The inside of a car can get extremely hot in summer months. It doesn’t take much before the temperature inside of a vehicle becomes dangerous. For you, your loved ones or your little furry friends.
Tesla's Dog Mode screen
Not a Tesla App
Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you have a pet with you, but you need to run to a store. Even with your windows cracked, it’s a bad idea to leave your pet in the car on warmer or cold days.
Introducing Dog Mode
Tesla solves this problem with Dog Mode. Since Teslas are electric, there’s no engine that needs to run, meaning you can run any system in the car without needing the car to remain on. This includes the heater and air conditioner.
Dog Mode allows you to set the temperature in the car, just like you’d set it at home, and the car will keep the interior of the vehicle at that temperature until you return. It doesn’t matter whether the cabin needs to be heated or cooled, the car will control the HVAC to keep the vehicle at the selected temperature.
Letting Others Know Your Pet is Safe
Since leaving your pet alone in a vehicle isn’t normally a good idea and people may not be familiar with Tesla’s Dog Mode, Tesla also displays a message on the screen.
Tesla does a great job at letting bystanders know that your pet is safe inside of the car. Once Dog Mode is activated, a message will display on the car’s large center screen letting people know your pet is safe.
The screen will show a cute picture of a dog and display a message that states, “My driver will be back soon.” It will furthermore let them know to not worry, and that the heater or AC is on and it will display the current temperature inside of the car.
What Happens If the Battery Gets Low
The car will only let you activate Dog Mode if your charge level is above 20%. This is to be sure that there’s enough of a charge to keep your pet cool or warm and a buffer for you to get home.
If you have enabled Dog Mode and the battery reaches 20%, Tesla will send you a notification on your phone letting you know that the battery is getting low and that you should return to your car.
Dog Mode will remain on as long as possible until the car runs out of battery.
How Long Can You Leave Dog Mode On
The heater or air conditioner is getting power directly from your car’s battery. Besides driving, climate control is one of the largest draws of power. The amount of power actually consumed, or the amount of time your car can remain in Dog Mode is entirely dependent on the outdoor temperature and how much energy the car needs to use to keep the cabin at the selected temperature.
A rough estimate is that your car will use about 4 miles of range per hour in which the climate system is on. This will differ based on whether you’re using the heater or AC, your Tesla model and the outside temperature.
Which Models have Dog Mode
Dog Mode is a standard feature available in Tesla Model Y, Model 3, Model S and Model X. You do not need to have Tesla’s Premium Connectivity in order to receive notifications from your Tesla or to control your Tesla from the Tesla app.
How to Turn On Dog Mode
To activate Dog Mode you’ll need to be inside of the vehicle. Tap on the fan icon along the bottom navigation bar and you should see the HVAC screen come up. Toward the top right corner, you’ll see different modes, such as On, Dog and Camp.
Touching Dog Mode will activate it as soon as you leave the car. Just set your temperature and you’re all set.
How to Turn Off Dog Mode
Once you get back in the car and start driving, Dog Mode will automatically turn off. If you come back for just a minute and leave again, Dog Mode will remain on.
Dog Mode is a fantastic feature and shows a clear benefit of electric cars, where you don’t need to have the engine on in order to power the HVAC system. Please use it with caution and don’t leave your dog or pet unattended for long periods of time.
Tesla owners know the drill: spot a quirk or bug, sound the alarm on X, and watch the cavalry charge in with an oncoming fix. The latest Cybertruck saga unfolded exactly that way, turning a rather frustrating drivetrain hiccup from the most recent software update into a prime example of what makes a software-defined vehicle.
In an era where traditional automakers drag their feet through recalls and force owners to schedule day-long dealership appointments for minor software fixes, Tesla’s OTA pipeline keeps its vehicles updated at light speed.
The Spark
It all started with a series of complaints on X from Cybertruck drivers. While the complaints were initially sporadic, one owner finally narrowed down the issue into two key problems that were noticed with the latest 2025.38 software update.
The first issue was an intermittent accelerator pulsing when maintaining a steady speed on the road, especially at higher speeds. The issue feels like a loss of vehicle control, almost as if the motor controller is misfiring. This would happen whether using FSD or not - meaning it wasn’t isolated to just a few drivers.
The results are a jerky ride that loses the smoothness the Cybertruck has on the road.
The second issue was with battery preconditioning. With software update 2025.38, the Cybertruck will begin preconditioning as soon as you navigate to a Supercharger—even if it is hours away and you’re at 100% state of charge.
This leads to a significant loss of range due to wasted energy from early preconditioning.
The Response
Enter Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s Lead Engineer, on Stage X. Spotting the thread, Wes jumped in with a direct reply - the team was already aware of the drivetrain issue, and the engineering team was already working on a fix.
No pushing it off to another team, no sending the vehicle to service—just acknowledging the issue and noting that it's already being addressed. This wasn’t happenstance either - Tesla’s internal telemetry likely flagged the anomaly from fleet data, or from Tesla’s own internal testers. Still, the public exchange on X made the entire issue more transparent.
