Tesla Replaces White Model Y Interior With Zen Grey Option

Tesla is refreshing its best-selling SUV with a cleaner, more cohesive look. The automaker has officially discontinued the classic “Black and White” interior on all Model Y Premium trims built at Gigafactory Shanghai, replacing it with a new option called Zen Grey.

According to industry analyst @sawyermerritt, the change is already in effect for Model Y Premium units destined for Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and other markets served by exports from Giga Shanghai. This new interior was previously exclusive to the six-seat Model Y L, which has recently begun its own global expansion into new markets.

Tesla has released a video of the new Zen Grey interior from Giga Shanghai built Model Y Premium trims. The White interior has been discontinued.

With Zen Grey, the following trim pieces are no longer black like they were in the white interior:
• Arm rests
• Door grab handles… pic.twitter.com/QSREdWtlDg

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) April 10, 2026

A Brighter, More Unified Design

The most noticeable difference with the Zen Grey interior is just how much of the cabin is now covered in the lighter shade. While the outgoing white interior featured a stark contrast between bright seats and a dark center console, Zen Grey opts for a much more balanced aesthetic. The new color is softer than the previous “ultra-white” and extends to several areas that were previously black.

Several key trim pieces have been updated to match the Zen Grey palette, including:

For comparison, here’s what the Black and White interior option looked like:

By swapping these black plastic and vinyl surfaces for Zen Grey, Tesla has created an interior that feels significantly more open. The lighter center console, in particular, changes the entire vibe of the front cabin, making it feel more like a high-end lounge than a traditional car cockpit.

Giga Shanghai Leading the Way

Tesla often uses its Shanghai facility as a testing ground for design changes before rolling them out to factories in Fremont, Austin, and Berlin. We saw this earlier this year when Giga Shanghai introduced the black headliner and a higher-resolution screen for the Model Y before those features made their way to the West. It is highly likely that Zen Grey will become the new standard for “white” interiors globally over the coming months.

The factory is currently a hub of engineering activity. Beyond interior refreshes, Tesla is reportedly working on redesigned door handles for the Model 3 and Model Y to comply with new Chinese safety regulations that ban flush electric handles. This constant iteration ensures that the Model Y remains competitive even as newer rivals enter the space.

The Future of the Model Y Cabin

The move to Zen Grey suggests that Tesla is listening to feedback about the maintenance and “starkness” of its original white interior. The new shade provides the same airy feel without the clinical brightness of the old trim. As the Model Y continues to top sales charts across the globe, these incremental updates give us a good look at the brand’s evolving design language.

If you were about to place a Model Y order in an export market, you can now configure your vehicle with this updated look. For those in North America and Europe, it might only be a matter of time before the “Zen” aesthetic reaches your local delivery center.

Tesla is putting an end to the “jailbreak” era for Full Self-Driving. After months of owners using unauthorized hardware to bypass regional locks and enable FSD (Supervised) where it isn’t officially available yet, the automaker has begun remotely disabling access for those caught using cheat devices. The crackdown is rolling out globally, affecting drivers in Europe, South Korea, China, Turkey, and elsewhere who used third-party tools to force-activate FSD.

An in-app notification shared by Tesla enthusiast Omar Qazi (@wholemars) shows the firm message now being delivered to affected owners: “Your vehicle has detected an unauthorized third-party device. As a precaution, some driver assistance functions have been disabled for safety reasons.” The notice adds that a “software update will be available soon” to potentially re-enable some features, though it doesn’t specify a timeline.

How the “Jailbreak” Works

The gadgets at the center of this controversy are small, USB-like modules that typically cost around €500. They plug directly into a Tesla’s Controller Area Network (CAN) bus — the central nervous system that manages everything from steering to acceleration. By intercepting these signals, the hardware can “trick” the car into bypassing Tesla’s geofencing and software locks.

This has been particularly popular in Europe, where owners have faced years of regulatory red tape. Many European customers paid thousands for FSD years ago, but have seen deadline after deadline pass without a legitimate release. While that frustration is understandable, Tesla argues these devices are a “cybersecurity threat” that could create vulnerabilities for bad actors to exploit.

