According to some digging into Tesla’s firmware by hacker Greentheonly, Tesla is preparing to launch a new, China-specific video integration app called Vohico. Tesla continues to integrate specific features for the highly competitive Chinese market, which fluctuates between being Tesla’s number one and number two market.
Tesla previously integrated WeChat applets in China, which let customers perform a wide variety of functions in the vehicle, including playing audiobooks, making payments, and messaging, among other things.
What is Vohico?
Vohico is one of China’s most popular video apps and is owned by ByteDance, the owner of TikTok. Vohico combines several of TikTok’s features with other apps and presents them in a touch interface for use in modern vehicles.
The app will provide access to China’s hugely popular short-form video service Douyin (TikTok), and the medium-to-long form Xigua Video (Watermelon).
Integrating one of the biggest super-apps from China directly into vehicles could help attract more buyers as Tesla faces a challenging market, where many other car options are cheaper due to government funding.
Intel & AMD Support
For owners in China, the Vohico integration will not be limited to vehicles on MCU 3 (AMD), but instead, will also be available for vehicles on MCU 2 (Intel) infotainment.
Tesla has recently been adding major new features only to AMD-based vehicles. This list includes Grok, the new Dashcam Viewer, High-Fidelity Park Assist, new games and more. The full list of differences between the MCUs can be seen here.
While Tesla continues to support Intel vehicles, major new features have been mostly arriving only on AMD vehicles, especially as Tesla embraces web frameworks for their newer apps, which offer quicker development, but don’t run as smoothly as native apps. However, seeing Tesla’s addition of Vohico to Intel vehicles is a positive sign that Tesla is still doing what it can to support older vehicles.
These small changes, similar to the Model Y L’s branding as a luxury utility vehicle, are what will help keep Tesla competitive in the Chinese market going forward.