Tesla treats X as the unofficial war room for Tesla—whether it's for FSD quirks or bugs like this one. Tesla’s engineering teams are deeply involved with the community on X, meaning they see issues pop up right when everyone else does, often leading to fixes coming faster than expected.
The Magic
True to form with Tesla, an OTA update is already in the pipeline, promising to iron out both issues without requiring a single trip to a service center. This is one of Tesla’s biggest advantages, and one that no legacy automakers have managed to replicate years later.
Software-defined vehicles patch themselves seamlessly, often while simply parked in your driveway. With legacy automakers, a similar drivetrain glitch might result in a stop sale, months-long engineering investigation, parts shortages, and mandatory in-dealership recall and repair visits.
That said, owners can likely expect this fix to roll out in the coming weeks as Tesla’s engineers resolve the issue and deploy it.
Tesla’s Cybercab was unveiled as the ultimate expression of autonomy. No steering wheel, no pedals — just a two-seater passenger cabin, with storage in the rear, and priced under $30,000 USD. All are built with a single goal: to get passengers and their cargo from point A to point B — cheaply and without human intervention.
Yet in an interview with Bloomberg, Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm revealed a pragmatic contingency plan to address regulatory issues. If required, Tesla will slap a steering wheel and pedals on the Cybercab and sell it in volume. This isn’t the future Elon Musk sketched out on a Hollywood backlot at ‘We, Robot’ last year, but it does seem like it’s plan B.
Contingency Measures
“If we have to have a steering wheel, it can have a steering wheel and pedals,” Denholm told Bloomberg. The statement is blunt, almost casual, but it carries massive weight. Tesla’s board is laser-focused on delivering the Cybercab, which will see volume production next year.
This focus has shifted away from the long-promised affordable EV—after all, why buy your own compact car when you can just summon an autonomous, easily and cheaply available Robotaxi whenever you need it? Now, Tesla needs to navigate a complex maze of regulations around autonomous vehicles.
Denholm’s comments echo internal precedent. Tesla already deployed its initial Robotaxi fleet using Model Ys with steering wheels and pedals, retaining the ability to take over in the event of a safety infraction, but Tesla is on pace to remove safety monitors by the end of the year. Plus, Cybercab prototypes shown in 2024 already featured steer-by-wire architecture, meaning adding physical controls is an engineering footnote, not a redesign. With production slated for 2026, this contingency ensures that Tesla can ship the Cybercab regardless of NHTSA’s final stance on unsupervised autonomy.
Regulatory Realities
The NHTSA caps autonomous vehicles without traditional controls at 2,500 units per manufacturer annually—a limit that rendered GM’s Cruise Origin unviable and forced its shutdown earlier in 2025. Waymo sidesteps this requirement by re-equipping production vehicles that already have pedals and steering wheels with its sensor and compute package. Because these items are mechanical, they’re still functional in the vehicle - but touching them will cause the vehicle to come to a safe stop and call rider support.
Tesla faces the same challenge. Without physical controls, the Cybercab could become a niche product stuck under regulatory constraints, and slapping on a steering wheel is Tesla’s solution to prevent that. Tesla has been lobbying the NHTSA to change the autonomy regulations, but no straightforward change has been put in place yet.
This Isn’t the $25K Affordable EV
With a steering wheel and a pedal, the Cybercab moves from an autonomy-only vehicle to an autonomy-first one instead. It becomes a mass-market EV that takes advantage of Tesla’s innovative unboxed method and a uniquely simplified exterior to cut production costs.
However, let’s be clear - this contingency plan isn’t Tesla’s preferred outcome, and it should not fuel expectations of a sub-$25,000 Model 2 redux. Elon has repeatedly called traditional affordable cars pointless in the context of the autonomy-first roadmap. The steerable Cybercab simply remains a fallback to satisfy lagging regulators, not as a pivot towards budget consumers.
Bridging Autonomy with Volume
Adding controls buys Tesla time and revenue. A human-drivable Cybercab can launch in 2026, gather real-world FSD data under supervision, and fund the unsupervised fleet that Elon is envisioning. It also neutralizes regulatory risk as states look to mandate specific safety requirements for autonomous vehicles that aren’t present in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
The steerable variant could slot below Model 3 Standard pricing, preserving margin while autonomy matures and regulators catch up to advances in technology.
Global Competition
As Chinese manufacturers flood markets with sub-$20,000 EVs and legacy manufacturers also examine the sub-$30,000 price bracket, competition in this space is fast-paced and growing.
Tesla’s contingency plan lets Cybercab compete on price and production scale without waiting for full FSD Unsupervised clearance. If Tesla has to add a steering wheel to the Cybercab, they’d likely do so via steer-by-wire, which would also give them the ability to disable controls via an OTA update once regulations change.
This isn’t a surrender, but a backup plan to ensure that the Cybercab gets on the road as fast as possible while autonomy and regulators play catch-up.
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