Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have hinted of a plan to add Steam compatibility into new-model Tesla cars in the future. However, adding Valve’s popular digital video game distribution platform could have its consequences. Photo : WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images
Tesla owners might be able to play video games while their car drives itself for them in the future.
CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted his interest in adding Valve’s video game digital distribution service, Steam, into Tesla vehicles in the future.
In his tweet, Musk stated that Tesla is “working through the general case of making Steam games work on a Tesla vs specific titles” while adding that the former is “where [the company] should be long-term.” The comment has since achieved 240 retweets and 2,738 likes.
Musk was previously reported to have hinted at a possible mashup between Cyberpunk and Tesla’s upcoming “Blade Runner”-esque pick-up truck, the Cybertruck. He teased the possibility in a comment on one of his replies on the “Thank You” tweet of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 Official Twitter page.
He also expressed his fondness of “Cyberpunk 2077,” commenting “Great game” and “Night City has beautiful art.”
Tesla Future: Gaming While Driving?
Gaming while driving, at least by passengers, isn’t something that can’t be achieved. Sony pitched the idea of “cars as entertainment space” during its presentation of the Sony Vision-S 02 at CES 2022.
The Sony Vision-S 02 is one of Sony’s concept electric vehicles in its Vision-S project initiative that would allow passengers to enjoy video games during their trip, per Sony. The driver could join in the fun, too, through the cars’ self-driving system–a feature achieved through using Sony’s “remote operation,” which is developed in anticipation of the arrival of the “autonomous driving era”.
Tesla cars also can run video games through its AMD GPUs, a Ryzen processor and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU, which are used to run Tesla vehicles’ infotainment systems, according to The Verge.
As Ars Technica noted, Tesla cars can already run a selection of video games–with “Cuphead” being the most notable–through the Tesla Arcade platform. The game, as well as the others in the platform, can be played using the screen at the right of a Tesla car’s sterring wheel, according to IGN.
Additionally, Musk’s appreciation of “Cyberpunk 2077” and his hinted desire to add Steam to Tesla cars could mean that he might add the game to Tesla cars in an indirect way. Whether this addition of Steam is what he meant by “mashup” of Cyberpunk and Cybertruck remains to be seen.
Safety Concerns
Unfortunately, the addition of Steam into Tesla cars isn’t without its flaws.
Tesla’s autopilot or self-driving system has caused some road incidents during the past few years, with a handful of them being fatal.
There was the tragic incident in Texas where two men were found dead after the 2019 Tesla Model S they were riding in crashed into a tree in April 2021, the New York Times reported.
Authorities found that the car had no one in the driver’s seat when the crash occurred, suggesting that the car had its autopilot feature activated during the fatal trip. They then had confirmation when the deceased men’s wives mentioned that the men wanted to go for a drive and were talking about Tesla’s autopilot feature before the crash.
They also found the car was going at a “high rate of speed” around a curve before it went off the road and hit a tree 100 feet away.
Another fatal incident involving Tesla’s autopilot was reported in Detroit, Michigan. The incident occurred when the driver, Kevin George Aziz Riad, ran a red light while his Tesla Model S was on autopilot before slamming into another car, killing the two people inside it on the spot, according to NPR and the Daily Mail.
Consumer Reports also found that Tesla’s autopilot feature can be easily tricked by attaching a small weight on the Tesla’s steering wheel, which simulates the weight of a driver’s hand. According to the report the organization published in May 2021, the nonprofit member organization also found that the car couldn’t tell if there was a person in the driver’s seat or if the driver was paying attention at all. This lack of attention from the driver or the lack of a driver at all should’ve been prevented by Tesla’s driver monitoring systems, which it didn’t.
“Anyone who uses autopilot on the road without someone in the driver’s seat is putting themselves and others in imminent danger,” Consumer Reports’ Keith Barry said. He also added that “truly self-driving cars don’t yet exist for consumers to buy.”
Although Consumer reports has since updated its article on Tesla’s autopilot, adding that the Tesla’s monitoring system can now detect and alert driver inattentiveness while Autopilot is engaged, it still isn’t enough. The camera’s data does not leave the car tself, the NPO reports. This means the system cannot save or transmit the saved data unless data sharing is enabled.
Simple put, a driver who pays attention on a video game and not on a road could endager not just himself, but also the people around him.
It's a fucking car you idiot. Cell phones are distracting enough. You want people play Halo while they're driving?
Musk says he wants to install Steam games in Tesla infotainment centers #ElectricCars #SmartCars #SelfDrivingCars #Tesla
https://t.co/PeGUYEqBFD from @KyleOrl— McG 🇺🇲🐝🏳️🌈🖖 (@Foxmental_X) February 24, 2022
https://t.co/Lc6XkRskSF
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.
— Deth Veggie (@DethVeggie) February 23, 2022
It seems the ability playing video games while driving could take some time to arrive, before we can enjoy its benefits. Whether it will come at all is another question entirely.
Keyword: Elon Musk Wants to Bring Steam to Tesla Cars, But Some Fans Are Concerned