Back in 2020, Elon Musk said that Tesla would start rendering other Teslas within the Autopilot/FSD visualization on screen. Almost five years after Musk’s original comment, this idea may finally come to realization — at least partially. Tesla may not add vehicle color renderings like originally planned, but it looks like we may at least be getting the Cybertruck rendered on the screen, along with a few other items.
Will put it on the list. Right after making it recognize trailers instead of looking like a semi truck is trying to mate with Cybertruck
— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 6, 2025
Rendering Vehicles
Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s Lead Engineer, mentioned that displaying Cybertrucks on the in-vehicle visualization will get added to Tesla’s list of upcoming features. However, it looks like Tesla has a few other items to add to visualizations as well.
Another visualization Wes mentions is getting trailers to render on the screen properly instead of being displayed as a truck or semi. For drivers who partially depend on the visualization while driving, this could be a helpful change.
This also means Tesla has the visual bandwidth to identify and categorize vehicles more closely than the generic “car” or “truck” we see today.
Musk’s Original Comment
While Musk’s original comment back in 2020 called for rendering all Teslas in their proper colors on the screen, this is unlikely to be what Tesla is going for here. Tesla’s original plan likely caused too much clutter or distractions in the visualization, preventing drivers from being able to quickly identify critical items. Tesla currently uses colors to categorize different things, such as a light gray vehicle meaning the vehicle is parked, or a dark gray vehicle being a lead vehicle.
If you’re interested in all of Tesla’s visualizations and what they mean, such as a blue car, take a look at our guide that lists all of Tesla’s visualizations and what they mean.
Regarding rendering Teslas in the vehicle visualization, Wes’ comment on X leaves a little up to interpretation. It’s not clear whether Tesla is only going to add the Cybertruck or potentially other Teslas as well to the visualization. We don’t believe they’ll add colors for the reasons above, but we’ll have to wait to see what they roll out in the future.
Depending on how far Tesla goes with these visualizations, the type of MCU in your vehicle could play a role in whether they’re included in your car.
How Tesla Identifies Objects
Tesla uses a rather complex system that quickly compares objects on the road to their nearest estimated shapes, and displays that on the visualization, which is why you can get some oddities like people with shopping carts looking like they’re riding motorcycles or bicycles in a parking lot.
Having further optimization on that aspect also means more system accuracy - something Tesla has been striving for, especially to improve Actually Smart Summon and eventually bring Banish to the FSD feature set.
