Tesla is bringing one of the most requested services to their vehicles – Official Spotify Integration – in the US. Thus finally, owners will have a decent options in lieu of the pre-existing music radios i.e. Slacker Rado and TuneIn.
In reply to a tweet regarding Spotify’s official support for Tesla in the US, Musk responded with “Coming”. While it is possible to access your Spotify playlists by connecting your smartphone to the vehicle’s Bluetooth, it isn’t the same as using Spotify on Tesla’s touchscreen display.
In Europe, users have access to Spotify for which they have to create a different premium subscription a.k.a Tesla-only Spotify Premium account for an ad-free experience in their Tesla vehicles. This integration is available since 2015 for European Tesla owners.
Currently, in the US, there are only two music services available on a Tesla, namely, Slacker Radio and TuneIn. As the name suggests, Slacker is an internet radio service that lets you access custom playlists. You can listen to playlists with the options of Play/Pause and Skip, but you can’t Replay the previous song. After all, it’s an internet radio service, unlike Spotify, which lets you play and access individual records. Slacker provides a separate paid option for Tesla which has limited features compared to its other two paid options for mobile devices.
Apart from Europe, owners in Australia and Hong Kong can also access Spotify integration. Earlier, users in Europe also had the option of Rdio but the company was later acquired by Pandora. In the US, Tesla has a deal with Slacker, thus resulting in owners in that region to stick with that option. In context of all of that, Musk’s tweet is quite reassuring forTesla owners in the US (and maybe Canada too).
A Tesla-only Spotify premium gives the user access to over 30 million tracks along with the ability to control playback with voice commands. This Spotify Premium subscription in Europe costs €27/month ($30/month). It is expected to cost somewhat similar in the US.
