Tesla Drops Iconic Autopilot Symbol in FSD V14

Tesla is quietly changing one of its most recognizable FSD symbols — the Autopilot icon — in its latest FSD update. With FSD v14, vehicles will no longer show the familiar blue circular steering wheel icon when FSD is engaged — instead, the display will show “Self-Driving.”

The Autopilot Icon

Since October 2015, when Tesla first launched its first Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) with Mobileye hardware, the Autopilot icon has served as a visual indicator that the system is engaged.

However, it didn’t look exactly the same back then. Back then, it appeared as a plain blue steering wheel icon when active; the familiar solid-blue circular background came later. This visual cue helped drivers instantly understand the system’s status.

However, it looks like that’s coming to an end with FSD v14.

What Is Tesla Replacing It With?

Starting with this update, Tesla has removed the traditional Autopilot icon and now displays the words “Self-Driving” in blue when the system is engaged. Underneath this text, users can switch between FSD profiles, choose from Chill, Standard, Hurry, or the new Sloth Mode.

Text-only labels, traditionally, don’t work well across languages, and an icon is usually a much better option. If someone rents a vehicle in a foreign country, the vehicle may be set to a different language. Even if they’re familiar with Tesla and Autopilot, blue text in a language they can’t understand may not be the most obvious indicator that Autopilot is active.

Why Are They Replacing It?

Tesla VP of AI Ashok Elluswamy explained that the steering wheel icon had become outdated — “it’d be like the floppy disk icon for the save function,” he said, referencing how teens today might not recognize the symbol.  The analogy suggests that one day, teens may not recognize a steering wheel; however, that’s likely decades away.

There will still be specialized vehicles, vehicles for recreation and racing that will help the steering wheel stay far more relevant than the floppy disk has; however, Ashok’s point is well taken.

However, maybe there’s something else that could be used instead of plain text? A vehicle displaying waves or a path, similar to FSD, as illustrated in the example below, could indicate that the vehicle is operating autonomously.

What Comes Next

While the Autopilot icon is gone in the latest FSD release, we believe it’ll return at some point, possibly with an icon and text. Tesla could retain the iconic Autopilot symbol or introduce a new design.

Text just isn’t as easy to understand at a glance as a symbol is. As a reader suggested, Tesla should make it more obvious that Autopilot is enabled, potentially adding a blue border around the entire screen, much like they do in Service Mode.

Tesla has made several UI changes in FSD v14.1, which also include new arrival modes, emergency vehicle handling, automatic parking at the destination, and more.  This visual change for Autopilot may be subtle, but it could be the end of an era. Say it ain’t so, Tesla.

Had we continued to use it, it’d be like the floppy disk icon for the save function.

— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) October 10, 2025

Tesla has begun rolling out its latest software update, 2025.38, and it’s a feature-packed release, enough for us to label it as this year’s Fall Update. The update brings significant visual upgrades to navigation, the first international Grok expansion, and a host of highly-requested quality-of-life improvements for the Dashcam, driver profiles, and more.

Here’s a full breakdown of everything new.

3D Buildings for Navigation

The most visually striking change in this update is the introduction of 3D buildings and cityscapes directly into the navigation map view. For users subscribed to Premium Connectivity, a new Cube icon on the map screen enables a detailed, three-dimensional rendering of buildings on the map, adding a new layer of visual richness. You can watch a video and read about the full details here.

Grok Launches in Canada

Tesla’s AI assistant, Grok, has officially launched in Canada. This marks the first international expansion for the feature outside of the United States. Canadian owners with Premium Connectivity (or anyone on WiFi) can converse with Grok by holding down the voice command button.

Grok is currently in Beta and does not issue commands to your car. Existing voice commands remain unchanged and can be accessed by tapping the voice command button or the right scroll wheel on pre-refresh models.

Tesla is still planning to add a wake word for Grok, so that users can just say “Hey, Grok,” instead of having to press the mic button.

Dashcam Viewer Street Names

The dashcam viewer has received a pair of extremely useful updates.

First, the title of each recording now includes the street name in addition to the town or city. This feature is available in both the Dashcam Viewer within the vehicle and the Tesla app, making it easier to find past recordings.

Note that if you’re in a low GPS precision area like a parking garage, the nearest identified street may be shown. If you are off the beaten path, no street name will be visible and only the town will be displayed.

