Grok is now in Tesla cars, but not in the way you think

Grok comes to Tesla cars, but it's limited

Tesla Grok

Grok is now in Teslas, but you can't use it to issue commands to the car. Credit: Tesla

Last week, Elon Musk said xAI's Grok chatbot would be coming to Tesla vehicles. Now, the company has made good on the CEO's promise, but perhaps not in the way many users had hoped.

Launched on Saturday, the latest firmware update for Tesla cars brings Grok functionality to some vehicles — namely, only those with an AMD chip inside. That means only Teslas produced around mid-2021 or later can access Grok.

There's a bigger caveat, though. According to Tesla's release notes for software version 2025.26, "Grok is currently in Beta & does not issue commands to your car — existing voice commands remain unchanged."

This means that Tesla owners won't be able to use Grok smarts to get better functionality out of the car's voice command interface, which often leaves a lot to be desired (I've personally struggled to issue basic commands to a Tesla Model 3, including choosing a song to play or simply getting it to understand what I'm trying to say).

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Instead, Grok can now be used for non-car.-specific queries, including (Tesla's example) asking the assistant what it would do on a first date with Tesla's robot, Optimus.

There's no word on whether Grok's behavior in Tesla cars may change in the future.

The new functionality came after a tough week for Grok (and those who had the misfortune of seeing its posts), as it went on an antisemitic tirade on X — just a few days after Musk announced that the chatbot had been "improved significantly." Per The Verge, the chatbot's system had been tuned to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect." In an update over the weekend, xAI apologized for the issue and said the code negatively affecting the Grok's "horrific behavior" has been removed.

Shortly after the incident, xAI launched a new version of Grok, which beats other AI assistant in a number of AI benchmarks.

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Meanwhile, Musk promised the "most epic demo ever" by Tesla "by end of year," without going into specifics.

Stan Schroeder

Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.

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