TESLA has rolled out Elon Musk’s controversial Grok AI assistant as an update for Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X examples in Australia and New Zealand.
The AI chatbot – developed by Musk-owned company, xAI – can answer a wide range of user questions and serve as a navigation assistant in Tesla vehicles, functioning through voice commands activated via the steering wheel controls.
It can set navigation destinations, adjust routes, and even help drivers discover points of interest according to a media release from Tesla.
Grok can also be further personalised, with users able to alter its voice and conversational personality, with pre-sets such as ‘Assistant’, ‘Storyteller’, and ‘Unhinged.’
Currently – as Grok is in its Beta – it does not have the ability to control other vehicle functions such as media, climate control, screen brightness, app functionality, mirror position, Tesla’s sentry mode, or door locks.
Instead, such functions can be utilised using the existing voice command feature, which will co-exist with the Grok AI.
From 24 February, Grok can be installed on Tesla vehicles in Australia and New Zealand equipped with an AMD processor and the vehicle software version 2025.44.25 or later.
To install the update, either a connection to a Wi-Fi network or to Tesla’s subscription-based Premium Connectivity data service is also required.
The update will be made available first for vehicles with HW3 (Tesla Hardware 3) before being released in ‘waves’ for Tesla examples equipped HW4 (Tesla Hardware 4) over the subsequent days. Customers will be notified of the update through the Tesla app.
Grok was first introduced in 2023, designed primarily to generate answers to user questions. Later, in July 2025, it was introduced as a feature in Tesla vehicles in the United States.
According to a 2023 X post from xAI, Grok was designed to be uniquely characterised by its witty nature, its “rebellious streak” and its ability to “answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems”.
Grok AI can also be personalised based on a user’s X activity such as their posts, profile, the content they engage with as well as their inputs into the AI itself.
Following its release, the Grok AI quickly became a source of controversy, infamously generating extremist and anti-Semitic responses as well as being used by users to generate sexually explicit material.
As far as user privacy is concerned, Tesla has assured that conversations between owners and the Grok AI “remain anonymous to Tesla and are not linked to you or your vehicle” in a media release.