How to put a custom wrap on your Tesla's Paint Shop display

Short answer: export your design as a transparent PNG laid out on your vehicle's wrap template, 512×512 to 1024×1024 pixels and no larger than 1 MB, put it in a Wraps folder on a USB drive, and load it from Toybox → Paint Shop → Wraps on the car's touchscreen. Your Tesla then renders itself in your design — on the screen and in the app — before any vinyl exists.

Here's the full walkthrough, including the mistakes that make uploads silently fail.

What Paint Shop's custom wraps actually do

Paint Shop is the in-car feature that re-skins how your Tesla draws itself on the touchscreen. The custom-wrap option (introduced with the Cybertruck and expanding to more models with newer software) lets you replace the stock colors with your own image file — so the car on your screen wears your design everywhere the vehicle is rendered.

Two things it doesn't do, to set expectations:

• It doesn't change the physical car. For that, you export the same file and take it to a vinyl installer.
• It isn't a general image viewer. The file has to be mapped to the car's wrap template — a flattened layout of the body panels — or panels will land in the wrong places.

Step 1: Get a template-mapped design

This is the step people skip, and it's why most DIY attempts look scrambled. The PNG isn't a photo of a car — it's a texture that the car's 3D model wraps around itself. Every panel has a fixed position in the layout.

You have two easy paths.

Option 1: Generate a template-mapped design

Describe a finish in the studio — the AI paints directly onto the correct template for your exact model, so the output is placement-ready by construction.

Option 2: Download one from the gallery

Grab a design another owner already made from the community gallery — every download is the full template-mapped file.

Step 2: Check the file spec

Before it goes near the car, confirm:

That's Tesla's published spec. The car holds up to 10 wraps from a USB drive.

If your file is over the size limit, re-export at a slightly lower resolution rather than converting to JPEG — JPEG kills the transparency the renderer needs.

Step 3: Load it via USB

1. Format a USB drive as exFAT, FAT 32, MS-DOS FAT, ext3 or ext4. NTFS isn't supported.
2. Create a folder called Wraps at the top level of the drive and copy the PNG into it. Keep map and firmware updates off this drive.
3. Plug the drive into a data USB port (front console; the glovebox port also works on most cars).
4. On the touchscreen: Toybox → Paint Shop → Wraps, and select your file.
5. Give it a moment to process — the car re-renders with your wrap.

When it doesn't work

No custom option appears in Paint Shop

Your model/software build doesn't have it yet. Check for a software update; the feature has been expanding by model and region.

The file isn't detected

Usually the port (use a data port, not a charge-only pad), the format (must be PNG), or a nested folder. Put the PNG directly inside a Wraps folder at the drive's root.

The design looks scrambled on the car

The image isn't template-mapped for your model. A Model 3 layout on a Cybertruck won't line up; regenerate on the correct template.

The upload is rejected

Almost always file size. Compress under 1 MB and retry.

For every other symptom, including the upload option missing from the phone app, see the custom wrap troubleshooting guide.

From screen to street

The on-screen wrap is the world's cheapest full-scale mockup: you'll see the design on your actual car, in your driveway, at every angle the renderer draws. Live with it for a week. If you still love it, the same exported file is what a professional installer works from — see what the physical wrap will cost by model.

And if you're still hunting for the right look, start with the wrap ideas hub or steal inspiration from what other owners have designed.