Tesla has started rolling out its initial V10 update to members of its Early Access Program. Based on release notes that have been gathered from EAP members, it appears that Version 10 is primarily focused on making Tesla’s electric cars one of the “most fun things” that anyone can purchase, bar none.
Following are some key features that are included in the V10 update.
Tesla Theater
Tesla Theater allows vehicles to stream video content provided that they are in Park and connected to WiFi. So far, Tesla Theater includes three streaming options: Netflix, YouTube, and Tesla Tutorials. The feature is accessed through the new “Entertainment” icon on vehicles’ V10 Application Launcher.
“Tesla Theater lets you watch movies and videos when your car is in PARK and connected to WiFi. To launch the Tesla Theater, tap the new ‘Entertainment’ Icon in the Application Launcher and select the Theater tab,” the company wrote in Tesla Theater’s release notes.
Interestingly enough, Early Access Program members have reported that Tesla Theater currently works with their vehicles’ cellular data connection. Perhaps such a feature would be enabled after V10’s initial rollout, similar to Navigate on Autopilot’s unconfirmed lane changes, which were also immediately accessible to EAP users and disabled on V9’s initial release.
-
- Tesla Theater release notes. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
-
- Tesla Theater in the V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
-
- Netflix on Tesla’s V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
-
- A YouTube video playing in full screen on Tesla’s V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
Tesla Theater in the V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
Caraoke
Caraoke is one of those fun features that could end up resulting in a new wave of viral videos on YouTube. The new feature allows users to sing along to their favorite track, though lyrics will only be visible on the vehicles’ display while cars are on Park. Caraoke tracks are playable while driving, though lyrics will not be displayed on the screen.
“Sing karaoke to your favorite songs and artists in your car. You can select ‘Caraoke’ from the Media menu. Tap the microphone icon to adjust whether the vocal track plays while you sgn along. Displaying the karaoke lyrics requires the car to be in PARK,” Tesla wrote.
Cuphead – Tesla Edition
Cuphead is arguably the most ambitious game to be ported on Tesla Arcade to date. The game, which features vintage cartoon art in a run and gun setting, will allow single or two-player campaigns. That being said, Tesla’s release notes for the new title suggests that the current edition of the game in V10’s initial release will only include the game’s full first Isle. Considering that the full Cuphead game features three Islands, upcoming updates from Tesla will likely expand the title even further.
“Cuphead is a classic run and gun action game inspired by cartoons of the 1930s and heavily focused on boss battles. For the Tesla Edition of Cuphead, enjoy the game’s full first Isle as you play as Cuphead or Mugman (in single-player or in local co-op). Traverse strange worlds, acquire new weapons, learn powerful super moves, and discover hidden secrets while you try to pay your debt back to The Devil!”
“As with all Tesla Arcade games, your car must be in PARK to play. To access Cuphead, tap the Application Launcher, tap Entertainment icon > Tesla Arcade, then select from the menu. Note: A USB controller is required to play Cuphead. Game controller behavior may vary depending on make and model,” Tesla wrote.
-
- Cuphead — Tesla Edition release notes. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
-
- Tesla Arcade welcomes Cuphead. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
Tesla Arcade welcomes Cuphead. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
Yet another feature that was borne from CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter conversations, (I’m Feeling) Lucky or Hungry provides a fun, randomized angle to Tesla road trips. Tapping the “Hungry” button will give drivers directions to a local restaurant, while “Lucky” will provide directions to a “surprise adventure to a nearby attraction.” This particular feature gives a certain spontaneity to the Tesla ownership experience, and will likely provide a helpful boost to local businesses that have Destination Chargers installed.
“Feeling lucky or feeling hungry? Go on a surprise adventure to a nearby attraction by tapping Navigate > Lucky or get directions to a local restaurant chosen by your Tesla by tapping Navigate > Hungry. We have also updated the place popup to include easy access to a website associated with the location if one exists,” Tesla wrote.
Joe Mode
Yet another feature that was suggested by a Tesla owner on Twitter, Joe Mode makes a vehicle’s alerts less disruptive to passengers. This feature would most definitely be helpful for parents taking road trips with small children, who could easily wake up when vehicle alerts are engaged at full volume during a drive.