This feature is available on all vehicles, including legacy Model S and Model X vehicles.

Dashcam Video Quality

The second feature for Dashcam in this update is improved video streaming quality. Since Tesla does not store Dashcam footage on their servers and the videos are stored on a USB drive in the vehicle, the vehicle needs to stream the content for you to view it through the Tesla app.

In this update, Tesla increased the video quality at which the vehicle streams this data. We hinted at this feature coming in the Tesla 4.49.5 app update, which saw the addition of things like “Flexible Dashcam bitrate.”

While the app allows you to download Dashcam videos directly onto your phone, the highest quality is always on the USB drive in your vehicle. However, with this new variable bitrate addition, the vehicle will hopefully be able to stream a video of similar quality with a good connection. The good news is that Tesla didn’t just increase the video quality, which could make it difficult to use under slow connections; they implemented the ability to scale the bitrate of the video up or down, depending on the vehicle’s connection.

This feature is not available for legacy Model S and Model X vehicles, but the good news is that it does include all Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, including those with HW3 and Intel infotainment units. If you’re unsure whether you have Intel or AMD, check out our guide on how to tell which you have.

New Scroll Wheel Functions

More customization has been added to the left scroll wheel’s quick menu, which allows you to hold down the left scroll wheel to access a variety of functions. You can set it to one specific function, or a menu where you can scroll through various options. This update adds the following functions:

• Mute or Unmute Navigation

• Enable or Disable Bioweapon Defence Mode (if equipped)

• Enable or Disable Music Light Sync (if equipped)

We’re actually fairly excited about this addition. The ability to quickly and easily mute or unmute the voice guidance is appreciated, as it currently requires several taps, unless you use the voice command.

Profile Locking with Phone Key

A fantastic new security and convenience feature was also rolled into this update. You can now lock a specific driver profile to particular phone keys, ensuring it can only be accessed by those specific keys.

If someone tries to select that profile without the linked phone key in proximity, a “Profile Locked” message appears. All locked profiles also have their profile photo hidden in the vehicle selection menu.

This is an excellent solution for families with multiple drivers or those who rent out their vehicles, as it keeps the primary owner profiles safely locked away. While this feature may not seem like a big deal, a driver’s profile can reveal sensitive information such as the person’s home and work addresses, navigation favorites and addresses, ability to open garage doors through HomeLink or MyQ, and more.

We feel like there’s more coming with this feature. Tesla already has great parental controls, which limit the vehicle’s max speed, acceleration, and more. While Parental Controls currently require a PIN every time you want to enable or disable the feature, we could see Tesla letting you tie parental controls to specific profiles in the feature, meaning that a teen would only be able to use their profile and not be able to access their parents’ profile, which has parental controls turned off.

New Charging Visualization

An undocumented change in this update is an immersive visual improvement that has been added to the Model 3 and Model Y while they’re charging. The on-screen 3D vehicle visualization now displays a detailed model of the charging post behind the vehicle, with different chargers appearing, depending on the type of charger being used.

Tesla will show a generic charger for third-party chargers, as shown below, but they’ll also show Wall Connectors, Superchargers, and presumably other Tesla connectors such as the mobile charging connector.

While the full-screen visualization is reserved for AMD-based vehicles, Tesla is also adding the charger visualization to Intel vehicles. However, it’ll only be displayed on the visualization area on the left.

Easily Log In to Streaming Services

Logging in to a music or video service with the onscreen keyboard can be frustrating, especially if you have to do it multiple times since the vehicle occasionally chews up your credentials.

Tesla is improving this whole process and making it much less painful. We first saw this improvement with the introduction of Grok, where the vehicle simply sent a notification to the Tesla app, allowing the user to tap it and log in on their device.

Tesla is now expanding this to all music services and, hopefully, video streaming services as well. When you launch a streaming service, you can now tap on Link Account, and you’ll receive a notification in the Tesla app, which will take you to the login screen. You’ll still have the option to scan a QR code, which will take you to the same location if you prefer.

There’s a video below of the new process.

New way to sign into Media Accounts on 2025.38 (you get the notification when you hit „Link Account“ but you still have the option to show the QR-Code if needed) pic.twitter.com/9avXx6lvWa

— Max Bracco (@max_bracco) October 9, 2025

Apple Music Improvements

This update introduces Apple Music improvements to the whole fleet, including legacy Model S and Model X. Tesla says that playlists are now organized with folders, and there are artist pages with more information. There’s also a Recently Played area that displays more of your listening history.

