Tesla Features Named After Pop Culture — and Their Origins: Sentry Mode, Plaid, Mad Max and More – Not a Tesla App

Tesla has always been a bit different from your average car company. While legacy automakers are busy arguing over cup holder placements, Tesla has been busy baking sci-fi references and pop culture deep cuts into its software.

If you have ever sat in a Tesla, you know it feels more like a giant rolling smartphone than a vehicle. But what you might not know is that many of the features on your screen are actually inside jokes. From 1980s cult comedies to futuristic space travel, here is a breakdown of some of the names Tesla has given features or products with pop culture tie-ins

Plaid and Ludicrous (Spaceballs)

If you are a fan of the 1987 Mel Brooks classic Spaceballs, you already know exactly where these names came from. In the movie, which is a parody of Star Wars, the villainous Spaceball One ship has several speeds: Light Speed, Ridiculous Speed, Ludicrous Speed, and finally, “Going Plaid.”

Tesla adopted these for its high-performance acceleration modes. Ludicrous Mode was the first big one, giving drivers a massive boost in 0-60 mph times. But when that wasn’t fast enough, Tesla released the Model S Plaid. In the movie, when the ship hits Plaid speed, the stars literally turn into a plaid pattern because they are moving so fast. Tesla even added a “Plaid” animation to their cars when you floor it, showing the same light-streak effect.

Not a Flamethrower

This one is technically a product from Musk’s Boring Company, but it is a massive part of the Tesla lore. Back in 2018, Musk decided to sell 20,000 “flamethrowers” to raise money for his tunnel-digging venture. The problem? Shipping something called a “flamethrower” is a legal nightmare.

To get around customs and shipping restrictions, he literally renamed the product “Not a Flamethrower.” Musk later told podcaster Joe Rogan, “We are told that various countries would ban shipping of it, that they would ban flamethrowers.” It is essentially a large propane torch inside a plastic shell that looks like a sci-fi rifle, but the name stuck as one of the ultimate “if you know, you know” jokes in the community.

Joe Mode

Unlike the movie references, Joe Mode is named after a real person. In 2019, a Tesla owner named Joe messaged Musk on Twitter (now X) asking for a way to quiet down the car’s beeps and chimes. Joe had kids sleeping in the back seat, and every time the car adjusted its lane or sensed a nearby vehicle, the loud “ding” would wake them up.

Musk replied, “Hoping to get ‘Joe Mode’ into V10.” True to his word, the feature rolled out shortly after. When you toggle Joe Mode on, it reduces the volume of non-critical system alerts by half. It’s a small tweak, but it’s a lifesaver for parents on long road trips.

Sentry Mode (Rick and Morty / Portal)

Sentry Mode is Tesla’s built-in security system that uses the car’s cameras to record everything happening around it while parked. While the name “Sentry” sounds like it could be from any sci-fi flick, the voice commands are where the nerdiness really shines.

If you want to turn it on using your voice, you can say, “Keep Tesla safe” or “Keep Summer safe.” This is a direct quote verbatim from the Rick and Morty episode “The Ricks Must Be Crazy,” where Rick tells his spaceship’s AI to protect Morty’s sister, Summer.

Additionally, if the car detects a potential threat, the screen will display a glowing red “eye.” This is a nod to the sentient turrets from the video game Portal. It’s a subtle way of telling people they are being watched by a very smart, very sarcastic computer.

Mad Max Mode

If you look in the Autopilot or Full Self-Driving (FSD) settings, you might see an option for lane-change aggressiveness called Mad Max. Named after the post-apocalyptic movie franchise Mad Max, this mode makes the car much more assertive on the highway.

Instead of waiting for a massive gap in traffic to change lanes, Mad Max mode tells the car to take smaller openings and move more quickly around slower vehicles. It’s basically the “commuter in a rush” setting, though it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

Mars Mode (SpaceX)

If you have ever wanted to drive on the Red Planet, Mars Mode is as close as you will get without a ticket from SpaceX. When activated via the Toybox, your navigation map is replaced with a high-resolution rendering of the Martian surface. Your car’s avatar even swaps out for a Mars Rover.

