Lifestyle
Where to place your hands when Tesla Autopilot is engaged
A sure way to get other car occupants to do a double take, but it gets exceptionally tiring in a matter of seconds.
By now, we’ve seen plenty of videos and pictures of Autopilot-enabled Teslas cruising around. In some cases, drivers are experiencing the shock and awe of trying it for the first time while trying to pretend to play it cool. In others, drivers are not afraid to admit they are more than just a little freaked out.
Now that the initial Autopilot reactions are well documented, let’s discuss using it in real world situations.
When to use it – TACC
The Traffic Aware Cruise Control (“TACC”) portion of the software has been live for several months on cars that have the requisite hardware. It is appropriate for use in any situation you would normally use cruise control, but with the added benefit of automatically increasing or decreasing speed based on the car in front of you. You are able to set a space tolerance relative to the car in front of you as well as your maximum speed.
When to use it – Autosteer
Arguably the most anticipated part of the new Autopilot suite of driver’s assistance features is Autosteer. This feature uses ultrasonic sensors, radar and a front-facing camera together to track and follow lane markings and other vehicles. It is appropriate for use on divided highways with clear lane markings. Let me say it again: divided highways. This means a barrier between you and oncoming traffic, no pedestrians and no parked cars.
When to use it – Auto Lane Change
While using the Autosteer feature in an appropriate setting, Model S will also change lanes for you. Simply check your surroundings, see if there is an opportunity to change lanes and activate the turn signal on the side of the lane you wish to enter. The car will also look out for obstructions and change lanes when safe. As always, keep a close watch and enjoy the assistance. One situation where TACC and Autosteer really shine is stop-and-go highway traffic. I’ve had an especially flawless experience when traffic was moving between 20-35 mph during rush hour. Lane changes, however, are not good candidates for this type of traffic volume. In my attempts, the car was wholly uninterested in changing lanes even when there was an amount of space that any regular city driver would consider enough.
When to use it – Autopark
For those with a fear of parallel parking, Autopark is for you. For everyone else, it’s really fun to play with. A parking spot between two parked vehicles with a curb on one side is a candidate for Autopark. Simply drive your car slower than 15 mph and pass the spot. The car will recognize the spot and invite you to let it do all the work. If the car determines the space is not large enough, the option will not present itself. In my experiences, the car does a masterful job getting into spaces. It requires few backups and would easily pass the driver’s test in Philadelphia which, by the way, starts with parallel parking. The wheel moves quickly and the whole parking job is done efficiently.
So what do you do with your hands?
This question comes up a lot and the options are plentiful.
For one, you can rest your hands on the wheel in the same position you find yourself most comfortable with when you drive normally. If you’re a “ten and two” driver, it will look like this. My model here is using a light grip but did not disengage the Autosteer, which can be accomplished by tugging the wheel a bit.
If you like to get low, it may look like this.
Or this.
Just don’t get lazy and do this for too long, the car will warn you both audibly and with a screen message to put your hands back on the wheel.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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