First Look at Tesla's Weather Forecast and AQI Features in Update 2024.26.1

Tesla added some long-awaited features in update 2024.26.1, which we’ve dubbed the Summer Update, due to the huge amount of new features that have been added.

The update has rolled out to just a small fraction of the fleet, but it’ll continue to roll out to more features in the coming weeks.

Two of the new features in this update have been hotly requested – a Weather Forecast and an Air Quality Index (AQI) indicator. So, let’s take a look at what’s been added.

Weather Forecast

Tesla has added a two-part weather UI to all vehicles in the 2024.26.1 update. The first portion is a forecast preview, located at the top of the screen, next to the current time and current outdoor temperature. There will be an icon that displays the current weather – overcast, cloudy, rainy, sunny, snowing – there should be plenty of preset weather types to see.

The second part is what happens when you tap on that icon or the current temperature. This will display a pop-out menu showing the forecast for the day, including current temperature and conditions, as well as a scrollable hour-by-hour forecast. It’ll also include the chance of rain, humidity, wind (and direction), UV Index, and Air Quality Index information.

Greggertruck/X

Air Quality Index

The Air Quality Index originally came to China a couple of years ago. In China, this information is displayed constantly on the vehicle UI. However, in North America and Europe, the AQI information in the UI is only shown if the AQI is considered “poor” or lower. If it’s below the threshold, it’ll be displayed next to the current temperature in the status bar.

If it’s not being shown, and you want to know what it is – the expanded weather prompt (by touching the weather forecast or temperature icons) – will show the current AQI at the bottom.

The Air Quality Index ranges from 0-500, with a lower number meaning cleaner air. We’re not quite sure how Tesla has categorized them, but the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), defines the AQIs as below:

We haven’t seen the Tesla names for ‘Very Unhealthy’ and ‘Hazardous’, but we’d expect them to be similar.