Severe Consequences and Legal Risks

Tesla isn’t just sending warnings; it is flexing its over-the-air muscle to permanently revoke access. In China, some owners reported being banned from using FSD entirely, even if they had legally purchased the package. Tesla’s stance is that using these tools makes the owner “100% liable for any accident that occurs” and gives the company the right to refuse any future warranty repairs.

The risks are even higher in South Korea. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has classified these modifications as a criminal offense under the Automobile Management Act. Using a “jailbreak” tool in the country could lead to up to two years in prison or fines of roughly $13,500 USD. It’s a massive gamble for a feature that’s already available on the Model S/X in South Korea and is likely only months away from an official rollout on the more mainstream Model 3/Y.

The Path to Official Release

The upcoming “software update” mentioned in the app notice will likely patch the specific vulnerabilities these devices exploit, effectively preventing their use. While the wait has been long, the global FSD roadmap is finally moving. Landmark approval in the Netherlands is expected as soon as tomorrow, April 10, which should trigger a broader rollout across the EU.

Tesla is clearly prioritizing its official, unsupervised vision and cannot afford the liability of unvetted hardware “driving” its cars. As the software becomes more advanced, the cat-and-mouse game between hackers and Tesla engineers will only intensify. For most owners, however, the risk of losing a warranty or facing legal trouble — and now having FSD remotely disabled — makes these €500 gadgets a very expensive mistake.

Tesla has been moving at breakneck speed with its autonomous driving software, but the next massive architectural leap is being saved for a later date. While the newly released FSD v14.3 is already impressing owners with its smoothness, Elon Musk has confirmed that the highly anticipated “10x parameter” model won’t arrive until version 15.

The update came via X, where Musk explained the reasoning behind the delay. “Our rate of advancement with the small model has been so fast that the large model has not yet caught up. V15 will be the large model,” he stated. This means that while v14.3 is a significant step forward, it is still operating on a refined version of Tesla’s “small” model, which consists of approximately one billion parameters.

Refined Performance in v14.3

Even without the massive 10-billion-parameter upgrade, FSD v14.3 is far from a minor update. It features a completely rewritten AI compiler and runtime, 20% faster reaction times for the vehicle, and more. Early public drives have already highlighted a noticeable boost in confidence and driving smoothness, specifically regarding complex intersections and parking lot maneuvering.

It appears that Tesla’s team has managed to extract so much performance from the current one-billion-parameter model that it currently outperforms the early builds of the larger model. By sticking with this optimized architecture for now, Tesla can deliver immediate safety and smoothness improvements to the fleet while the “big brain” version continues its training in the background.

What to Expect from the 10x Upgrade

The jump to v15 will represent a major architectural shift. Moving to a 10-billion-parameter model means the neural network can process and understand far more nuanced information. To put that in perspective, Nvidia’s competing Alpamayo 1.5 system is already leveraging 10 billion parameters, so Tesla is clearly aiming to reclaim the technical lead.

The 10x model is expected to arrive with a substantial reduction in data loss due to video compression, allowing even more human-like decision-making. Tesla originally planned to debut this larger model last year, but the rapid gains found in the smaller model made it more efficient to keep iterating on v14. By skipping the previously discussed “4x model” entirely, Tesla is essentially jumping straight to its most powerful build once v15 is ready.

AI5

It’s unclear what’s behind the delay in the 10-billion-parameter version of FSD, but many hope it’s not due to memory constraints on the current AI4 hardware. Musk gave no indication whether FSD v15 would be released this year or whether it’d require AI5. However, given the delay in FSD v14.3, which was originally scheduled for last year, we likely won’t see FSD v15 until late in the year at the earliest.

Looking Toward FSD v15

There is currently no official release date for FSD v15, nor is it clear how many point releases we will see on the v14 branch before the transition. However, as v14.3 continues its public rollout, we expect Musk to start teasing more specifics about the capabilities of the “large model”.

For now, the focus remains on the “small” model’s impressive trajectory. Tesla has proven it can do more with less, but the eventual arrival of v15 promises to be the turning point that takes FSD from a “supervised” assistant to a truly driverless peer. We’ll be keeping a close eye on comments from Musk, Ashok Elluswamy, and other Tesla execs to see when that 10x leap finally begins its internal testing.