News
Tesla Arcade in China to get online multiplayer titles from Tencent
Tesla China plans to roll out three popular online games, a local weather app, an air quality alert system, and two streaming apps to its customers in the country in the first quarter of 2020. The official announcement as shared by Tesla owner-enthusiast Ray4Tesla on Twitter lists popular online titles Fight Landlords, Mahjong, and Happy Upgrade as part of the expected update. Tesla owners can play these games with their friends using their WeChat or QQ accounts.
These video games and apps are all products of Tencent Holdings, a Chinese multinational conglomerate with a market cap of about $461 billion that offers internet and mobile value-added services, advertising, and e-commerce transactions through its subsidiaries. In 2017, Tencent bought a 5% stake in Tesla, a strategic move that gave the electric car manufacturer a solid ally in China.
Fight Landlords, Mahjong, and Happy Upgrade are among the most popular Tencent Games played on QQ, an instant messaging app with more than 807 million users as of last year. Such games add color to the in-car entertainment system of Tesla that could provide a good boost to attract local, young, and tech-savvy car buyers in the country. Likewise, WeChat is also a property of Tencent and is the most popular messaging app in China with over a billion active users per month.
-
- Tesla China Multiplayer Video Games And Useful Apps (Source: Ray4Tesla | Twitter)
-
- Tesla China Multiplayer Video Games And Useful Apps (Source: Ray4Tesla | Twitter)
-
- Tesla China Multiplayer Video Games And Useful Apps (Source: Ray4Tesla | Twitter)
QQ and WeChat are prominent messaging and social media apps treasured by businesses in China where 91 percent of online users have social media accounts. Consumers use these platforms to communicate, research brands, play games, and engage in transactions. Tesla’s presence on these popular apps gives the company some leverage if it wants to crack the local market. This should give Tesla an edge against established brands such as BMW, GM, and Volkswagen, to name a new.
Video games are nothing new in Tesla cars as the electric car maker has practically turned its vehicles’ infotainment system into a gaming console that could be used while the cars are on Park. Tesla offers various games that appeal to a wide range of users such as classic Atari games, Chess, Beach Buggy Racing 2, and more recently, Cuphead.
As Tesla China prepares for its first deliveries of the Model 3, rolling out popular games and useful apps can also help the brand attract more buyers away from local competition. They can serve as talking points that can further strengthen word of mouth marketing that has saved Tesla millions in advertising costs too. Furthermore, such a move shows the local market that Tesla is fully-committed to provide owners in the country with the best user experience possible.
#Tesla 🇨🇳 officially announced 3 popular online games (“Fight Landlords”, “Mahjon”, “Happy Upgrade”) will be pushed to #Tesla owners in Q1, along w/ 2 streaming APPs, local weather plus air quality alert. Owners can log into their QQ or WeChat account to play remotely w/ others. pic.twitter.com/vrgRln21Wt
— Ray (@ray4tesla) December 20, 2019
This focus on its vehicles’ fun factor has been mentioned by CEO Elon Musk in the past. “The goal for the infotainment system is to say what’s the most amount of fun you can have in a car. I don’t think other car companies really think about it that way. It’s not just some sort of transport utility device with no soul and no character,” Musk said during the Q3 2019 earnings call.
Aside from the popular video games, the local weather app and air quality app come handy for consumers in China who live in areas with poor air quality.
As announced by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology earlier this month, two variants of the locally-made Tesla Model 3 will receive subsidies from the government. Deliveries of Made-in-China Model 3s also appear to be just around the corner, with car carriers filled with the vehicle being spotted in Gigafactory 3’s holding lots.
The announcement of Tesla China coincides with Elon Musk’s tweet about Tesla’s upcoming 2019 holiday software update, which is expected to include a “sneak preview” of Full-Self Driving, new games, and possibly a number of video streaming apps.
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.
Tesla Cybercab is using a unique strategy for picking up the correct rider, which is a crucial part of ride-hailing to ensure people end up in the right place and are charged the correct price.
Cybercab will utilize an RGB strip in its front light bar that will illuminate in a variety of different colors to mark itself.
This identifying mark will also appear in the Robotaxi app, giving riders in the same location a notable distinction in an effort to avoid any confusion regarding who should get in each vehicle.
🚨 Tesla is using different light bar colors to help riders understand which vehicle is theirs
Pretty cool strategy pic.twitter.com/eGMpEMeRpc
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2026
Other ride-hailing services use similar strategies: Lyft and Uber rides are recognizable through driver identity, vehicle type and color, as well as license plate. Waymo will display the rider’s initials on top of the vehicle, letting them know that the specific vehicle for them has arrived.
Tesla’s strategy is unique and interesting, but there are some flaws. Cybercab’s main purpose is aimed toward being an autonomous ride for all, including those who have disabilities like being blind or even color blind.
Tesla will likely have something in the pipeline for those who cannot see colors or have limited vision. There will definitely be multiple ways to identify which vehicle is the one that “you” specifically ordered.
Cybercab is set to start giving public rides next Thursday, September 3, in Austin, as it announced a dedicated event last week and invited many members of the Tesla community.
Additionally, members of the public will be invited as well. Tesla has been offering employee rides in Cybercab for nearly two months.
Tesla Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms
Tesla Semi’s biggest adoptee gives an update on production timeline