Joe Mode is the best mode https://t.co/UyvCSTEvNp— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 15, 2019
“Enabling Joe Mode reduces the volume of your Tesla’s chimes. The quieter chimes continue to alert the driver effectively and minimize disruption to passengers (e.g. Joe’s kids). To enable Joe Mode, tap Controls > Safety & Security > Joe Mode,” Tesla noted.
Sentry Mode, Maps, Automatic Lane Change, and Driving Visuals Update
Tesla’s V10 update allows Sentry Mode to save video clips in a separate folder on a USB drive to make them easier to review and manage. Older Sentry Mode clips will also be automatically overwritten once there is no more space on the USB drive. As for the Maps update, destinations that are keyed in will now include the distance to each suggested locations, which would make navigation easier. Visualizations have also been revamped with V10, as could be seen in the adjacent lane being highlighted blue and the target car destination being outlined in white during automatic lane changes, and more detailed visuals being included for surrounding vehicles.
-
- Sentry Model improvements in Tesla’s V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
-
- Driving Visualizations are updated in Tesla’s V10 Update. (Credit: Tesla Owners Online)
Conclusion
One could immediately see that these V10 update release notes are primarily focused on extra, fun features on Tesla’s vehicles, and not their core functionalities such as Autopilot and highly-anticipated Full Self-Driving capabilities such as Smart Summon. Reports from the Tesla community suggest that these features are also included in the V10 release to members of the Early Access Program, though no release notes on these new capabilities have been shared online as of writing.
We will update this article accordingly once new information is available.
H/T Tesla Owners Online, Vincent Yu, Tesletter, and Sandeep Patel.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
It appears that Tesla may be preparing to roll out some subscription-based services soon. Based on the observations of a Wales-based Model 3 owner who performed some reverse-engineering on the Tesla mobile app, it seems that the electric car maker has added a new “Subscribe” option beside the “Buy” option within the “Upgrades” tab, at least behind the scenes.
A screenshot of the new option was posted in the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, and while the Tesla owner in question, u/Callump01, admitted that the screenshot looks like something that could be easily fabricated, he did submit proof of his reverse-engineering to the community’s moderators. The moderators of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit confirmed the legitimacy of the Model 3 owner’s work, further suggesting that subscription options may indeed be coming to Tesla owners soon.
Did some reverse engineering on the app and Tesla looks to be preparing for subscriptions? from r/teslamotors
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite has been heavily speculated to be offered as a subscription option, similar to the company’s Premium Connectivity feature. And back in April, noted Tesla hacker @greentheonly stated that the company’s vehicles already had the source codes for a pay-as-you-go subscription model. The Tesla hacker suggested then that Tesla would likely release such a feature by the end of the year — something that Elon Musk also suggested in the first-quarter earnings call. “I think we will offer Full Self-Driving as a subscription service, but it will be probably towards the end of this year,” Musk stated.
While the signs for an upcoming FSD subscription option seem to be getting more and more prominent as the year approaches its final quarter, the details for such a feature are still quite slim. Pricing for FSD subscriptions, for example, have not been teased by Elon Musk yet, though he has stated on Twitter that purchasing the suite upfront would be more worth it in the long term. References to the feature in the vehicles’ source code, and now in the Tesla mobile app, also listed no references to pricing.
The idea of FSD subscriptions could prove quite popular among electric car owners, especially since it would allow budget-conscious customers to make the most out of the company’s driver-assist and self-driving systems without committing to the features’ full price. The current price of the Full Self-Driving suite is no joke, after all, being listed at $8,000 on top of a vehicle’s cost. By offering subscriptions to features like Navigate on Autopilot with automatic lane changes, owners could gain access to advanced functions only as they are needed.
Elon Musk, for his part, has explained that ultimately, he still believes that purchasing the Full Self-Driving suite outright provides the most value to customers, as it is an investment that would pay off in the future. “I should say, it will still make sense to buy FSD as an option as in our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future. And we are confident that it is an investment that will pay off to the consumer – to the benefit of the consumer.” Musk said.
Tesla Cybercab gets crazy change as mass production begins
Tesla confirms Cybercab with no steering wheel enters production
