Tesla Music Streaming Services and Apps (Spotify, TIDAL, Slacker, TuneIn and more)

Tesla supports various music services

Not a Tesla App

While Teslas are filled with a plethora of industry-leading features, new owners are often surprised by the incredible quality of the Tesla audio system and its audio features.

In fact, it is believed that Tesla’s sound systems are on-par with premium Bang and Olufsen systems ($12,000 optional sound system in vehicles like the Audi A8). Elon Musk even admitted in a tweet that they used former Bang and Olufsen engineers to design the audio systems found in the Model 3 and Model Y.

Tesla continues to refine the audio experience for Tesla owners, as indicated by the release of the new subwoofer equalizer settings as of update 2021.44.25.

With this incredible audio experience standard across all models, it should come as no surprise that music streaming is a priority for Tesla.

Premium Connectivity

Part of the selling points of Tesla’s Premium Connectivity is the seamless music streaming abilities offered by Tesla.

With a Premium Connectivity plan, drivers can easily stream audio without the use of cellphone pairing solutions or Bluetooth streaming.

Bluetooth Audio

If a Tesla driver chooses not to purchase the Tesla Premium Connectivity Plan, they can stream audio via Bluetooth from their cellphone.

Audiophiles would point out that the act of streaming via Bluetooth degrades the quality of the music to compress the data stream for wireless transmission. A physical connection with a USB cable connected to a cellphone is not currently supported by Tesla.

Hotspot

In addition, drivers can use their cellphone as a hotspot, allowing the vehicle to stream audio such as Spotify using their device's data connection.

When using your device as a hotspot, you'll have access to almost all of Tesla's features included in Premium Connectivity. These include audio and video streaming services like Spotify and Netflix (accounts with these services are still required), Caraoke and more.

The only options it doesn't include are live traffic visualizations and satellite-view maps.

Available Tesla Music Streaming Services

Like many modern vehicle manufacturers, Tesla has focused on developing an infotainment ecosystem that relies on streaming services to deliver music and podcast streams to the driver via Wi-Fi and cellular connections.

Many of these services are premium services not routinely found in standard car software. Currently, Tesla offers a direct stream from Apple Music, Spotify, Slacker, TIDAL, and TuneIn. This is in addition to FM radio and SiriusXM for the Model S and Model X.

Tesla Streaming (Slacker Radio)

While branded as a Tesla streaming service, Tesla has partnered with Slacker Radio to provide a free Slacker Plus account (ad-free) to Tesla Premium Connectivity customers. In the US, this music service shows up in the vehicle simply as "Streaming."

This account mirrors the features of a Slacker Premium account, enabling drivers to search for songs using voice commands, create and stream playlists, and enjoy curated streaming stations for their enjoyment.

Spotify

Arguably the most well-known of the streaming options, Spotify has built a reputation for exclusive high-quality podcasts and playlist management that makes them one of the most popular streaming services in the world (current market share of 31% of the global streaming market). While not known for its audio playback quality, Spotify’s streaming service offers an industry-leading catalog of material that is popular with Tesla drivers.

Although Spotify offers the ability to stream songs with a higher bit rate (HQ), it is currently not available in Teslas.

Apple Music

Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service in the U.S. It was notably absent from Tesla's software until recently. However, with the 2022 holiday update, Tesla finally added support for the popular music service.

Apple Music is offered on all Teslas, spanning all the way back to 2012 with the first Model S. It's also included in the Model 3, Model Y and Model X, however, availability does vary by country. It's available in most countries around the globe, but there are a few exceptions.

Although Tesla offers access to Apple Music in their vehicles, not all Apple Music features are available. Notably missing is support for Dolby Atmos and Apple Music Sing. You will be able to stream any song on Apple Music and access your own playlists as well as Apple's featured music and playlists. Apple Music, like every any other Tesla music service, is integrated into Tesla's voice commands, letting you play any song through the use of your voice.

TIDAL

Tidal’s ad-free music streaming service is billed as a premium lossless music stream (indicating a higher quality audio experience when compared to other Tesla streaming partners).

Tesla users with a TIDAL HiFi subscription can stream audio files at 1411 Kbps using a lossless codec that doesn’t sacrifice quality for streaming bandwidth speeds.

However, users have noted that streaming these lossless files over an LTE connection can cause frequent buffering issues due to the large file sizes.

TIDAL does offer the ability to download songs via Wi-Fi to prevent buffering issues.

TuneIn

A lesser-known subscription-based streaming product, TuneIn offers Tesla drivers ad-free streaming of music, news networks (CNBC, CNN, FOX News Radio, and MSNBC), and live play-by-play sports with no blackouts from the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.

There is a free tier for TuneIn users interested in listening to their curated playlists and sports radio products.

You can simply navigate to TuneIn and start listening; no need to create an account.

