In incredibly normal news, Tesla is fitting out its new Model S and X vehicles with an in-car gaming system that’s basically a PS5.
When Elon Musk first claimed the new infotainment system in the Tesla Model S would be powerful enough to play Witcher 3, I thought it was a joke, or at least a pipe dream.
Want to play The Witcher game on your Tesla? (you can already watch the show on Tesla Netflix theater)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2020
But 18 months after his initial claim, AMD has confirmed during its Computex 2021 keynote presentation that it will provide the guts of the system, which will provide up to 10 teraflops of power.
“So we actually have an AMD Ryzen APU powering the infotainment system in both cars as well as a discrete RDNA2-based GPU that kicks in when running AAA games, providing up to 10 teraflops of compute power…. we look forward to giving gamers a great platform for AAA gaming,” says AMD CEO Lisa Su.
For reference, the new Xbox Series X is capable of 12 teraflops of GPU performance, while the PS5 can offer 10.28 teraflops. So basically, if you’ve been unable to secure a PS5 or Xbox as a result of the global chip shortage, you can get the next best thing for the measly price of roughly $US80,000.
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Following the announcement, Musk took to Twitter to assert that the new Model S and X have “PS5 level entertainment computing power.”
Yeah, new Model S & X have PS5 level entertainment computing power
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2021
However, AMD has confirmed to The Verge that the 10 teraflops is the total computing power of the integrated and discrete GPUs, so this won’t be purely for gaming power.
The announcement comes after Elon Musk confirmed last week that the Model S Plaid would be delayed for another week because it “needs one more week of tweak.”
Model S Plaid delivery pushed to June 10. Needs one more week of tweak.
This car feels like a spaceship. Words cannot describe the limbic resonance.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2021
Of course, Teslas have allowed you to play games for awhile, as well as stream Netflix and YouTube. This functionality only works when you’re parked for safety reasons. And if you’re wondering why on Earth anyone would want to do this, the answer is charging.
If you need to charge your car publicly for 30 – 60 minutes, having in-built entertainment options is really fun.