Can your Tesla with Premium Connectivity be a hotspot?

[Manbutter]

My new Y has a year’s free premium connectivity. Can passengers connect to the Tesla as a hotspot and piggyback off the data stream for their non-cellular iPads and devices? How can you do it?

It would be incredibly lame if they couldn’t. GM cars allow it, as do many other brands. Plenty of posts on TMC about the Tesla connecting to your phone’s hotspot (to avoid paying for premium connectivity) but not the other way around.

 

[outdoors]

Can passengers connect to the Tesla as a hotspot and piggyback off the data stream for their non-cellular iPads and devices?

No. One cannot do as you describe above.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Tesla is willing to supply premium connectivity to the car (for a price), but not to everyone else’s devices.

 

[Manbutter]

Thanks. That is really disappointing. My daughter uses her ipad in the car all the time and has to piggyback off my horrid Tmobile phone hotspot connection.

There really isn't any reason why Tesla cannot provide this feature. All the hardware is there. Unless they're trying to save on bandwidth. GM charges $20/month for the feature. At least Tesla should allow that paid option. 5G cannot come fast enough.

 

[HankLloydRight]

You're much better off just buying a 5G hotspot from Verizon or AT&T (or other MVNOs) and just leaving it in the car.
Any cellular connectivity through the car isn't going to be "great".

 

[Grabthar]

Thanks. That is really disappointing. My daughter uses her ipad in the car all the time and has to piggyback off my horrid Tmobile phone hotspot connection.

There really isn't any reason why Tesla cannot provide this feature. All the hardware is there. Unless they're trying to save on bandwidth. GM charges $20/month for the feature. At least Tesla should allow that paid option. 5G cannot come fast enough.

They are trying to save bandwidth since every Tesla (whether you subscribe to premium or not) is communicating with the mother ship and Tesla pays for that connectivity. Not all GM cars communicate with the frequency of Tesla so GM's communications bill probably isn't as high as Tesla's.

People frequently complain about $10 - I can only imagine the whining if it was raised to $20