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Elon Musk says video conferencing will ‘definitely’ be coming to Tesla cars soon

Tesla Model 3 cars have a driver-facing camera, but at the moment it has not been used for any features

Adam Smith
Wednesday 06 May 2020 13:14 BST
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The speed of change in the company's share price last week has taken legacy manufacturers by surprise
The speed of change in the company's share price last week has taken legacy manufacturers by surprise (AFP via Getty)

Video calling software is “definitely” coming to future Tesla cars, company CEO Elon Musk has confirmed.

In a tweet, the founder of electric car company said that video conferencing within the vehicle is “definitely a future feature.”

Tesla’s Model 3 cars already have a driver-facing camera and a screen in the car, but that camera has not been used to implement a feature yet.

Musk did not share details on when this feature would launch, or which videoconferencing software would be supported.

Recently, Musk’s rocket company SpaceX banned its employees from using Zoom, after US officials warned about the app’s security, because of “significant privacy and security concerns”.

Having video-chat capabilities in a car has obvious safety concerns: much like phone calls, users are certainly safer focusing on the road than trying to watch a video call while driving.

That said, Tesla could ensure the feature only worked while the car was stationary.

This is not the only feature Musk has recently suggested rolling out to his range of electric cars. The CEO suggested a video game similar to Mario Kart that could be played in the vehicle using augmented reality.

In March 2018 a Tesla driver died after crashing into a concrete barrier because he was playing a video game on his smartphone while using Tesla’s partially self-driving Autopilot feature.

Musk has also recently been criticised for tweets that wiped $14bn (£11.2bn) off Tesla’s value, after he said that the company’s stock price is “too high imo” and that he would sell “almost all” of his physical posessions.

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