Tesla has some of the most technologically advanced and sustainable vehicles consumers can buy on the market today. However, as Tesla Raj notes in one of his newest videos, his Tesla Model 3, along with other vehicles in the company’s lineup, are missing some of the most basic features that are available on models from other companies that are several years old. This begs the question: Would Tesla vehicles be even better with the five basic features Raj requests?
Cross-Traffic Alert System
One of the most important features that Raj lists is the Cross-Traffic Alert System. Noting that his wife’s 2016 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid has the system, which is highly effective in alerting the driver of an oncoming obstacle that is out of sight, Raj said his Model 3 lacks this somewhat basic safety feature.
While the Model 3 does offer wide-angle views from both rear quarter panels that could assist in a little more of a view, it still does not utilize any sort of system to sense objects, people, or vehicles that may be moving toward the Model 3. In a crowded Supermarket parking lot, Cross-Traffic Alert Systems are highly effective in keeping the driver vigilant as others look for a spot or shoppers head in or out of the store, perhaps with a heavy cart full of food. This simple addition could keep the car undamaged and could even save a life. Raj’s daughter, who was riding a scooter in the demonstration, was below the vehicles on either side of the Tesla. She was impossible to see until she entered the vehicle’s repeater camera view, which would likely give the driver a fraction-of-a-fraction of a second to stop.
As you can see in the pictures below, smaller obstacles, like shopping carts, as well as small children, are hidden by the vehicles parked next to Raj’s Model 3. A child is not seen until they are right behind the vehicle. These would be solved with basic sensors, which Tesla already has installed in their vehicles.
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- The Tesla Model 3’s rear-view cameras lack a Cross-Traffic Alert System, which would help drivers see smaller obstacles that could be hidden by nearby vehicles (Credit: Tesla Raj)
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- The Tesla Model 3’s rear-view cameras lack a Cross-Traffic Alert System, which would help drivers see smaller obstacles that could be hidden by nearby vehicles (Credit: Tesla Raj)
360-Degree Camera Views
Raj’s wife’s 2016 RAV4 Hybrid also equips a 360-degree camera, which the Model 3 also lacks. In October 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that a Birds-Eye, 360-degree view of the vehicle would be coming with Full Self-Driving. It has not been released with the current iteration of Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving program, but Musk may have meant that the feature would not be released until FSD is actually complete, which would activate the company’s plans for a Robotaxi Fleet. However, so many vehicles have this feature already, which would activate full-range views of every obstacle around the car. The wide-range perspective would even help complement the previously-mentioned Cross-Traffic Alert System.
Vector-space bird’s eye view coming with FSD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2020
Tesla does offer those repeater cameras to help with a wider view of the car. However, they do not show a Birds-Eye angle, nor do they show the sides of the car.
Apple Music + CarPlay
If you follow Raj and Elon Musk on Twitter, you will know that Raj has requested the Tesla CEO to add this feature on many occasions, and for good reasons. While Tesla does currently offer Spotify, the world’s largest streaming platform for music and podcasts, and Tidal, another streaming app, the cars do not feature Apple Music support. Spotify does offer high-quality streaming, granted you are connected to a network that can support high download speeds. Tesla’s sound system, which has been noted as high quality by many, including Musk himself (surprise, surprise), is not getting used to its full capabilities without high-quality streaming services.
Apple Music supports Dolby Atmos’ spatial audio, which allows for high-quality streaming.
It would also support a lot of Tesla owners, as a poll Raj conducted showed 74 percent of the 2,292 votes received came from Apple owners utilizing iOS.
Tesla Owners what operating system is on your phone?
— Tesla Raj (@tesla_raj) July 28, 2022
Apple’s CarPlay is also highly intuitive, easy to use, and is supported by most automotive brands. I’m not sure if this comes down to some tech-based rivalry or just the fact that Tesla is not willing to license Apple’s software, but it would be a huge upside if these features were compatible with the vehicle.
Ease of Access to the Frunk
The lack of an engine in electric vehicles allows the Frunk – or Front Trunk – to exist. It gives owners just a little bit more room to store things like luggage or groceries, and it varies from vehicle to vehicle. The F-150 Lightning, for example, has a sizeable Frunk, basically adding a sedan-sized trunk to the already large bed area.
Ford F-150 Lightning unveiled: Price, Release date, Range, Features and more
The Model 3 Frunk is not easy to access, at least in Raj’s opinion. He would like to see an exterior Frunk access button or sensor that could remove the need to open the hood with the Tesla App or from the interior touch screen. Some vehicles have a sensor for trunks located underneath the rear bumper. It can be tapped with a foot to open and comes in handy when your hands might be full of groceries.
Tesla Model 3 frunk cargo space [Source: PTFI via Twitter]
The Frunk is one of the most underrated parts of an electric vehicle, in my opinion. It should be easier to access, and you should not need a screen to do so.
