Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 interior gets photoshopped to look more traditional in CBS segment
The Tesla Model 3’s interior is among the most radical and tech-centric in the market, featuring a minimalistic theme that is dominated by a 15-inch center touchscreen. With all the vehicle’s controls exclusively accessed through the touch display and a couple of scroll wheels on the steering wheel, the Model 3’s interior is also among the most polarizing.
During the vehicle’s unveiling, Tesla Chief of Design Franz von Holzhausen stressed that the vehicle’s interior is the most satisfying, innovative, and radical part of the Model 3. The designer added that the Model 3’s spartan interior is aesthetically pleasing and functional, and that it is designed to make the vehicle feel as spacious as possible. A notable number of Model 3 owners have attested to this.
Inasmuch as von Holzhausen’s words are accurate, the Model 3’s interior has also attracted a notable amount of criticism. Skeptics claimed that the Model 3’s 15-inch display is a distraction and a magnet for accidents, while others lamented the lack of physical controls like knobs, buttons, and switches on the vehicle.
The graphic designers (or interns perhaps?) from CBS Evening News appears to belong solidly in the latter camp. During a recent segment with host Norah O’Donnell about the dangers of technology for senior drivers, the media outlet opted to use a graphic that depicted a very tech-heavy car interior. Interestingly, CBS’ vehicle of choice was the Model 3, which made sense considering the electric car’s technology.
Interestingly, CBS opted to give the Model 3 interior a bit of a facelift, by mixing it with what appears to be a center console from a 2010 Subaru Legacy. That way, the segment’s graphic of choice emphasized those big touchscreens found in vehicles today and, curiously, the buttons and knobs of a familiar, traditional center console. For good measure, CBS opted to overlay Apple CarPlay on the Model 3’s display as well.
The result of the Model 3-Subaru interior is strange, to say the least, and probably enough to get a few laughs (or a massive facepalm, perhaps) from Franz von Holzhausen. Nevertheless, one could at least appreciate CBS looking to Tesla’s interior design in its electric cars to represent the increasing amount of technology in vehicles.
Amusing graphics aside, CBS’s topic in its recent segment is a somber one. The segment was based on a recent AAA study, which noted that seniors are struggling with the technology being built into vehicles today. Nevertheless, a vital component of these touch displays is the user interface and how friendly it is for drivers. This is something that Tesla has steadily refined over the years, and it is one that the company continues to improve with each iteration of its in-car software. It is also something that some legacy carmakers have struggled with, as evidenced by the rather complicated menus in the Jaguar I-PACE that were called out by some reviewers of the all-electric vehicle in the past.
Watch an excerpt from CBS’s recent segment in the video below.
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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 escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
