Tesla wants its cars to be Steam compatible

Tesla Model S interior
(Image credit: Tesla)

Teslas may see Steam compatibility on their gaming dashboards in the future, if a tweet from the company's founder, Elon Musk, is to be believed.

New-model Teslas come equipped with AMD GPUs capable of running demanding, triple-A video games, including CD Projekt's notorious Cyberpunk 2077. The center dashboard display of Tesla vehicles is meant to allow gaming and media center viewing while the car is parked, perhaps to while away time while the vehicles charge, for example. 

Steam functionality would be a logical choice for building out the gaming capabilities of Tesla vehicles. Our peers at PCGamesN have speculated that Tesla's use of Linux (potentially due a gaming bump with Valve's Proton compatibility technology) as its dashboard OS, as well as the Model S and Steam Deck's shared use of AMD RDNA2 graphics make Steam integration a logical choice for the company.

Currently, Musk's tweets on the subject are the only official word on any Steam compatibility for Tesla's dashboard. End-user integration of the service into Tesla dashboards is presumably a long way off.

We have reported previously on Tesla coming under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for some games being playable on the Tesla's dashboard while the cars are in motion. This feature has been disabled by Tesla as of December 2021, but it highlights a capacity for distracted driving afforded by the substantial multimedia center in Tesla vehicles. Please do not game and drive. 

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Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.