The YouTube of China, Bilibili, will be available to Tesla owners in the country by Q1 2020. Drivers who own one of the automaker’s all-electric vehicles will be able to stream videos through their Teslas’ media control unit. Bilibili's Q1 2020 release announcement follows several other software additions to the infotainment system of Tesla cars in China, including multiplayer online games, and—the most impressive of them all—Smart Summon.
Bilibili is a video-sharing website based in China. It is supposedly named after Bili-Bili Dam, an embankment found in Indonesia. Videos shared on Bilibili were initially related to animation, comics, and games only. Due to its growing popularity, the China-based video-sharing website has expanded to other fields, including music, dance, science, and technology.
More mainstream topics have been shared on Bilibili as well, like videos about movies, drama(s), fashion, and other entertainment-related genres. Advertisement films and live streaming content are other services Bilibili provides to its audience.
As the description above suggests, Bilibili is very similar to YouTube. So by 2020 Tesla owners in China will be able to enjoy camping out in their all-electric vehicles and watch videos while doing it.
Tesla has already released other fun, entertaining additions for the Tesla Arcade in China. A couple days before Christmas Eve, news broke that Tesla China would be releasing online multiplayer games to the fleet. Titles like Fight Landlords and Happy Upgrade were dropped for the Tesla Arcade release.
To remotely play with other Tesla owners, users just had to log into their QQ and WeChat accounts. Coincidentally Tencent, the company that owns QQ and WeChat, held an event for the new additions into Tesla Arcade in China. Tencent hosting the event hinted at the multinational conglomerate’s close ties to Tesla China, which bodes well for the automaker’s internet-related services and products in the future.
My favorite new feature is Camp Mode, right after Dog Mode. What about you? @vincent13031925 @GeorgeSzeto8 @Tesmanian_com @thirdrowtesla https://t.co/eEyHyUPgnd
— Claire (@PurplePanda88) December 23, 2019
Right after releasing multiplayer gamers, Smart Summon was made available to Tesla owners in China. A version of Smart Summon being used without GPS was also seen maneuvering in an underground parking lot.
Between multiplayer games and Smart Summon, Tesla China has been boosting its presence as a Software-as-a-Service sphere. Tesla, as a whole, seems to be following the same route in all the countries where its cars are sold.
Europe recently received an abridged version of Smart Summon as well. In Australia, Navigate on Autopilot has been made available to Tesla owners, alongside the latest FSD preview released in the 2019.40.50 update in the United States.
About the Author
Claribelle Deveza
Longtime writer and news/book editor. Writing about Tesla allows me to contribute something good to the world, while doing something I love.