Tesla recently updated this mode to be even more immersive. On newer models, the cabin’s ambient lighting shifts to a dusty orange, and the climate control screen shows red airflow to match the planet’s atmosphere. You can also activate it the old-school, more easter-egg-y way by tapping and holding the vehicle name in the software menu, then typing the access code “Mars.”

Santa Mode

Perhaps the most famous holiday feature, Santa Mode turns your Tesla into a red sleigh pulled by reindeer. When you say the “Ho Ho Ho” voice command, the car starts playing “Run, Rudolph, Run” by Chuck Berry. If you say “Ho Ho Ho, Not Funny,” it swaps to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” instead.

On the Cybertruck, this mode gets a futuristic twist. Instead of Santa, a Tesla Optimus robot sits at the helm of a “Cyber-sleigh.” Pedestrians on the screen turn into elves, and other cars become reindeer. If your car has external speakers, you can even “Spread Cheer” by playing the holiday music for everyone nearby to hear.

Tron Mode (Tron: Ares)

One of the newest additions to the Toybox is Tron Mode, a collaboration with Disney for the Tron: Ares film. This isn’t just a simple skin; it’s a total overhaul of the driving visualization. Your car is replaced by a Lightcycle from the movie franchise that actually tilts into turns and leaves a glowing trail behind it on the screen.

Beyond the visuals, the mode adds a custom startup sound and uses the car’s ambient lighting to turn the cabin into “The Grid.” Unlike Santa Mode, where the music volume is fixed, Tesla listened to feedback and allowed the Tron music to be paused using standard media controls. It sets a new high bar for how detailed these easter eggs can be.

Monty Python Easter Egg

In one of the easter eggs, Tesla pays homage to the cult classic Monty Python. Users can change their vehicle’s name to a variety of characters from Monty Python to activate the easter egg.

Upon activation, the Foot of Cupid comes crashing down onto the screen.

Rainbow Road (Mario Kart & SNL)

Tesla even pays homage to Nintendo. If you pull the right stalk down four times in rapid succession (or through the Toy Box) with Autosteer already engaged, the gray road on your instrument cluster transforms into a psychedelic, glowing Rainbow Road — a direct nod to the hardest level in Mario Kart.

To top it off, Tesla added an extra layer of humor to the experience. When this mode is active, you can get the car to play the “More Cowbell” skit from Saturday Night Live. It turns a standard highway drive into a bizarre, nostalgic party on wheels.

Tesla is constantly adding new features and easter eggs through software updates, so your car might have a few more secrets waiting in the Toy Box menu.

Have you found another reference to pop culture that we didn’t mention here? Let us know.

A Look Back at Tesla’s Leaked V11 Software Prototype

In this article, we’ll take a look back at Tesla’s V11 prototype, the long-awaited update that would refresh the Tesla user interface and bring new module features to Tesla’s OS.

The update was expected around the holiday, similar to other big updates that Tesla had released in the past, such as v9, and v10.

However, before the update could reach production, it was leaked online by someone who found a Tesla-owned vehicle with a drastically different interface. While we don’t condone leaks, the excitement of seeing an updated UI excited many of Tesla’s fans.

This was back in 2021, and looking back, this was clearly a prototype that was never destined for production. For whatever reason, Tesla decided against this module design and instead later shipped a toned-down version of what we initially saw.

The New UI

The leaked UI was such a drastic departure from Tesla’s interface at the time that it sent shockwaves through the Tesla community. The interface itself was driven by a very programmatic approach, allowing users to resize apps and add them to their home screen. Each app is responsive, letting users pick their preferred size and place it on the screen. You’d presumably be able to have one large app on the screen, multiple smaller widgets, or any combination of sizes.

The entire concept appears to be centered around customizability.

