Lifestyle
Tesla Model Y third row seat test explores options for a comfortable 7-seat setup
Tesla Model Y buyers will have the option to purchase an optional third row of seats with their new electric crossover. While the final setup and seating arrangement for the Model Y’s third row seats is not available yet, YouTuber and Tesla enthusiast DaErik opted to perform a brief test about some options that the electric car maker could release for the vehicle. Based on the Tesla owner’s test, it appears that Tesla would need to work very hard to design third row seats that are sized just right and comfortable enough for Model Y passengers.
DaErik currently owns a Model Y and Model S, but in the past, he also owned a Model X. While he does not have the SUV any longer, he does have two rows of seats from the vehicle, both of which sits in his house as couches. DaErik then decided to see if he could use the Model X seats in the Model Y to get an idea of how the crossover’s third row will be like.
DaErik recognized that the Model X’s seats were likely bulkier than what the Model Y will offer for its third row. The seats for the Model Y may even be rear-facing based on predictions from auto teardown expert Sandy Munro, who previously stated that all of the mounting points for the back row suggest that the crossover may also be designed for rear-facing third-row seats.
After installing the backrests of the Model X seats in the trunk of the Model Y, DaErik installed the under-bottom portion of the seats as well. This proved to be too full for the narrower body and interior of the Model Y, so he removed them and stuck with the backrests only. While it wasn’t a complete seat installation, the placement of the Model Y seats still provided a somewhat realistic depiction of what the Model Y’s third row seating would be like.
The Model X seats were not a glove-like fit in the Model Y. DaErik estimates that Tesla’s final Model Y third row seats will likely sit closer to the rear hatch than the Model X seats did, similar to the third row seats in the Model Y prototype from last year. However, he did say that the Model Y’s third row area is a cozy and relatively comfortable space, especially for smaller passengers like children.
DaErik then attempted to use a Model 3 seat in the trunk of the Model Y but installed it facing forward. The Model Y unveiling in March 2019 featured a seven-seated crossover with forward-facing third row seats. Based on the Tesla enthusiast’s test, it seems that front-facing seats will end up eliminating a significant amount of legroom for the passengers in the third row.
DaErik’s recent test has shed some insight on what strategies Tesla will likely take to make the Model Y comfortable enough to seat seven people. To accomplish this, Tesla may very well have to create a new seat design from scratch, as seats from the Model X are too broad, and chairs from the Model 3 are not optimized for the limited space in the third row. Fortunately for Tesla, the company actually has a dedicated seat factory in Fremont, which should be able to design and produce the Model Y’s third row seats without any issues.
Tesla is expected to release the seven-seat option for the Model Y in 2021.
Watch DaErik’s video of the possible Model Y third-row seat design 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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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