Lifestyle
Tesla Model S Wish List Items
After 10,000 miles of ownership, it’s time to compile my Tesla Model S wish list items.
It’s been four months and 10k miles of pure joy since taking delivery of my Model S, but that’s not to say that there aren’t some items that I wish Tesla would have included and/or done better on.
I focused on those areas that can be augmented through a Tesla software update. Many of the things I’d like to see are also in the global wish list being tracked at the Tesla Motors Club but I have my own tastes and priorities, so here goes.
The items in bold below were available on my 2007 Acura MDX which I sorely missed.
Navigation
-
Waypoints
- Multiple route options (shortest, shortest time, etc)
- Traffic-based re-routing (reportedly coming in 6.0)
- Better map caching – AT&T coverage is spotty and slow.
- Show Map zoom level
- Ability to organize favorites (folders)
- Sort favorites by distance or frequency of use (vs random!)
- Ability to show points of interest (POI)
- Ability to set current location as a favorite
- Ability to route to prior starting locations
USB Music
- Shuffle
- Folders need cover art
- Fast scroll when in USB folders
- Favorite ability for folders, artists, etc.
ALSO SEE: Playing Music from a USB Drive in the Tesla Model S
Settings
- Remember rear seat heater settings (it does this for the front but not the rear) across power off/on. If a passenger gets out and the car starts traveling again turn off that passengers seat heater.
- Ability to “pin” or lock a screen in a position – like NAV always on top so I can flip the bottom one but not lose NAV or have to do the press/drag thing.
- Let me set % regeneration setting – not just 2 options.
- Let me set max creep speed – 5mph is far too fast.
- Show lifetime total/average energy somewhere so we don’t have to “reserve” trip B for this.
- Let me control how long my headlights are on after I exit (its so long now I never use it).
- When opening trunk, allow me to press the button to reverse direction.
- Headlight flash is too long, shorten it or let duration be set.
- Don’t allow car in drive if rear trunk is open. Or require special override.
- Graphs always default to “instantaneous” which is basically useless. Default to average or remember the setting.
Service
- Service reminders for tire rotations, annual service etc.
- Show actual tire pressure settings for all 4 tires.
- Provide full release notes on every software update.
- Provide release notes prior to install for software updates.
Charging
- Report on estimated time to complete charge to set level (in car and in app). Make this work right with non-linear charge rates at Superchargers etc.
- Allow me to set desired charge end time (not start time).
Driving
- Allow cruise control resume from stop (other vendors can do this).
- Be smarter on regeneration when cancelling cruise control – its harsh.
- If driver gets out of car (in park!) and passenger is still present don’t let the car go to sleep (or have a setting around this).
- Using washer to clean windshield turns on lights. Be smarter about this.
Audio
- Remember volume setting by audio source (book tapes from my iPhone are a different volume than music from Slacker)
Web Browser
- Make it work with Google apps (cookies, sessions, mobile flavor, etc.)
- Fix return/caps lock behavior.
- Have the ability for it to report itself as a mobile browser for faster loads/better visibility.
- Support tabs
- Support favorite syncing with desktop/mobile devices.
- Allow organization of favorites including some kind of sorting.
- Make window scrolling smoother/more obvious.
- Make it faster/more standard (Chrome/Firefox/Safari like).
- Fix web browser time zone setting/function – many sites think I’m in PST based on IP address.
Slacker
- Allow display of lyrics.
- Support custom playlists.
- Fix car stop/start while a song is playing resulting in a partial song resume.
- If you cant play/find the searched song, offer to do nothing.
RELATED: Slacker Internet Radio on the Tesla Model S
iOS App
- Show internal temperature (without requiring me to turn on climate control first).
- Receive all alerts/warnings that car shows.
That’s a long wish list in 4 months and its not even Christmas yet. I love the car even if I didn’t have any of these wish list items, but imagine what the Model S would be like with all these (very possible) improvements.
What I find interesting is that there are news reports that Tesla is hiring up to 30 hackers to make security improvements to the Model S. Security is important and they should definitely invest in that area. But 30 decent programmers focused on the list above could knock out most of that in 6 months or less. How many programmers do they have now and what are they doing? Did all the resources get diverted to supporting new international markets? Is Tesla still investing in the software layer for the Model S or are all investments going into the Model X?
I’ll be tracking this list over time to see if and when the Tesla team delivers on it.
What’s on your Tesla Model S wish list?
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.


