After an hour and a half of Full Self-Driving in Black Friday traffic, I wanted Waze-style information on the Tesla screen: navigation, hazards and police ahead, right next to the FSD view. The existing web option worked, but its interface was rough and it used a lot of memory.
So I built Tesla Nav, a web app for the Tesla browser. It combines Waze data with Mapbox, and the first version took about half a day in Cursor. It’s live at teslanav.com.
Summary
- It streams live Waze reports, including hazards, police and traffic, onto a map built for the Tesla display.
- Satellite mode is the default, and the map stays smooth on the car’s screen.
- Settings add speed cameras, a traffic layer and police alerts. When police are reported ahead within a distance you set, the screen flashes red and blue, with an optional sound.
- It follows Tesla’s map orientation options and has light and dark modes.
- The Reddit launch post reached about 55,000 views, posts on X reached 121,000 and 136,000 views, and the site saw about 1,600 visitors in a day.
How to apply it
- Build for the Tesla browser as a normal web app. There’s no app store, and owners can bookmark it.
- Keep the page light and test on the car itself, not only on a fast desktop monitor.
- Make alerts glanceable. A full-screen color flash reads faster than a small icon while driving.
- Document the build as you go. Sharing the journey on X and Reddit is what made this one spread.
- Watch mapping API costs as traffic grows.
Get the next test the day it’s out.