Fleet-based User Generated Content
This is perhaps one of the most practical ideas Raj included in his video and is something that navigation apps like Waze and Apple Maps have included in their platforms. Alerting other drivers of hazards, police, accidents, stoppages, and other important occurrences on the road would be ideal to share between Tesla drivers. Reporting things like road debris or an officer shooting radar would most certainly be advantageous to the safety of drivers. It has allowed people to communicate with road conditions and is constantly updated by asking future drivers whether the hazard or obstacle is still present.
Credit: Apple
What do you think about Tesla Raj’s list? Be sure to let him know on Twitter @tesla_raj, and be sure to comment your thoughts below.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
The in-car Tesla Theater is among the most unique features available within the cars. When charging, parked, camping, or just hanging out, vehicle occupants can access a variety of streaming platforms on the large center screen, helping keep them entertained during downtime.
However, the Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms, something that owners have requested for some time.
Tesla owners recently discovered that visiting Apple TV in the vehicle browser can launch a fullscreen interface that looks and behaves like a dedicated application rather than an ordinary webpage:
Today I learned that if you go to Apple TV in the Tesla browser, it will open up an actual Apple TV app, fully functional. Not just the site.
Apparently there are more apps than just the few that show on the apps page. pic.twitter.com/os1Ypfm4JR
— Jason W (@jmwilt21) August 20, 2026
The experience drops the usual address bar and browser chrome, presenting catalogs, continue watching rows, and playback controls in the same window Tesla Theater already uses for its listed services. Independent testers soon found similar treatment for HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, and Prime Video when those sites are opened from the car browser.
This shift is a plausible early signal that Tesla is widening Theater support without a formal software note. Theater has long been a set of web views rather than native applications, so recognizing extra domains and stripping the browser frame is a small server-side change that can expand the catalog quickly.
Owners still lack permanent Theater icons for the newly recognized services, and video remains limited to Park, yet the smoother launch is a meaningful step toward a broader lounge while charging.
Tesla Theater arrived with software version 10 in September 2019. The first video services were Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu, available only while parked and originally tied to WiFi. Spotify arrived in the same era as music rather than Theater video. Disney+ joined officially in July 2021 with the 2021.24 update, giving owners another major catalog on the center screen. Twitch and TikTok later appeared among the default Theater tiles, and Tesla Tutorials remained a persistent educational tile.
Not every addition stayed put. In December 2023, a Holiday software build removed the Disney+ tile for many United States owners after a public dispute involving advertising on X. Hulu stayed visible even though Disney owned it. Visiting disneyplus.com in the browser often restored the tile, which suggested the removal was a recognition list change rather than a complete block. Owners have also reported occasional blank Theater grids after updates, usually fixed by language toggles, resets, or later firmware.
Tesla axes Disney+ from vehicles with Musk-Iger rivalry, but there’s a workaround
Code archives from 2024 listed many unused source names, including Apple TV and Prime Video, that never became official icons, which now looks like groundwork for the current fullscreen browser behavior.
Now that this hint toward an expanded Theater experience has been recognized, Tesla could follow through with these additional shortcuts as a sign that more streaming platforms are available in Teslas than ever before.
Tesla recently received its largest order for the all-electric Semi from Einride, a Swedish transport service, for 500 units, a groundbreaking invoice to receive before the first deliveries begin.
Even more remarkable, Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said in a recent interview that he expects his company to take delivery of all 500 — the entire order — before the end of 2027. He even expects to have 75 Tesla Semi units in the Einride fleet before the end of this year.
🚨 Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli on the Tesla Semi partnership:
“If we start with the Amazon announcement that we did earlier this year, that was on the back of having gone through a proving period together with them and proving out our technology. Then we took that next step in… pic.twitter.com/oazkXjwoig
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 28, 2026
Charli said the Tesla partnership was part of a broader push, along with its earlier partnership with Amazon. Einride is assisting Amazon with the use of its Saga AI platform, which helps eliminate questions about budgeting and forecasting for logistics companies.
The Semi, as well as Tesla’s production and subsequent delivery of the units to Einride, will help the company “to have a good supply of vehicles that we can deploy on the [Saga AI] platform,” Charli said. “Tesla is also a relationship we’ve had for a while, and as the Tesla Semi deliveries are firming up, we decided to do a larger commitment to that and deploy that on our platform.”
In its initial announcement, Einride said it anticipated taking delivery of the trucks over the next two years, but now it appears the company is expecting all 500 units within the next 16 months.
Built at a dedicated factory in Sparks, Nevada, the Tesla Semi has been perhaps the biggest and most intensive testing process the company has ever had for a single vehicle model. For the past several years, Tesla has been working with many companies, most notably Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, to gain knowledge on the performance on regional routes.
Tesla plans to launch the Semi officially on September 24, five months after production started ramping.
Additionally, drivers have said they are happy about the Semi’s performance and that its numerous safety and productivity features have made their jobs and routes much easier.
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
Tesla Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms
