Tesla Adding Netflix Streaming To Cars

It may be 2019, but it's pretty clear Tesla executive Elon Musk is living years in the future. [...]

By Adam Barnhardt

tesla-forest-mountains
(Photo: Tesla)

It may be 2019, but it's pretty clear Tesla executive Elon Musk is living years in the future. Earlier today, the chief executive announced through Twitter Tesla vehicles will soon have the ability to stream Netflix on their interior dash screens. Immediately, the streaming apps — both Netflix and YouTube — will only be available whenever the vehicle is stopped. Musk did reveal, however, once federal regulators fully approve self-driving vehicles, the apps will be made while the vehicle is moving.

"Ability to stream YouTube & Netflix when car is stopped coming to your Tesla soon!" Musk tweeted. "Has an amazingly immersive, cinematic feel due to the comfy seats & surround sound audio."

Earlier this month, Musk and his team at Tesla announced plans to roll-out over-the-air updates to hundreds of thousands of cars by the end of the year, a move — while good for Musk's Netflix plan — leaving industry insiders and executives nervous.

"That concern among the industry writ large is real and valid because what potentially happens is you're going to see fatalities in the news attributed to Tesla vehicles and the response you're going to get from certain policymakers — kind of a knee-jerk reaction," one former official with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told the Washington Post just last week.

Netflix, on the other hand, is likely receiving the partnership with wide opening arms after hemorrhaging upwards of $24 billion in the matter of a week, all after the streaming giant managed to lose subscribers for the first time ever.

"Our missed forecast was across all regions, but slightly more so in regions with price increases," the company said in a statement. "[We] believe competition was a factor since there wasn't a material change in the competitive landscape during Q2, and competitive intensity and our penetration is varied across regions (while our over-forecast was in every region). Rather, we think Q2's content slate drove less growth in paid net adds than we anticipated. Additionally, Q1 was so large for us (9.6m net adds), there may have been more pull-forward effect than we realized. In prior quarters with over-forecasts, we've found that the underlying long-term growth was not affected and staying focused on the fundamentals of our business served us well."

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