Tesla Holiday Update coming soon. Here's what may be included

Tesla has historically had a major release almost every year. Some years they release a holiday update that contains exciting new features. Previous holiday updates have included a new user interface, new games, Boombox, Tesla theater and more.

Tesla to deliver 2021 Holiday Update

It's an exciting time of the holiday for most people and Tesla is giving us a little extra to look forward to.

Last year Tesla had a holiday update, but ran into several issues and ended up splitting the holiday update into two parts. The first part was version 2020.48.25 and it was released on December 24th.

Coming soon. Lot of cool stuff.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2021

The holiday update included new games such as Cat Quest, The Battle of Polytopia and Solitaire. Tesla also refreshed the UI, made car visualizations larger and moved the wipers and rear camera buttons to the main navigation bar.

Although some owners weren't a fan of the larger visualization area because it reduced the width available for other apps like music and the web browser, it did give Tesla room to display more visualizations. The visualizations in FSD play an important role in helping the driver understand what the car can see and react to.

On Christmas day Tesla continued the holiday update and released another update, 2020.48.26, which included the Boombox feature.

Unfortunately, part two of the holiday update never officially came. Speculation is that Tesla became swamped with the new Model S software and ran out of time to develop part two of the holiday update.

It's likely that some of the updates that were slated for part two of the holiday update were released separately throughout the year.

Features such as Waypoints, which was recently released in 2021.40.5 could likely have been part of the holiday update. The TIDAL streaming service, Disney+, Car Wash Mode, the ability to disable mirror auto dimming and hotspot support all sound very much like they could have been part of the holiday update.

Unfortunately, Tesla never announced whether these features were originally part of the holiday update or why they weren't released in December of 2020.

Holiday Update 2021

Elon has now said on Twitter that Tesla is planning another holiday update this year, but doesn't give any details on what's in it. Sure, lots of us may be bitter because part two of the last holiday update never officially happened, but it's good to know Tesla is planning for new features this month.

Elon tweeted that the next holiday update is "Coming soon. Lot of cool stuff." Although this message leaves a lot to the imagination, it's fun to speculate what could be included in this update.

We took a look through our Upcoming Features section, which lists every feature that Elon has commented on and we put together a list of possible features that could be included in this year's holiday update.

Share Car through Tesla App

The share your car feature was recently discovered in the new Tesla app's source code. The feature will allow you to share access to your car with someone else for a specified time. Think of it as sharing virtual car keys, complete with an expiration date. Find out how sharing car access will work.

Vehicle Sync

Vehicle Sync will allow you to share your Tesla settings with other Teslas you own or rent. Vehicle Sync will automatically set your preferences such as stopping mode, auto high beams, temperature units and more automatically when you get into a new Tesla. Read more about how Vehicle Sync will work.

Improved Parking Chimes

This feature was recommended to Elon on Twitter and Elon responded and seemed quite fond of the idea. The feature would greatly improve the usefulness of Tesla's parking chime alerts. Instead of the parking sensors generating a generic beeping sound, the volume and direction of the sound would be based on the proximity and location of the object to the parking sensors. So if you were backing up in your Tesla and approaching an object such as a parking lot light pole, you'd hear the parking chime coming from the rear speakers. The closer you would get to the object, the louder the alert would be. Find out more details on the improved parking chimes idea.

Auto Shift

The new Model S and Model X support Auto Shift, which lets your car automatically shift into forward or reverse when coming out of park. Elon has said previously that Auto Shift will not be limited to the new Model S and X, but will also be come to the Model 3 and Model Y. Find out more about Auto Shift coming to other models.

Passenger Seat Presets

Similar to how there are driver profiles that save a driver's preferences, passenger presets would save a passenger's preferences such as seat position and possibly merge the driver's favorite music stations with the passenger's favorites. Read more about passenger seat presets.

Face Recognition

Tesla filed a patent that would use face recognition to set driver profiles. Instead of setting your driver or passenger profile based on which phone was closest to the car, or having to manually select your profile, Tesla could offer simple face recognition that would automatically set your profile for you. This will make a lot more sense when Tesla introduces passenger profiles, as Tesla would likely want to avoid cluttering up the UI with driver and passenger profile buttons. Find out more about face recognition in Teslas.

Apple Music

After Waypoints, this is the most asked for feature in a Tesla. Tesla recently released TIDAL and in the past Tesla has had source code that hinted at additional music services, such as Apple Music. The truth about music services is that the trend will continue and if Tesla adds Apple Music today, then users will ask for Panda, Amazon Music or SiriusXM streaming capabilities. Tesla is full of talented engineers. They're hopefully working on a solution that will generalize music streaming in a Tesla and make it easier to add additional music services. Adding Apple Music capability to Teslas could be 'The Gift' many are hoping for this holiday season. Find out more about Tesla adding additional music services such as Apple Music.

Render Teslas on Display

The ability to identify and display other Teslas on the screen could be just the kind of feature Tesla would incorporate into a holiday update. With the advancements Tesla has made in object recognition, Tesla can pull this off if they choose to. Read more about displaying Teslas on the screen.

Some of these features may show up in this year's holiday update, but like Santa, Tesla always has some surprises up their sleeve as well.

Last year Tesla released the holiday update close to Christmas and since Tesla does staggered roll outs, some owners did not receive the update until after the holidays.

Who knows exatly what's in store for us this year, but we're getting close and it's possible we may see the first sign of this year's holiday update soon. Check out our Upcoming Features section to read about all the features that Tesla may be looking into developing.

Update: We now have more information on the upcoming Holiday Update that may arrive as soon as Tuesday and possibly feature a 'Dancing Mode' for the Model 3 and Model Y.

Update 2: It's confirmed that a Light Show feature is coming to not only the Model 3 and Model Y, but also the Model S. You can view all the known Holiday Update features here.

Update 3: Tesla released many new features in the 2021 Holiday Update. The holiday update was released with version 2021.44.25.

Follow

Follow

Follow

You Can Now Track Tesla’s Robotaxi Deployment

Not a Tesla App

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.

Follow

Follow

Follow

Tesla FSD in Europe: June Update

Not a Tesla App

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.

Follow

Follow

Follow