Tesla Adds Zoom Feature to Dashcam Viewer [VIDEO]

The 2025 Holiday Update introduced headline features like Grok with Navigation Commands, Paint Shop, and Tesla Photobooth, and it also placed strong emphasis on the Dashcam Viewer.

The Dashcam Viewer received a redesigned interface for HW3 vehicles, several previously undocumented capabilities, and now includes vehicle telemetry within each recorded clip.

Undocumented Features

One undocumented addition lets you view how much storage space remains on your USB drive directly from the Dashcam Viewer. This removes the need to physically remove the drive and inspect it on a computer. Tapping the information icon reveals which features are consuming the most space, for example Dashcam, Sentry Mode, or USB music.

The viewer also gained a filter for Sentry Mode clips, allowing owners to narrow results by the trigger type — such as someone touching the door handles, a manual save, or a horn-triggered recording.

Zoom and Pan Video

A newly discovered feature enables pinch-to-zoom in the Dashcam Viewer on AMD Ryzen vehicles, so owners can zoom in on regions of a recorded video.

Previously, identifying distant details such as a license plate or a face required removing the glovebox USB and viewing the clip on a computer to zoom. The new in-car pinch-to-zoom behaves like a phone: you can zoom in on any camera view (including the grid view) and pan around the zoomed image to inspect different areas.

The implementation is smooth and natural, but Intel Atom-equipped vehicles do not appear to be receiving this feature at the moment.

Tesla cooked with the latest dashcam viewer! I love how you can zoom in. pic.twitter.com/1ULTTPlDtD

— Gareth Blake Hall (@gbhall) January 1, 2026

AMD Ryzen Exclusive

At present, pinch-to-zoom appears limited to vehicles equipped with the current-generation AMD Ryzen hardware. Tesla’s release notes do not specify the reason, but there are likely technical constraints behind the decision.

Camera sensors on HW3 capture far fewer pixels than HW4 — roughly a quarter of the pixel count available on HW4 — so there is less data to magnify for HW3 vehicles. Despite that, Tesla is rolling the feature out to all AMD Ryzen vehicles, including some with HW3.

Update: The feature was initially reported as HW4-only, but it is being delivered to AMD Ryzen vehicles with HW3 as well.

Practical Benefit

Pinch-to-zoom is more than cosmetic. Tesla’s wide-angle, fish-eye lenses tend to make objects appear smaller on-screen, and this zoom functionality should help owners identify license plates or other identifying details much more easily than before.

Image credit: @gbhall