be ready to launch it for everyone.

Availability

Tesla seems to be testing this feature in select regions and vehicles only as it's currently not available for most users. Tesla has a history of testing features in select vehicles or countries before making them available to a wider audience.

Tesla likely has this feature limited to select users based on a server-side configuration, which would allow Tesla to launch the feature at any time, however, they may also want to make fixes that may require an app update.

Legacy Model S and Model X

What's interesting is that this feature is available on legacy Model S vehicles, which do not yet support the new Energy App feature in the vehicle.

This may mean that Tesla is not only planning to support the new Energy App in legacy vehicles but may add support in an upcoming vehicle update soon.

Tesla Smoking While Supercharging? A Look at What's Actually Happening

By Karan Singh
Hot_Engineering3140 on Reddit

Winter is here, and temperatures are dropping, so one of the most common Tesla questions is about to resurface.

If you’ve landed here after frantically searching about “smoke” coming from your Tesla while Supercharging, take a deep breath—it’s completely normal.

Tesla Smoking While Charging

If you’re Supercharging in freezing weather—even with preconditioning—you might notice steam rising from your Tesla. But rest assured, your car isn’t smoking.

Your Tesla’s heat pump is hard at work warming both the cabin and battery to keep you comfortable and ensure optimal charging temperatures. Over time, condensation and ice build-up in the heat exchanger coils.

Why Does It Happen?

When you reach a Supercharger with your vehicle, the heat pump is still running hot, but without the cold air from driving to keep the heat exchanger coils cool, the ice and condensation quickly start to evaporate—creating what looks like smoke.

Since this typically happens near the front of the vehicle, where a car would traditionally have an engine, new vehicle owners can be startled by the discovery. However, rest assured that it’s just water vapor and it’s completely normal in cold weather.

In fact, this behavior can be experienced in any EV with a heat pump in cold climates. So, if you saw steam coming out of your vehicle and panicked, don’t worry—you’re not alone.

Now that you know what’s happening, go ahead and Supercharge with confidence.

Tesla Improves YouTube App With Smoother Playback

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla made a lot of improvements in the 2024 Holiday Update, including more than 15 undocumented improvements that were included in the release. One of these was a stealthy performance improvement to the YouTube app.

Several people have mentioned they’ve seen improved performance on YouTube since this year’s Holiday Update - and there’s an interesting reason why.

YouTube Improvements

The improved YouTube performance in Tesla vehicles comes from an unexpected source—Tesla actually rolled back support for YouTube’s newer AV1 video encoding. Instead, vehicles now default to the older VP9 encoding standard.

While AV1 is highly efficient in terms of bandwidth, it requires considerably more processing power to decode and display videos. VP9, on the other hand, is less computationally demanding but uses more bandwidth to achieve the same video quality. This trade-off means smoother playback and better overall performance, even if it comes at the cost of slightly higher data usage.

Intel Inside

The VP9 video codec that the YouTube app is now using is much easier to decode, making it less taxing on the vehicle’s processor. This change is particularly beneficial for Tesla vehicles with Intel processors, which previously struggled to stream video at just 720p. When using AV1, these vehicles often experienced stuttering, sometimes forcing the YouTube app to automatically downgrade playback to 480p.

With this update, Intel-based Teslas should now be able to stream at 1080p smoothly. Streaming at 1440p is also possible, although occasional stutters still occur as the system keeps up with the decoding process.

Intel-based vehicles are the big winners with this change, but this appears to affect AMD Ryzen-based infotainment units as well, providing even smoother playback.

Chromium Web App

Tesla’s Theater apps aren’t native applications; instead, they run as chromeless web apps, leveraging the open-source browser built into Teslas known as Chromium (the open-source version of Chrome). Although this works quite well, there is a severe limitation - Chromium hardware acceleration isn’t supported on Linux, the operating system Tesla uses for their OS.

As a result, Tesla vehicles rely on software decoding instead of hardware decoding, which would otherwise handle video playback far more efficiently. A potential solution could be for Tesla to transition away from Chromium-based web apps in favor of a Mozilla Firefox-based browser, as Firefox does support hardware acceleration on Linux. This switch could also open the door to better streaming performance and the possibility of expanding Tesla’s in-car entertainment options.

However, Tesla’s choice of Chromium likely stems from Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements for streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix, which rely on DRM-enabled playback. Firefox on Linux has had inconsistent support for DRM due to codec availability and variations in operating system versions.

We’re hopeful that Tesla will either adopt Firefox or develop a fully native application to improve video streaming, rather than continuing with the current web-based Tesla Theater. This shift could also pave the way for additional in-car applications built on Tesla’s native Linux environment—perhaps even reviving the long-rumored Tesla App Store.

Regardless, this update is a welcome improvement, particularly for YouTube, which remains one of the most widely used Theater Mode apps due to its accessibility, free content, and mix of short and long-form videos. It remains to be seen whether similar improvements are made for Netflix, Disney+, or other streaming platforms.

If you’ve noticed improved performance in Theater Mode, now you know why.

View All Upcoming Features

Latest Tesla Update

Confirmed by Elon

Take a look at features that Elon Musk has said will be coming soon.

More Tesla News

Tesla Videos

Latest Tesla Update

Confirmed by Elon

Take a look at features that Elon Musk has said will be coming soon.

Subscribe

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter