Tesla drivers will soon be able to turn to Grok for directions; whether that’s a wrong turn remains to be seen.
The EV maker announced its 2025 Holiday update today on Elon Musk’s X, highlighting several new features coming soon to Tesla vehicles. The most immediately eye-catching update is a new “Grok with Navigation Commands” feature, which allows users to add and edit navigation via voice commands.
In a video preview accompanying the announcement, a man asks Grok for a tour of San Francisco, including stops at the Ferry Building, Pier 39, and Golden Gate Park. Within seconds, Grok responds and pulls up a route for him.
While the new feature seems useful, the chatbot’s track record for errors and controversies raises serious questions regarding its functionality. Last year, Grok’s AI-generated news summaries produced a series of bizarre false stories. One claimed New York City Mayor Eric Adams sent 1,000 NYPD officers into the subway after an earthquake to stop future earthquakes. In July, Musk said he would “fix” the chatbot after some users complained it was too liberal. Soon after, Grok started answering some questions with Nazi talking points and even praised Adolf Hitler. And just last week, Grok said it would choose to kill the world’s 16 million Jews over vaporizing Musk’s mind.
So, it’s hard to say how well Grok will actually serve as a navigation guide. Even traditional GPS systems like Google Maps make errors. As just one example, in 2019, dozens of drivers in Denver who were on their way to the airport followed Google’s directions onto a muddy dirt road and got stuck. Sometimes, the wrong directions can be quite serious. Last year, three men in India drove off an unfinished bridge and died after reportedly receiving the wrong directions from Google Maps.
So yeah, maybe don’t combine Grok navigation and “Full Self-Driving” this holiday season.
More holiday updates
In addition to Grok’s new directions feature, Tesla announced a mix of useful updates and some more lighthearted ones.
One of the more practical additions is a new live-activity Dog Mode. It lets users monitor their pets that have been left inside a car with periodic snapshots, plus live updates on the vehicle’s interior temperature and battery level.
Tesla is also rolling out a festive Santa Mode. It turns the digital visualization of the Tesla car on its dashboard display into a sleigh with reindeer, Christmas trees, snowmen, and falling snow effects.
As for the new feature that will likely get the most use, Tesla has added a car chime that sounds for a few seconds after a door closes if a phone key is left inside, or if a phone is left on the wireless charger and no passengers are detected in the vehicle.
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