For example, in the photo above, you can see the smaller Maps widget on the top left with quick icons for Home, Work, and Charging. On the bottom left, you have the old Phone app, which lets you switch between Calendar, Messaging, and Phone. These have since become separate apps, but their functionality is essentially the same.

On the right side of the screen, you have the larger media player. These apps are similar to what we have today, but the biggest difference is that users can run more than one app at once and customize their sizes and placements on the screen.

Near the bottom of the screen, between the apps and the dock, you can see a horizontal line, which likely means that users could have multiple home screens, much like a phone. This would let users set up multiple pages with their preferred apps and widgets. One page could be for driving, another one for picking music, another to use while parked, etc.

While Tesla’s UI has come a long way since this prototype was shown, some of these concepts still sound great, even five years later. We’re still largely stuck running one app at a time, with no way to customize how it looks on the screen.

Dock

Back in 2021, there was no such thing as a customizable dock, so one of the first noticeable items in these photos is the customizable dock at the bottom. It appears you can add or remove apps from this dock, as several key apps like the media player, Energy, and others are missing, presumably because they weren’t added.

What was finally released in v11 was a less customizable but more refined version of the Tesla dock. While it initially removed key options like seat heaters, Tesla later made it possible to add them back to the dock in a subsequent release. Today, we’re able to add favorite apps to the dock, while some space is reserved for permanent icons like Controls and Sound, and Tesla fills in the rest with recently used apps.

In this concept, users appear to have complete control over adding or removing apps from the dock and their location within the dock.

The dock itself hovers above the other UI components and doesn’t fill the full width of the screen like it does today. This allows apps and menus to appear behind the dock, letting them display more information on screen.

Unfortunately, we never saw how you get to other apps and we may never see it. It could have been the square-like icon next to the volume button that served as an app drawer, or that could simply have been an icon for the user’s phone app.

Vehicle Controls

Notably absent is the car icon in the bottom-left corner, which houses all of the vehicle settings. Instead, Tesla is leveraging the car icon on the left side of the screen, which is also used to shift the car from Drive to Reverse. Tapping on it reveals the vehicle’s controls.

While it’s not clear, the grid-like layout of these icons in the Quick Controls menu suggests these options may also have been customizable. You can see icons such as Lock Car, Frunk, Trunk, Neutral, and others that are typically not part of Quick Controls. While this would have been a really nice addition, we don’t know whether this area was actually customizable.

To access the vehicle’s full set of controls, you’d actually tap the car icon in the bottom left corner in this Quick Controls section, which will then open up the full Controls menu.

A nice touch here is that when the user taps on the car icon on the left, all the widgets on the “home screen” are zoomed out and dimmed. There was careful attention to detail here, and it seems Tesla may have been working on this for a while before it was scrapped at the last minute.

Visualization

Notably missing are the vehicle visualizations. Since this was observed on a Model S, the visualizations are displayed on the instrument cluster rather than the main screen. On a Model 3 or Model Y, the visualizations could have been their own widget that could be expanded to different sizes or even hidden completely. Unfortunately, the UI was never seen outside of the Model S.

Status Bar

In this prototype, the icons in the status bar were moved to the left bar on the left, and the rest of them only appear when you open Quick Controls. This is similar to the final version of v11, which removed most icons from the status bar and showed them only when the user went to Controls.

Release

When this prototype was leaked in March 2021, many users thought that it would eventually arrive in their vehicles. However, this never materialized, and the UI was never seen outside of this isolated incident. One day, we hope Tesla will share the story of this v11 prototype.

What Tesla eventually released was seen as a watered-down version of this prototype. While it did include a customizable dock, it lacked many of the features we saw here, including responsive apps and the ability to customize multiple home screens.

This software was running on a Model S with MCU 3 (AMD Ryzen), but Tesla didn’t transition the Model 3 and Model Y to MCU 3 until December of that year. Part of the decision not to release this software could have been that it wouldn’t be available on slower, Intel-based vehicles, would segment the market, and would require Tesla to support two different user interfaces.

