Tesla has started teasing — and rolling out in waves — its 2025 Holiday Update, the annual software drop that mixes a little fun with a lot of incremental polish. This year’s bundle isn’t a single blockbuster feature, but it does stitch together a number of practical navigation and safety improvements alongside Toybox toys that will make owners smile.
Grok leaves the chat window and starts directing traffic
The headline is the deeper Grok integration: Tesla’s in-car Grok assistant can now add and edit navigation stops by voice when its personality is set to “Assistant.” In practice that means you can say something like “Add a coffee stop on the way” or chain multiple destinations in a single command — and Grok will adjust the route.
This is the kind of move that nudges cars toward conversational copilots the way smartphones did with voice assistants. It’s also in line with the broader push to give maps and cars agentic AI help (think of the conversational copilots appearing in other navigation platforms like Google Maps) — a trend that has implications for privacy, data use, and expectations of what a car should do for you. See how conversational navigation is evolving in other ecosystems with Google’s work on a Gemini-powered Maps copilot here, and how those systems are increasingly designed to tap into user data here.
Hardware and regional limits will matter: vehicles with older Intel MCUs or missing cabin/AMD processors may not get every Grok feature immediately, and Grok availability is still concentrated in North America.
Navigation and charging: small changes that add up
A handful of navigation and charging niceties landed too:
- Reorder your navigation favorites and set Home/Work by dropping a pin anywhere on the map. No need to physically be at the location.
- Suggested destinations appear while parked, based on recent trips and habits.
- Automatic HOV routing can pick carpool lanes when you’re eligible, using time, location and passenger-count logic.
- You can now save a charge limit for a specific location; it will apply next time you plug in.
- Photobooth: use the cabin camera for selfies, filters and stickers, shareable via the Tesla app.
- Santa Mode refresh: animated snowmen, trees, snow effects and a new lock chime.
- Light show additions: a new Jingle Rush routine, interior lighting control and longer custom shows.
- Paint Shop: virtual custom wraps, window tints and license plates for your in-car avatar; you can upload designs via USB.
- SpaceX ISS Docking Simulator: an arcade-style 3D docking game using interfaces inspired by real astronaut controls.
Perhaps the most tangible practical upgrade is the pilot of 3D Supercharger site maps at select stations. Tap “View Site Map” when navigating to a participating Supercharger and you’ll see a top-down 3D layout with real-time stall occupancy (Available / Occupied / Down). Tesla says the pilot spans a set of locations in California and one in Texas — handy for planning exactly where to park when you arrive.
Dashcam telemetry and other safety-facing tweaks
Dashcam clips now carry extra telemetry overlays in the viewer: speed, steering wheel angle and the driving/autonomy state (Autopilot/FSD engaged). That overlay helps provide context when you review footage — whether for peace of mind, sharing online, or insurance questions. It’s a practical transparency move that will also make it harder to misinterpret clips out of context.
Other safety QoL improvements: a Phone Left Behind chime warns when a phone key or a phone on the wireless charger remains inside after you lock the car (requires UWB-capable devices). And owners can now enable or disable the vehicle’s wireless charging pads if the heat-toasting behavior of some phones is a concern.
Toybox updates: from photobooth to docking with the ISS
Tesla’s lighter side shows up too. New Toybox items include:
They’re playful, and yes — some owners will use them once and then forget. But they’re also part of Tesla’s long-running strategy of making software a flavor of ownership.
Small media and convenience upgrades
Spotify gains the ability to add tracks to your queue directly from the search screen and to scroll large playlists without paging. Dog Mode gets an iPhone Live Activity that pushes periodic cabin snapshots and temperature/battery updates to the lock screen — great for pet owners who want a quick check-in.
One conspicuous omission: there’s no CarPlay integration in this release, despite rumors. That may still be in the works elsewhere in Tesla’s roadmap, but it didn’t appear in these notes.
Rollout and caveats
Tesla typically staggers Holiday Update rollouts in waves. Some items will be gated by hardware (MCU generation, AMD vs Intel) and region. Expect the first wave to appear on cars in the coming days, with broader availability stretching out over weeks.
The collection of changes feels very Tesla: part polish, part playful, part practical. For owners who care about route planning, dashcam context and Supercharger logistics, there are useful additions. For everyone else, there’s a photobooth and a Christmas snowman. Either way, it’s another reminder that a Tesla can change considerably without touching the paint.