Additional Language Support
One of Tesla's brilliant moves was moving to a mostly touch interface and getting rid of countless physical switches and buttons. We're not going to pretend this doesn't have some downfalls, but it is brilliant at the same time.
As Tesla updates the car's firmware throughout the years (keep in mind the original 2012 Model S is still receiving updates), it can change or add features to the car it originally had no plans to offer.
A few examples are adding streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and other music services like Spotify and Apple Music (coming soon) to the car. Other examples include adding a dashcam, sentry mode or the ability to call emergency services in the event of a crash (also coming soon), but where the brilliance really shines is in cost-savings.
Every manufacturer wants to offer as few configurations and parts as possible to reduce operating costs. By leveraging the touch screen, Tesla saves a significant amount of money, not only on not having to manufacture buttons for all these features, but not having to adapt interior designs to accommodate them or even creating different buttons for various markets and languages.
Localization is important as Tesla expands and gains popularity in additional markets. Elon Musk has now said in a recent tweet that Tesla's car user interface will soon be available in Russian, in addition to the many languages it already offers today. In typical Elon fashion he has replied "We will do it," in Russian when replying to a user's tweet of when Tesla's software will be available in Russian.
Tesla has recently added support for Polish and Portuguese languages and will continue to add more.
Looks like Tesla is preparing introduction of additional UI languages: Catalan, Greek, Croatian and Slovenian.
— green (@greentheonly) August 8, 2020
We expect Russian support to be added soon. According to "GreenTheOnly" on Twitter, we may receive more than Russian support in a future update. He has noticed support for additional languages in recent firmware updates. We may soon see support soon for Catalan, Greek, Croatian and Slovenian. Tesla's vehicles are now offered in a slew of languages, although voice navigation is still limited to English, Spanish and French as of this article. We hope Tesla will soon focus on this area as well.
This should come as very welcomed news to users in some of these markets.
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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2021
