Owners of the newly refreshed 2026 Model S and Model X vehicles have noticed a curious omission from their Toybox: the beloved Santa Mode is missing. While the rest of Tesla’s fleet can activate the jolly visualization, refresh S and X owners are left out in the cold, waiting for their sleigh to arrive.
However, it seems the feature isn’t gone for good. If you try to activate Santa Mode through the Voice Command Easter Eggs - “Run Rudolph Run”, “Ho Ho Ho”, or “Enable Santa Mode”, your vehicle will say that Santa Mode is not available, but that it’s coming soon.
Following the Gingerbread Crumbs
This isn’t a bug, but rather a casualty of the new visualization upgrade that the refreshed Model S and Model X received. This new visualization engine likely relies on Unreal Engine, and Tesla has to port the assets and functionality from the older open-source Godot Engine over. That process takes time, and the refreshed flagship vehicles have only been out for a few months to date.
Tesla sometimes uses the Model S and Model X as test beds for software and hardware features that will trickle their way down to the rest of the fleet, and what better way to start than with upgrades to the visualization engine?
Improvements to Santa Mode
The new Tron Mode brought major improvements to the way visualizations look and perform. While the feature is controversial, it’s easily the best-looking visualization. Santa Mode, on the other hand, is fairly static and simplified, and the vehicle and reindeer don’t do much other than animate in place. Tron Mode, meanwhile, brings full-on animations, including physics-based vehicle movement.
It’s possible that Tron Mode also relies on the new rendering engine, as switching Tron Mode on or off requires a moment.
CyberSleigh
The Cybertruck’s Santa Mode is the middle ground, with a fully animated and rigged sleigh with reindeer. The Cybertruck’s mode also includes turn signals, an animated Optimus Santa that does arm signals, and levitates in place.
It runs on the older rendering engine and has been in place since the arrival of the Cybertruck.
Holiday Update
Tesla’s software teams are probably hard at work porting over and improving Santa Mode to better fit with other recent updates to Tesla’s Easter Eggs, like being able to adjust the volume in Tron Mode, which you cannot do for the intro songs in Santa Mode.
What better feature to include in the 2025 Holiday Update than a new version of Santa Mode? However, keep in mind that Tron Mode is limited to AMD-based vehicles, and it’s possible the new Santa Mode may be too.