Release Rollout

Update 2025.38

FSD Supervised 12.6.4 & 13.2.9

Installed on 2.4% of fleet

Last updated: Oct 12, 1:50 am UTC

This release has started a fairly rapid rollout to Tesla’s fleet around the world, with the vast majority of installs starting in North America. This update will likely continue to roll out in increasingly larger waves.

But Wait, What About FSD V14.1?

Tesla’s latest FSD, v14.1 (impressive FSD v14.1 videos), is based on update 2025.32. As a result, anyone receiving 2025.38 may not be eligible for the latest FSD version until Tesla updates it to 2025.38.

However, we already know various updates are coming to FSD, including FSD v14.2 and FSD v14.3. Given the braking issues influencers have seen with FSD v14.1, it’s unlikely that it’ll go out to additional users. FSD v14.2 and higher could be based on update 2025.38, making everyone eligible to receive the update, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Either way, a big update is coming your way. Stay tuned as we discover more undocumented features in update 2025.38. You can also read the full release notes for this update. Thanks to Max Bracco for a lot of the details and images.

Tesla has introduced the latest Tesla update, version 2025.38, to the masses, or at least to the lucky 1% of owners who’ve received it so far.

While this update isn’t huge, it does include major new features, with the most noteworthy being new 3D buildings in the map view.

3D Buildings

Tesla map now with 3D buildings and houses pic.twitter.com/WTgQ46blQp

— Chunk (@AhoyChunk) October 9, 2025

3D buildings can be enabled in the map view, allowing you to view almost any house or building in 3D. It makes the maps pop and adds a much-needed feature that has been available on other vehicles like Rivian.

To view 3D buildings, the user must enable them, which is a new toggle on the right side of the screen on the Model 3 and Y, right next to the radar button. 3D buildings are then automatically displayed at higher zoom levels; however, they’re hidden if you zoom out too far. You also can’t combine 3D buildings with satellite view as expected.

You can drive with the 3D buildings being displayed, which makes it not only a nice visual effect but also beneficial in navigation. The buildings can make it more obvious where to turn by connecting the intersection with your surroundings.

3D Maps

Great @Tesla Update Version 2025.38

New 3D buildings view feature works nice!

Showing St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna. https://t.co/rr0ZOzLMDi pic.twitter.com/dh6t39SiBP

— arpy (@arpysystems) October 9, 2025

3D buildings aren’t the only addition to the maps. While you could always zoom in and rotate Tesla’s maps, you could tilt the view before, adjusting the angle you’re looking at the maps.

While this only works with 3D buildings enabled, you can put two fingers on the touchscreen and pan up and down to adjust the viewing angle of the map.

Future Updates

With the addition of 3D buildings, Tesla is closing in on duplicating what’s shown in the vehicle’s visualization and what’s displayed in the map view. We could see Tesla eventually merging these two features and incorporating map data, such as the buildings and your route path, into the vehicle’s visualizations.

While the vehicle’s visualizations serve more as real-time visuals of the surrounding environment, and the map view is more for archived or map data, the lines are getting increasingly blurred. Tesla now displays map data in the visualization view to help both the vehicle and its users better understand their surroundings.

During the Cybertruck’s prototype stage, Tesla shared a prototype UI that did exactly this. The vehicle’s visualizations were a part of the map view. You could see your vehicle, the navigation route, 3D buildings, streets, and your path, all together in one view.

Tesla has also been experimenting with adding 3D terrain to the visualization view, letting roads show elevation and surroundings show hills. If they’re still planning to do this, it may make sense to show 3D buildings that are near the vehicle in the visualization view as well.

Google API

Tesla is likely leveraging the Google API to get the data needed for the new 3D buildings, which is how they’ve been able to launch the feature across most countries. The feature appears to be available worldwide, except in China, where Tesla uses a different map provider.

Availability

The new 3D buildings are available on the Model 3 and Model Y with the AMD Ryzen infotainment unit. It’s also available on the Cybertruck and presumably will be available on 2021+ Model S and Model X when the update starts shipping to those vehicles as well.

However, the feature does require Premium Connectivity. While some Premium Connectivity features are available on WiFi, this isn’t one of them.