Tesla adds Tidal app to its cars, and it's a big deal for audiophiles

Tesla owners who want an alternative to Spotify, rejoice: Tesla vehicles now support the streaming service Tidal.

The app should become available with Tesla's 2021.40 vehicle firmware update, out now in the U.S. Per Tesla's release notes (via Electrek): "TIDAL streaming is now available from the Media menu with a TIDAL account. You can listen to TIDAL playlists or albums in high-quality audio by connecting to Wi-Fi and pressing Download on the selected content."

Tidal is more than just an alternative to Spotify, though. The Square-owned music service offers music in far better quality than Spotify. Besides the Normal tier which is a 320 Kbps AAC stream, Tidal also offers music in the 1,411 Kbps, lossless quality Hifi tier, as well as Master, which offers streaming quality with the bit rate as high as 9,216 Kbps.

Tesla cars typically have a pretty good sound system, so being able to stream music in high quality might make a difference for discerning users (I haven't been able to test the feature out as it's not available in my region yet).

As for Spotify, the company has announced its own HiFi streaming tier back in February, but it hasn't launched yet. Apple Music and Amazon Music aren't available in Tesla cars.

The 2021.40 update brings several other improvements, including being able to have front defrost on and maintain your climate settings when clearing ice and snow, as well as getting an audio alert when Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is enabled.

That last change is notable as it was originally launched in China, where the update was reported as a major safety issue, though it boiled down to just what it sounds like: a sound that goes on when you turn on cruise control. The chime can be disabled by going to Controls - Autopilot - Traffic-Aware Cruise Control Chime.

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