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Tesla Model 3 with heated steering wheel begins US deliveries

(Credit: ABK Tesla/Instagram)

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Tesla Model 3 customers who are taking delivery of the newest builds of the all-electric sedan are reporting that their vehicle has a heated steering wheel, a feature Tesla included in some of the “refreshed” versions of its mass-market cars.

It has long been speculated whether the Model 3 would be receiving a heated steering wheel. In early December 2020, Tesla hacker green discovered some upcoming features that would be included with the refreshed Model 3, including the powered liftgate, new USB-C ports, and a heated steering wheel. In fact, some owners of newer Model 3 production models felt that their steering wheel had become noticeably thicker compared to previous iterations, setting off speculation within the community that Tesla would be adding the feature within its vehicles. Additionally, owners in other countries, like Switzerland, stated that their cars had been given heated steering wheels.

On New Years Day, Tesla launched a refresh to the Model Y crossover, including some new door panel designs and also adding the heated steering wheel. Speculation regarding U.S. Model 3s also grew when Tesla added the feature to sedans built in China at the company’s Giga Shanghai production facility.

Now, owners taking delivery of new Model 3 builds are showing their vehicles do include the heated steering wheel, a desirable feature for cold weather climates.

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Tesla Motors Club member 808BOB took delivery of their Model 3 on Thursday, noticing that his new car did include the heated steering wheel feature. The car was built in February 2021, the original posting says. According to photographs uploaded by the user, the button to activate the heated steering wheel feature is within the “Seat Heaters” menu and can be turned on by pressing the button with a picture of a steering wheel.

Tesla Motors Club | 808BOB

808BOB said in their posting:

“Hi all, just had my M3 delivered on Thursday… Love the car!
BUT, just wanted to confirm that my M3 HAS a heated steering wheel. I’ve been wondering if/when the car would get it…
I was surprised to “find” this option (still finding stuff). Located in the butt warmer section.
RED means it is turned on (it gets pretty warm in the 3/9 locations… you cannot adjust the heat). It was about 67F today, so I didn’t have it on for more than a minute.
Hope this puts an END to all of the speculation? :)
Oh, VIN 902xxx
Delivered in the Bay Area.”

The difference between the heated steering wheel and the heated seats is that the steering wheel only has one temperature option, while the seats have three settings. 808BOB stated in their posting that some parts of the steering wheel, especially the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock locations, seem to be warmer than others.

Some users in the forum stated that new software updates could allow for variable temperatures like the seats. Currently, the vehicle is operating with Software v10.2 (2020.47.101.1).

808BOB stated that they had their car delivered in the Bay Area, so this is likely one of the first Model 3s outfitted with a heated steering wheel. Owners who live nearest to Tesla’s Fremont factory will usually be the first to experience new features because they live so close to the production facility. It is likely that owners outside of the area will soon begin taking delivery of Model 3 units with the heated steering wheel feature included.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash

An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.

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Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab
Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab

An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.

Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.

The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.


Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.

The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.

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Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.

Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.

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Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.

Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.

The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.

In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

Credit: Tesla

Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.

The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.

The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.

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Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.

The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.

Credit: Tesla

Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.

The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.

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Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when

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Credit: @AdanGuajardo/X

Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.

The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.

That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.

Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.

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Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.

By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.

Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.

Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.

If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.

That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.

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