Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update: New Features Revealed
▼ Summary
– Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update focuses on smaller, playful features and tweaks rather than major, groundbreaking additions.
– A key new feature is the beta integration of the Grok AI assistant, which can now add and edit navigation destinations.
– The update includes several entertainment-focused additions like a Photobooth for selfies and a SpaceX ISS docking simulator game.
– Several practical navigation improvements were added, including automatic HOV lane routing and a 3D Supercharger site map.
– Other useful updates enhance Dog Mode with a live activity feed and allow setting a charge limit for specific locations.
Tesla’s annual software gift to owners has arrived with the 2025 Holiday Update, delivering a collection of new features designed for entertainment and incremental utility. This year’s package leans more toward playful additions and interface refinements rather than introducing a single headline-grabbing application, continuing a recent trend of the holiday releases focusing on smaller, fun enhancements.
The update integrates Grok, the AI chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI, more deeply into the vehicle’s systems. Previously operating in isolation, Grok can now interact with core car functions in its beta phase. By setting its personality to ‘Assistant’, owners can use voice commands to add or edit navigation destinations, effectively turning the AI into a conversational guide for trips.
For those looking for amusement, a new Tesla Photobooth feature transforms the cabin into a digital studio. Accessible through the Toybox menu, it allows drivers and passengers to take selfies using the car’s interior camera, applying various filters, stickers, and emojis before sharing the images directly via the Tesla app.
More practical improvements include an upgrade to Dog Mode, which now provides a Live Activity feed on compatible iPhones. When activated, this feed displays periodic snapshots of the cabin’s interior alongside real-time updates on temperature, battery level, and climate control status, offering greater peace of mind for pet owners.
The Dashcam viewer has been enhanced with additional contextual data. Recorded clips will now include information such as the vehicle’s speed, steering wheel angle, and the engagement state of Autopilot or Full Self-Driving at the time of the recording, providing more detail for reviewing incidents.
Seasonal fun returns with an expanded Santa Mode, adding festive snowmen, trees, a special lock chime, and snow effects to the vehicle’s visualization on the central screen. The Light Show feature also gets a new song, “Jingle Rush,” with options to schedule displays and synchronize them across multiple vehicles.
Owners can now further personalize their digital vehicle avatar with custom wraps, window tints, and license plates. Designs can be chosen from preloaded options or created and uploaded via a USB drive, accessed through the ‘Paint Shot’ option in the Toybox.
Several navigation upgrades aim to improve the daily driving experience. The interface now allows for reordering favorite destinations and setting Home or Work by simply dropping a pin on the map. A significant addition is the Supercharger Site Map, which provides a 3D overview of select charging stations, displaying the site layout and live stall occupancy (Available, Occupied, or Down) to help plan charging stops more efficiently.
Navigation now includes an option to automatically route using High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes when eligible, factoring in time, location, passenger count, and local restrictions. A new ‘Phone Left Behind Chime’ will sound a warning if a phone key is detected inside the locked cabin or left on the wireless charger. Furthermore, drivers can now set a specific charge limit for a given location, and the car will remember and apply it automatically during future visits.
For entertainment, Tesla has added a SpaceX ISS Docking Simulator to the Arcade. This 3D game challenges players to dock a virtual rocket with the International Space Station using controls modeled on actual NASA interfaces.
Other miscellaneous updates include the ability to disable individual wireless phone chargers, improved scrolling and queuing for Spotify, dynamic rainbow accent lighting that syncs with music in ‘Rave Cave’ mode, and a new ‘Light Cycle’ lock sound from Tron. As always, feature availability depends on the specific hardware of the vehicle and its region.
This year’s holiday package is a blend of lighthearted features and genuine functional improvements. While some additions are clearly designed for brief novelty, the collective enhancements to navigation, charging, and vehicle monitoring contribute meaningful refinements to the overall ownership experience.
(Source: Electrek)