SiriusXM

Popular for its large selection of curated music stations, talk radio catalog, and sports streaming, SiriusXM is a leading subscription and semi-ad-supported streaming solution for the U.S. and Canadian markets.

SiriusXM is only available in the Model S and Model X using a satellite receiver which is not available in the Model 3 or Model Y.

While there have been rumors of an internet-based SiriusXM streaming solution for other models, that solution has yet to appear in the Model 3 and Model Y.

Caraoke

Tesla Caraoke is Tesla’s version of the popular karaoke format. The free service (requires Premium Connectivity or Wi-Fi) allows drivers to play and sing popular karaoke songs directly from their car's infotainment system.

USB Drive (Downloaded MP3s)

For owners who prefer to play their own downloaded music collection, Tesla also allows you to plug in a USB drive and play MP3s directly from your device.

This feature can be useful if you don't subscribe to Tesla's Premium Connectivity or sometimes drive in areas with poor reception.

Your USB drive will need to be formatted using exFAT for this to work. Once the drive is plugged in you'll be able to access your music via a new USB icon available in the launcher.

Tesla will then let you view your music by artist, album, song title, or even search for your favorite songs.

Hide Music Apps / Sources

You can hide any music apps that you don't use

Not a Tesla App

If there are certain music sources that you don't use, you can prevent them from showing up in the vehicle's Apps menu in the launcher. Simply open your music player, select the right-hand most button for options, choose Sources and then unselect any sources you'd like to hide.

You can navigate back to this menu to re-enable sources at any time.

Missing Streaming Services

Amazon Music, the third most popular music streaming service in the U.S. remains absent from Tesla’s streaming options. Pandora is also not yet available from Tesla’s infotainment system.

While a YouTube video app is available in the Theater section of the Tesla infotainment system (while parked), YouTube’s music streaming service, YouTube Music, is currently not supported.

It should be noted that workarounds exist for playing content from excluded streaming services like Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Youtube Music, etc. through the use of Bluetooth streaming.

FM & AM Radio

Tesla's also offer traditional FM radio. The Tesla interface will automatically show you all the available stations around you so that you quickly start listening to a station without having to use a dial.

Although older Model S and Model X vehicles had the ability to listen to AM radio, that capability is no longer available in newer cars. However, TuneIn has many stations available for streaming, so your favorite AM station may also be available to stream for free on TuneIn.

Apple AirPlay & CarPlay Rumors

Recently, Elon Musk indicated in a tweet that Tesla was considering the addition of AirPlay connectivity. While short of an Apple CarPlay integration, Apple Airplay would allow for improved audio streaming from iPhones when compared to current Bluetooth solutions.

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Musk Teases Major Improvements to FSD — Is Version 14 on the Way?

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Following a period of radio silence from Tesla on FSD updates, Elon Musk has finally hinted that progress is continuing behind the scenes on FSD and that “Several major improvements are incoming.” We’re pretty excited - it has been over 100 days since the last FSD update, and we haven’t heard much since then.

And several major improvements are coming

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2025

The latest versions of FSD were V13.2.8 for AI4 vehicles and V12.6.2 for HW3 vehicles, both of which were released in January of this year — almost four months ago. While development has been ongoing internally, many have been wondering what the next public release will be. Will it be FSD V13.3, or will we jump straight to FSD V14.

Decoupled Releases & Spring Update

Tesla has now begun pushing Early Access users the 2025 Spring Update without an FSD version change. This means that we can expect the next FSD update to likely be based on the 2025.14 branch.

It’s worth noting that Tesla can add improvements to FSD at any time - and sometimes they do make minor changes without incrementing release numbers - small flag changes in FSD’s software to address how it does a specific task, or what data is uploaded.

With all that said, we expect the Spring Update to begin going out to more of the fleet in the coming days. We’re currently seeing about 58% of the fleet on the Spring Update, and only 30% of the fleet on the older 2025.8 January Update.

Cybertruck FSD

Not A Tesla App received information that an upcoming update was set to bring features from other AI4 vehicles to the Cybertruck, including Start FSD from Park, Unpark, Actually Smart Summon, and more. This update was intended to bring it closer to feature parity with the rest of Tesla’s AI4 fleet, but for now, Cybertruck remains the redheaded stepchild of the fleet.

We’re still confident that Tesla is working on this, and the continued delays on the release of an FSD update could point to the Cybertruck and a lack of data continuing to be a pain point for Tesla’s AI team. Cybertruck owners, including the author, have noted that FSD-equipped Cybertrucks continue to upload several hundred gigabytes or more of data per month. This topped out at nearly 1.9 TB of data uploaded in April 2025 for the author.

That’s a massive amount of data - and other users on social media have mentioned much the same for their own Cybertrucks. Tesla needs as much data as possible to tune the FSD models, and given the small fleet size for the Cybertruck, it requires a vast amount of data per user.

