As owners and many fans know, Tesla makes some great products, and they just seem to get better and better over time, thanks to over-the-air software updates. An email from a Tesla customer support resource shed some light on where Tesla comes up with the ideas for new features and how we as a community can influence those new features.
“Feature requests are 85% of the reason Tesla will add additional features, if possible,” the Tesla support representative said. The representative went on to clarify that Tesla takes all feature requests very seriously and that the best way for owners to have their voices heard is to submit new feature requests.
The comments came up in response to a request for the eagerly anticipated Spotify app in a US Tesla. US Teslas come from the factory with the Slacker music app, which is broadly seen as inferior to the Spotify app that Tesla includes instead of Slacker in its European vehicles. Because Spotify is already a standard feature in Europe, Tesla’s firmware has had the capability to use Spotify since it was rolled out in December of 2015 — it just is not included in US vehicles.
A Tesla service screen in a US Model S in 2016 showing a Spotify Test app. Image credit: Kyle Field | CleanTechnica
Spotify even has a special support page for Tesla owners, but only for those with the app natively installed, so US owners are still up a creek without a paddle until Tesla takes the leap to install the app. The lack of Spotify in US vehicles has owners so fired up that someone created a Change.org petition that garnered nearly 5,000 signatures.
Whether it is the lack of Spotify that grinds your gears or a desire to have the car intelligently prepare for departure when it knows you have a trip coming up based on your calendar, the customer support rep had a simple solution: email customersupport@tesla.com — “no limit on how many can be sent in.”
That is great news for anyone looking for a real way to give feedback to Tesla for new features without just submitting a bug report and hoping it gets to the right people, or tweeting at Elon and hoping he sees it. Further, this serves as confirmation that Tesla is listening to customer feedback and takes it very seriously.
Do you have an improvement idea for your Tesla product that you think others would be interested in? Hit us up in the comments so we can rally behind your idea as a community. Spotify would be nice, but with vehicles this advanced, I’m confident that our community of world-changers can come up with something more impactful and more exciting than just a new music app. I’m not saying I would complain about Spotify coming — it’s just not going to change the world.
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