Apple CarPlay is now running on a Tesla touchscreen, and the work came from outside the company. The developer behind Tesla Android, an open-source project that puts a full Android system on the car’s display, has shared a video of a native CarPlay port running inside the car.
The clip captures the familiar CarPlay layout on the car’s screen, with apps for navigation, music and messaging arranged the way iPhone owners would expect to find them in any CarPlay-equipped vehicle.
Tesla has never offered CarPlay or Android Auto in its cars. Instead, the automaker has stuck with its own built-in software for maps, music and apps, and that choice has frustrated many iPhone owners over the years. So far, they have had little choice but to wait and hope Tesla would change course.
This port marks the first sign that the owner community can close that gap on its own, without any help from the automaker. And it comes as CarPlay remains one of the features Tesla drivers with iPhones request most often, which makes a fair case that the demand is real and the technical hurdles are lower than many people had assumed.
Cabin lights keep pace with the music
The most striking moment in the demo has little to do with the screen itself. As a song plays through CarPlay, the car’s ambient lighting pulses along with the track.
That detail goes further than simply mirroring a phone onto a display. In fact, it appears the port is talking to the car’s own systems instead of just drawing an image inside a window. The developer has not yet explained how the light sync works.
How Tesla Android works
Tesla Android is an independent, open-source project that runs Android on small add-on hardware, such as a Raspberry Pi, plugged into the car. From there, the Tesla’s built-in web browser displays the Android system and lets the driver control it over a local connection.
The project has no affiliation with Tesla. Even so, it has built a loyal following among owners who want apps the automaker does not offer, from third-party navigation tools to streaming services. With CarPlay in the picture, the same approach now reaches iPhone users, who until this point had no comparable option.
Several key details remain unclear. For example, the developer has not said when the CarPlay port might reach the public, or if a public release is planned at all, and it is not yet known which Tesla models and hardware setups it will support.
Likewise, there is no word on if the connection runs wired or wireless, or how much lag it adds to the experience. Then there is the larger question of how Apple and Tesla will respond to an unofficial CarPlay setup running in Tesla vehicles.
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