While the concepts in this prototype are exciting, features such as the customizable dock seem less polished and user-friendly than what Tesla eventually released. While power users would love more control, Tesla is now a mass-market vehicle that needs to be as user-friendly as possible and to appeal to a wide array of customers.

Future Features

While this prototype is clearly not going to be released at this point, some of the ideas behind it are still intriguing. Tesla could one day release features similar to those we saw here, allowing users to resize their apps and run multiple apps at once.

Toss in the ability to add multiple home screens and for different users to have varying layouts, and this becomes an extremely customizable experience. Here’s hoping Tesla reconsiders some of these features for the new UI overhaul.

Tesla App Decompile Confirms Cybercab Will Use Brake-by-Wire

With the latest release of the Tesla app, we went on a deep dive to find what secrets Tesla had hidden in there, and we found one that’s rather interesting. The Cybercab will not just feature steer-by-wire like the Cybertruck, but also true Brake-by-Wire.

Code strings discovered in the app include specific references to “Brakes SW - Brake-by-Wire (Cybercab)”, confirming that Tesla’s latest vehicle will abandon the traditional hydraulic link between the pedal and the calipers.

What is Brake-by-Wire?

In a traditional car, pressing the brake pedal mechanically actuates a master cylinder, which uses hydraulic pressure to force brake fluid through the system and clamp the brake pads against the rotors.

In a brake-by-wire system, there is no direct physical connection between the brake pedal and the brakes themselves. Instead, pressing the pedal sends an electronic signal to a computer, which then commands electric actuators—or a centrally controlled electric brake system—to apply braking force at the wheels.

This mirrors the Steer-by-Wire system on the Cybertruck, in which the steering wheel has no physical linkage connecting it to the wheels.

The Cybercab is currently manually driven, meaning it has pedals that activate the electric signal to brake the vehicle. However, in an autonomous, pedal-less vehicle, this change makes a lot of sense. There’s simply no need for all of these extra parts. This not only reduces failure points in mechanical components but also lowers the cost of producing the vehicle.

Cybercab vs Refreshed Model Y

This discovery highlights another key difference between Tesla’s consumer vehicles and its next-gen Robotaxi.

The Refreshed Model Y features a sophisticated hybrid braking system that uses two master cylinders. The primary cylinder is an electronic cylinder, software-controlled for smooth regen blending and braking on FSD. The secondary cylinder is physical, connected to the actual braking system.

This is what allows Tesla to increase vehicle efficiency with the new braking system in the Model Y. It allows the vehicle to selectively use regenerative braking, even when the user presses the brake pedal. When the driver taps the brakes, the vehicle can decide whether to use the physical brakes, use regenerative braking, or a blend of the two.

In other Tesla vehicles with a single master cylinder, regenerative braking is applied only when the driver lifts their foot off the brake pedal. As soon as the driver taps the brake pedal, the vehicle’s physical brakes kick in.

While the Model Y can and does brake electronically, it still retains a physical mechanical link to the brakes as a fail-safe.

The Cybercab, however, is logically ditching the physical link entirely. Since the production Cybercab will have no pedals, there is no need for a mechanical backup loop for a human driver. Instead, the vehicle will likely rely on redundant power sources and motors to ensure the brakes can always engage, even if one electrical circuit fails.

Why Does This Matter?

We all know the Cybercab won’t have any pedals, so there aren’t any physical controls to brake with. So what’s the big deal?

Moving to full Brake-by-Wire offers three massive advantages for Tesla’s current Model Y robotaxis. By eliminating the brake pedal, vacuum boosters, and a firewall-mounted master cylinder, Tesla can reclaim additional interior space for passenger legroom. In addition, the fully electronic system can seamlessly blend regenerative braking (using the motors) and friction braking (using the discs) to achieve even smoother stops.

But the best part is fewer parts. Fewer hydraulic lines mean less fluid maintenance and fewer points of mechanical failure over the vehicle’s intended service life, which is going to be absolutely key for a Robotaxi.