Tesla

Guest have been pouring into Warner Bros. Studio lot in anticipation of Elon Musk’s big day. The parking garage is crammed with Cybertrucks. The crowd appears to be mostly men. And the event appears to be quite extensive, complete with its own map to all the locations. Now, we wait for Elon, who’s supposed to take the stage at 7PM PT (though he has a reputation for lateness).

Bloomberg reports that the soon-to-be-unveiled purpose-built driverless vehicle will have “two front seats and two doors that open upward like butterfly wings,” citing sources familiar. That would square with the concept art we saw in Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography. Tesla could also announce an autonomous van, and Full Self-Driving capabilities for its Semi trucks.

Twenty Trucks videos are a hit in my house. My vehicle-obsessed toddler loves the truck footage, and I find the songs infinitely more listenable than whatever Blippi is usually screeching about. The latest Truck Tunes track features the one and only Cybertruck, and honestly, it’s a bop. Take a look for yourself and try not to get it stuck in your head.

I’m not sure if this counts as Hollywood magic yet, but this is how Tesla’s promoting its robotaxi unveiling event. Elon Musk had announced an August date for the event, but then it was pushed back until October 10th.

That’s how much water it took to extinguish the Tesla Semi that caught fire on a California highway last month, according to investigators. That’s the equivalent of one of those carbon-bolted steel tanks used in irrigation or wastewater. And its certainly a lot more than the 500 gallons that was needed to put out a Model S fire in 2018.

Tesla vehicles come with Sentry Mode that can act like surveillance cameras on wheels if triggered, so police in the Bay Area (lots of Teslas around) have been getting warrants to tow them to retrieve footage because it may have recorded a crime. In one case with Oakland Police, it helped catch some alleged murderers.

That stands for “Actually Smart Summon,” which is the new name for the automaker’s automated parking lot feature that kind of got lost in the shuffle. You press down on the button in the app, and the car will theoretically come to where you are in the parking lot. (The only videos I could find on YouTube so far take place at night in empty parking lots, which says a lot.) Hilariously, Tesla owners still assume full liability if their empty car runs over someone while being summoned. So summon at your own risk.

Reuters reports Tesla’s China plant will build a six seat version of the refreshed electric crossover late next year as the seven-seater’s third row isn’t “large enough for a large-sized dog.”

It’s been more than 16 months since Ford kicked off the auto industry’s switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, and so far, it and Rivian are the only two companies with access. The bottleneck seems to be the lack of adapters — though Tesla recently said it has increased production to 8,000-a-week at its Buffalo gigafactory. But in the meantime, industry heads are getting worried:

Forbes noticed that Musk’s first two manifestos have been scrubbed from Tesla’s website. The first Master Plan, which was released in 2006, outlined Tesla’s plan to release a series of EVs and use the revenues to build more affordable models. The second plan included plans for additional EVs, as well as solar panels and battery storage. The earliest blog post on the company’s site now dates to 2019. Coincidentally, the purge comes as Musk as aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, and has come to the defense of the oil and gas industry.

Tesla quietly removed a controversial no-resale-for-a-year clause in the Cybertruck purchase contract.

Tesla is selling a cooler sized to fit perfectly in the weirdly-shallow Cybertruck frunk. And yes, it’s made of stainless steel. And yes, you can fill it full of Cyberbeer that I initially mistook for an IPA made by the Zodiac Killer because I forgot that Tesla makes its own beer now. But the real kick in the crotch is the price. Because why is god’s name would anyone shell out $700 for a cooler? Of course the answer is the same people who would pay $100,000 for an electric truck made by the guy who thinks people are being too mean to oil and gas executives. Now that’s cool.

Fort Worth, Texas Judge Reed O’Connor, who is presiding over Elon Musk-owned X’s antitrust lawsuit against advertisers and one against Media Matters, has invested as much as $50,000 in Tesla stock, NPR reports.

Today was supposed to be the day we got our first glimpse of Tesla’s much-hyped (but probably not fully operational) robotaxi. Instead, the event was pushed to October after Tesla CEO Elon Musk ordered some design changes to the prototype. Of course, as many theorized, the event was likely little more than a distraction from the company’s declining sales. And reports from the field of Tesla owners using Full Self-Driving don’t inspire much hope about the robotaxi’s near term viability.

A sad inevitability: a Cybertruck driver died in Texas early Monday morning after their truck left the roadway for an unknown reason and smashed into a concrete culvert, the local news station reports. The Cybertruck became engulfed in flames after the crash, complicating the victim’s identification. Tesla has sold at least 11,000 Cybertrucks since the vehicle’s release late last year, according to a recent recall report.

YouTuber WhistlinDiesel could have taken a more conservative approach to his test of the Cybertruck, but instead we get a balls-to-the-wall, absolutely over-the-top series of stunts and bad decisions that practically leaves the electric truck a pile rubble at the end. Tune in for the evisceration of the Cybertruck’s tow hitch, stay for the part where he straps C4 to the tailgate.

The family of a motorcyclist killed by a Tesla Model 3 driver using Autopilot is suing the company for knowingly releasing “defective and inadequate” software, Reuters says. Its the latest in a growing volume of wrongful death suits targeting Tesla’s driver assist features. The company has fought some, settled others, so how it responds to this one remains to be seen.