Years later Tesla may finally add Apple CarPlay to its cars

14 November 2025

A massive shift might be coming for Tesla owners who own an iPhone. A new report claims the biggest name in electric cars is testing Apple CarPlay. This news comes as a shock to many people in the auto industry. For years, Tesla refused to add this popular feature. The company preferred to make drivers use its own software. Now, it seems the automaker is changing its mind.

Bloomberg reports that Tesla is working on this project right now. Sources say the company is testing the feature internally, which means engineers are trying it out to see if it works well. The sources asked to stay anonymous because the project is still a secret, but if this update happens, it will fix a big complaint among Tesla drivers. Many people love the way their Tesla drives, but they miss the apps on their phones.

This possible change is quite ironic. About ten years ago, CEO Elon Musk said he wanted to add phone mirroring to his cars. He mentioned Android Auto and Apple CarPlay specifically. But that promise faded away, along with many others. Tesla focused on building its own system instead. The company wanted total control over the screen. They built a system with good maps and voice commands. But it never connected to a phone the way CarPlay does.

Now, the rest of the car world is doing something different. Companies like General Motors are removing CarPlay from their new EVs. They want to be like Tesla; they want to control the data and the screen. Just as other companies start to copy Tesla's old strategy, Tesla might be moving in the other direction.

The report gives some specific details on how this would look. Tesla plans to use the standard version of Apple CarPlay. It will not use the new "Ultra" version. The Ultra version takes over the whole dashboard, including the speedometer and climate controls, but Tesla will not allow that. Instead, CarPlay will show up as a window on the big screen, which fits with the current Tesla interface. Drivers can still see the car's data while using their phone apps.

Another important detail is the connection type. The report says Tesla is going for a wireless connection. This is great news since nobody really likes messy cables in the front seat. A driver could get in, and their phone would connect automatically. This makes features like Apple Music or Google Maps very easy to use.

CarPlay is a "must-have" for many car buyers. It keeps things simple. People know how their iPhone works. They want that same feeling in their car. Tesla has a very good voice-to-text system; in fact, it is better than most. But some drivers just prefer Siri. They want to see their text messages pop up in a familiar way. Giving customers what they want is usually a good business move.

But since this is Tesla we are talking about, there is no guarantee this will actually happen. The report warns that Tesla could cancel the project at any point. They might test it, decide it is not good enough, and kill it. This has happened before. The timeline suggests it could launch in a few months if everything goes well, but until an official update arrives, Tesla owners will have to wait and see.

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