“Major Improvements”

While Elon didn’t mention what constitutes these major improvements, we have a lot of expectations besides what we know about the Cybertruck. Learning from the recent and successful FSD launch in China, Tesla is now able to utilize a more generalized model without specific local training data. This could potentially translate into better performance in North America as well, as the 7.7 million miles globally driven on FSD every day are feeding back into Tesla’s data loop.

We’re hopeful that future improvements continue to focus on improving tracking and decision-making, as well as lane handling. FSD users on X continue to point out issues with lane selection and lane keeping in the latest versions of FSD. On the flipside, Tesla has greatly increased the comfort and smoothness of FSD - and V13 is a prime example of that.

While V13.2.8  is also capable of pulling into parking stalls both forwards and in reverse (thanks to one of those flag changes recently), it does an oddly poor job of parking. Tesla’s Vision Autopark, on the other hand, is exceptionally accurate, even with big vehicles like the Cybertruck. It feels like Tesla is working on the parking lot stack to prepare for the upcoming launch of Robotaxi in June.

What About FSD V14

Back in the Q4 2024 Earnings Call, we heard about FSD V14, and just learned a little bit of what will make it unique. In this case, it's auto-regressive transformers that will improve FSD’s already powerful perception system and help it to predict better how other vehicles and road users will behave around it.

That, alongside a larger model and increased context size, will help FSD manage edge cases and make better decisions. The larger model and context size increases are likely another challenge for Tesla, which is already pushing the hardware limits of AI4 with FSD V13.

We did a deep dive into what we know about V14, which you can read here.

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Tesla Introduces Acceleration Boost for Refreshed Model Y

@MatthewDR on X

The non-Launch Edition version of the refreshed Model Y began shipping just a few weeks ago. One of the few things you couldn’t get that the Launch Edition came with was the Acceleration Boost. Tesla wasted no time with this vehicle and is now offering Long Range AWD owners the option to purchase Acceleration Boost.

Tesla didn’t offer a Launch Edition version of the new Model 3 when it launched in 2024. While Acceleration Boost is now available for the new Model 3, it remains restricted to the Asian-Pacific market. It’s not clear why it’s not available in other regions, but it’s possible it could be due to battery chemistries.

Boost Now

Acceleration Boost is an option that has generally been offered for most Model 3 and Model Y Long Range Dual Motor variants, providing excellent performance for the price. A vehicle with Acceleration Boost places the vehicle somewhere between the regular Long Range variant and the Performance version.

In the Refreshed Model Y’s case, Acceleration Boost cuts the official 0-60 mph (0-100 km/h) time from 4.6 seconds down to 4.2 seconds, adding a hefty boost. This is achieved by unlocking approximately 100 additional horsepower from the drivetrain through software.

That 4.2-second time is also 0.1 seconds faster than the rated 0-60 on the original Model Y with Acceleration Boost, so it’s another generational improvement right there.

Cost & Availability

Acceleration Boost is priced at the standard $2,000 USD - and will eventually become available in most global markets for that equivalent price. The upgrade is available now in the United States and Canada ($2,700 CAD), and should hopefully be available globally within the next few days.

Owners can purchase Acceleration Boost through the Tesla mobile app from Upgrades > Software Upgrades > Acceleration Boost, or through the vehicle touchscreen from Controls > Upgrades, provided that In-Car Upgrades are enabled (set in the Tesla App).

The vehicle will need a network connection to process the configuration update, which only takes a few minutes. During the configuration update procedure, the vehicle will not be drivable and will reboot.

Eligibility

It is important to note that the Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive (RWD) variant, which is available in Europe and Asia-Pacific, is not eligible for this upgrade as it lacks the necessary dual-motor configuration.

Owners of the Launch Edition already have this feature by default and won’t need to purchase it.

No Track Mode

If you’re hungering for Track Mode and all the functionality it offers, we recommend waiting for Tesla to release the Performance variant of the Refreshed Model Y. While Elon did mention in the past that Acceleration Boost would grant access to Track Mode, it hasn’t happened quite yet.

Is It Worth It?

Acceleration Boost helps to bridge the gap between the Performance variant and the Long Range AWD variant, offering quicker acceleration without the need to opt for the dedicated and more expensive Performance variant.

This is especially so today, where the Refreshed Model Y Performance hasn’t been announced yet - so if you’ve already purchased a Long Range AWD and want to go just a bit faster, this is a fantastic option at a good value.

The difference in acceleration is noticeably faster, just like Acceleration Boost with the original Model Y. If you really want to take off a little faster or want to take the vehicle to the track, this will definitely be a worthwhile upgrade.

Tesla hasn’t noted a reduced range with this upgrade, similar to the refreshed Model 3’s Acceleration Boost. Older models had about a 5% range loss due to the additional always-available acceleration and cooling requirements.

This is one of Tesla’s most popular upgrades due to its relatively low cost while also adding some additional value to the vehicle.

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