Firmware
Thoughts on Tesla’s 8.0 Navigation System
Tesla firmware 8.0 has been out for several weeks now but I wanted to hold off on a review -in specific, a review on the updated Navigation feature – until I had completed several trips using it. And now with several hundred miles logged using Tesla Navigation, I’ll offer up my opinion of it.
The summary is that, while noft quite as bad as the new Media Player, there are some glaring bugs in the basic functionality of 8.0 Navigation that get in the way of otherwise great improvements.
The Good
While controversial, the expanded map view (thanks to the auto-hiding menu bar) is a welcome addition that maximizes the use of the beautiful 17″ touchscreen.
Some owners have complained that it requires an extra press to get to other functions (charts, browser, phone app, etc) now, but for my daily use, I rarely change out of the two selected features displayed on my 17″ screen (Navigation and Media).
Another thing I really like is that Tesla preserved the current location information (street, city, state) while hiding the menu bar. It would have been a big loss if they had taken the easy path and removed it with the rest.
Another controversial change is Tesla’s decision to pin the Navigation screen to the top of the 17″ display by default. In the past, picking a new app put it on top by default, but now if Navigation is being shown, then picking another app will place it below the Navigation window. Some people, like myself, appreciate this new behavior, but others are frustrated by it and would like the old behavior back. A simple option in the user preferences would solve this but I also understand the drawbacks with adding too many options to an user interface.
Tesla has 4 view modes for the map:
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- North up
- Heading up
- Trip overview
- Leg overview
Tesla added a new improvement to the map by displaying an indicator to the side of the road your destination resides on. Another nice feature is a new shortcut menu that helps you locate the closest chargers for your current location. While similar to the functionality provided by EVTripping’s Chargers page, although in a more graphical form, it still lacks the ability to bring up charger amenities and details with a quick tap.
Full disclosure: I’m the creator of EVtripping.com but would love to see Tesla incorporate some of our app features into its software.
The Bad
When you plan a long road trip involving Superchargers, Tesla provides a comprehensive trip overview showing all stops and charge times that are needed for each location.
This is a great overview of your trip which highlights the number of required charges. What is different in this version is that after you start driving there doesn’t appear to be a way to get back to this trip overview. That’s a loss they should fix.
The way the system reports on round trip remaining charge still has me confused. I was trained to tap the bottom of the directions and quickly get my round trip range. Now I find myself awkwardly scrolling to the bottom of a list while driving to find it. And that’s if I’ve turned it on. Any list that requires scrolling used while driving should be eliminated as it can be a major distraction.
The Ugly
The Navigation system seems much slower to update now. Recently, while cruising in Boston, I literally had to stop at a light, after taking a wrong turn, just to wait for the map to update. Having done similar drives before and knowing the speed of map refresh, I believe performance has degraded which causes the basic Navigation functionality to be less useful.
The worst and most glaring issue, in my opinion, involves the maps inability to properly discern tunnels. The system gets confused by tunnels and will show that you’re within one when in fact you’re not. It has been so bad that at times I’ve had to reboot the dashboard display.
8.0 Navigation Summary
Like the media player updates, I believe the improvements are a good step forward in many areas in terms of the user experience. The issues that I’ve run into need to be addressed in an upcoming patch or the 8.1 release.
Tesla’s Navigation system still lacks many of the features that other car manufacturers have had for almost a decade. Waypoints, alternative routes, route preferences, etc. Even some small usability issues, like the random sorting of favorites in the Navigation system, have not yet been addressed.
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While I appreciate the upgraded user interface design, I can’t help but wonder about how Tesla determines the priority list for firmware feature updates. Are they focusing on features that target everyday driving or are they prioritizing feature sets based on user demand?
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
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.
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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.
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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
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![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
