Tesla is continuing its efforts to bring Apple CarPlay to its vehicles, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Sunday PowerOn newsletter.
While initial plans suggested a launch by the end of last year, technical conflicts and slow software updates have pushed the timeline back. Sources familiar with the project say Tesla originally pivoted toward the integration to help boost vehicle demand during a period of soft sales.
The current plan involves running CarPlay within a dedicated window inside Tesla’s native software. This approach allows the car to keep its existing control centre for features like climate and Full Self-Driving (FSD) visuals while offering the familiar iPhone interface. However, internal testing revealed that Tesla’s navigation and Apple Maps did not always stay in sync. During FSD, the two systems sometimes provided conflicting turn by turn guidance, which could create a confusing experience for the driver.
To resolve this, Tesla asked Apple to make specific engineering changes to its mapping software. While Apple included these fixes in recent iOS 26 updates, adoption of the new operating system has been slower than in previous years.
Apple recently reported that iOS 26 is running on 74 percent of iPhones released in the last four years, which trails the adoption rate seen with iOS 18 at this same time last year. Because the necessary fix arrived in a later bug update rather than the initial release, Tesla is reportedly waiting for more users to update their devices before an official rollout.
Are you looking forward to CarPlay inside your Tesla?
