Tesla Drivers' In-Dash Web Browsing Habits Revealed

The race is on to snag the attention of drivers via new Internet-enabled dashboard touchscreens, but metrics on exactly how popular this new browsing experience might be have largely been a mystery, until now.The study, which gleaned stats from 100 million digital destinations over a 30-day period between Feb. 24 and March 23, offers a rough sketch of what the average Tesla owner's in-dash usage looks like.

"This data is based on websites using Quantcast Measure for their audience measurement," a Quantcast spokesperson told Mashable. "The Tesla browser has an identifier called a user agent, similar to a Chrome or Firefox browser. We looked at all visits to measured websites from the Tesla browser."
Predictably, usage of the 17-inch in-dash touchscreen peaks during typical commuting times, in this case, 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and 4:30pm to 7:30 p.m., respectively. The study found that news sites comprised the largest  usage of Tesla's in-dash screen, making up 54% of the websites visited. After news, services (restaurants, finding/purchasing entertainment, auto-related services, real estate, travel, shopping) accounted for 15% of the usage, followed by entertainment (14%) and lifestyle (12%).Within the news vertical, the study found that 26%, or roughly half of the news consumption views, were devoted to local news sites, a possible shot in the arm to beleaguered local news ventures like Patch.

Quantcast's study also found that 13% of the news consumed was financial in nature. Interestingly, the study also found that the conservative news aggregation site the DrudgeReport accounted for 10% of overall web browsing traffic.

This can be taken in a couple of ways, depending on how you parse the data. Either it means that Tesla owners, generally affluent at this point, lean conservative, or it could just be attributed to the quick loading, bare-bones design of the DrudgeReport website.