This Engineer Got a Tesla To Play Rick Astley From a Retro Floppy Disk

Summary

• Ukrainian electronics engineer Oleg Kutkov successfully connected a 45-year-old 3.5-inch floppy disk drive to a modern Tesla via its glovebox USB port
• The vehicle’s underlying Linux kernel seamlessly recognized the vintage hardware, automatically mounting the drive for media playback
• Despite the successful integration, the archaic 1.44 MB storage capacity severely bottlenecks modern functionality like high-definition dashcam recording

Ukrainian electronics engineer Oleg Kutkov recently orchestrated an absurdly nostalgic crossover, proving that a modern Tesla vehicle can still communicate with 45-year-old storage tech. By routing the legacy hardware through a USB-to-FDD converter in the EV’s glove compartment, the car instantly recognized a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. To flex the setup’s functionality, Kutkov successfully loaded and played a severely compressed MP3 file of Rick Astley‘s ubiquitous hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The magnetic head could audibly be heard grinding away as the track slowly materialized, underscoring the stark generational gap between the hardware and the hyper-modern cabin.

This bizarre experiment highlights the resilient, long-standing hardware architecture maintained within the Linux-based infotainment system. Because Tesla utilizes this foundational kernel for its Media Control Unit, the system arrives pre-equipped to handle an incredibly wide array of peripheral devices without requiring heavy software modifications. Built-in scripts are explicitly configured to automatically mount newly detected drives, instantly indexing them as external storage for immediate media playback or security camera routing. It essentially treats the ancient diskette no differently than a high-speed flash drive, bridging decades of computing history without breaking a sweat.

While the vehicle’s software seamlessly bridges the gap, physical reality quickly catches up to the vintage aesthetic. The strict 1.44 MB capacity of a standard floppy disk remains a fatal bottleneck for contemporary use cases. Sony initially introduced the 3.5-inch format back in 1981, and while it reigned supreme throughout the 1990s, everyday data demands have since skyrocketed. An attempt to format the diskette to capture security footage predictably failed. The microscopic storage overhead is drastically insufficient to hold even a fraction of a second of modern high-definition video, a far cry from the massive rewritable arrays expected by today’s automotive systems.

To put the timeline in perspective, an entire generation of drivers now only recognizes the rigid plastic square as the universal digital save icon rather than a physical storage medium. Retro hardware continues to carve out a massive cult following among tech enthusiasts, but practical automotive applications for these magnetic drives are entirely non-existent. Kutkov’s successful Rickroll serves as a highly entertaining testament to the versatility of open-source foundations hiding inside luxury electric vehicles. It provides a fascinating, albeit purely theoretical, glimpse into how deeply modern transportation infrastructure remains quietly tethered to legacy computing standards.

I connected a 3.5” floppy drive to my @Tesla, and it works.
It’s nice that the Linux kernel still supports this subsystem. The system script mounts any detected disk drive (with some exceptions) as external storage for Sentry/Dashcam/media source.
It’s even possible to play a… pic.twitter.com/lHndt6moAX

— Oleg Kutkov 🇺🇦 (@olegkutkov) April 8, 2026