Firmware
Expect to see more Tesla ‘unlockable’ features bundled into its cars
When Tesla revealed that Model S 70 owners with the 70 kWh battery could in fact unlock an extra 5 kWh for a fee bringing it to a total of 75 kWh, it sent the rest of the auto industry a loud and clear message that the company can and will continue to streamline ways to continuously improve upon its vehicles via over the air updates. It wasn’t the first time Tesla has done this and it certainly won’t be the last. Let’s look at what some of these ‘unlockable’ features are.
Upgrading a 70 kWh battery to 75 kWh
There have been some debates online about whether or not it makes sense to do the upgrade.
Some argue that they can “use” the bigger battery to offset long term battery degradation and enjoy the benefit at no extra cost. While it’s probably true that the larger battery will degrade even less, Tesla’s battery degradation over time is very slight. At over 60,000 miles I’ve only lost 5% of battery range which is roughly 13 miles of rated range – a negligible amount for me. Sure it would be nice to 5 kWh of extra battery, but at the end of the day the increase in range from the upgrade is relatively immaterial.
Tesla has priced this upgrade after delivery at $3,250 US, and $3,000 if you select the larger battery at the time of ordering the car. This means the battery upgrade is being priced at $650/kWh.
The base Model 70D has a range of 240 miles. The Model 75D has a range of 259 miles, 19 miles or 8% extra range from the upgrade. Another way of looking at the price is that it costs $171/mile of range. Here again I’d make the argument that most people will find an extra 19 miles pretty insignificant. There of course will be a few owners that absolutely must have the extra 19 miles, but for most the upgrade won’t make sense. Note that the 70D and 75D both Supercharge slower than the 85D and 90D cars — if you also got a boost in charging speed from the upgrade perhaps it would be more valuable.
So, why am I a fan of Tesla offering unlockable software features like this? The reason is that it allows Tesla to simplify their manufacturing and production process by creating a single version of the vehicle, while allowing the company to also roll out better functionality over time through over-the-air updates initiated by in-car purchases. Tesla is essentially creating micro-transactions with each of its upgradeable features.
I feel that the transition from 70D to 75D was was nicely executed, and it’s evident that Tesla continues to lay the foundation for a future where new hardware and new features can be gracefully introduced, while keeping recent buyers happy that they didn’t “miss out” on the latest and greatest.
Autopilot
Even before the 75D battery upgrade was introduced, Tesla had already begun including Autopilot hardware on all Model S even before the Autopilot suite of functionality was even available.
-
Today you can buy a Tesla with or without autopilot functionality (the feature is $2,500 when you buy the car, but $3,000 as a retrofit after delivery), however all cars from September 2014 and onwards have the hardware for Autopilot.
Tesla recently offered a free 30 day trial of Autopilot to owners that opted out of purchasing the optional feature as a way to encourage them to experience the new technology. But ultimately it hopes that these owners will pay to upgrade. Here again Tesla is fronting the costs of Autopilot hardware and making the bet that most owners will purchase the feature once they had a chance to experience it.
One such Model S owner describes his first experience with Autopilot through the trial offer.
Looking Back
Back in the early days when the Model S was first introduced, Supercharging wasn’t enabled on all vehicles. Owners had to pay extra to receive Supercharging hardware either at the time of ordering their car or as a retrofit later on. Even to this day older Tesla Model S 60 models can enable Supercharging through the company’s online store.
Tesla also offered a 40kWh battery version of the Model S to help Tesla make good on a promise that the base price would start at $50,000. With “only” 160 miles of rated range, the 40kWh version wasn’t very popular. To improve production efficiencies, Tesla in reality built 60 kWh versions of the car and software limited it to 40kWh. The price to upgrade from 40 kWh to a 60 kWh back then was a whopping $11,000 upgrade. But even at that price the cost per kWh was $550/kWh making it $100 lower per kWh than what they’re currently on the 70D to 75D upgrade.
Summary
I fully support Tesla’s strategy of reducing the number of permutations its manufacturing line has to deal with. I also like the idea of encouraging secondary transactions and allowing people to upgrade their cars after they take delivery. Their whole approach gives Tesla a lot of flexibility with improving the vehicle over time, and allows buyers – whether money constrained, or they just don’t need an option – to delay the purchase of features until a later time when it suits their needs.
I wonder why some features like Premium Sound and XM radio haven’t gone the same route as I have to imagine the incremental costs of the hardware for those options are a lot smaller than those for autopilot or Supercharging.
-
I do believe, however, that the after-delivery pricing of some of these options may come down over time. Tesla has sunk costs in the hardware. If the owners don’t upgrade in year 1, why shouldn’t Tesla lower the price in year 2? Tesla stands to make no money back on their investment in the individual cars if they can’t get people to upgrade, so why not lower prices over time? While it may seem like they’re devaluing the feature, there is a strong motivation for the owner to pay sooner rather than later in order to get more years of enjoyment and use of the feature. Just as the car’s value declines over time, so should that of the features.
-
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
-
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
-
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
-
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX has solved Starship’s biggest challenge, Elon Musk says
