Lifestyle
Behind the Scenes of Tesla’s First ‘Weekend Social’ Event
On Thursday, Tesla sent an email to owners to introduce the Tesla Weekend Social program.
This program, a way to get local owners together in one place, promised a light breakfast and a chance to engage and learn more about new features. Having already been planning to get together with some local owners the same day and time, the whole group of us decided to attend Tesla’s official event instead.
We arrived right on time at 10:00am to quite a few other Teslas pulling in at the same time. As expected, every charger was already in use and the parking lot space on both sides of the Devon, PA Service Center location had quite a few cars – no doubt including those in for service as well as yet-to-be-delivered new cars.
There was a light breakfast, as promised, including bagels, pastries, fruit and coffee from Panera Bread. For at least 30 minutes, guests were free to eat, roam and mingle. Some sat in the waiting room to eat, others stood around chatting. There was a white Model X available for viewing and climbing in. I, for one, got inside and really played around with the seating, steering wheel and mirror positions. As expected, there is a generous range of seating options to grant my petite stature visibility. I also have no issues with the Model S, so this wasn’t a surprise.
After a while, the main Tesla employee responsible for the event (Bryan) made an announcement to gather us all around. I was pleased that by this point, I had already learned that the guests ranged from long time owners to those waiting for delivery to a woman who was just returning a 2 day test drive Model S and was seriously in love. We were welcomed and told that Tesla wanted to bring owners together to showcase and demonstrate some new features as well as gain feedback. There were cars set up outside to show us how to use the summon, parallel park and perpendicular park features. Plenty of owners and soon-to-be owners flocked toward those demonstrations once they started, so it appears that even those with AP-enabled cars were unsure of or hadn’t yet used these new features.
“the very first software update on Model S – introducing creep mode – was born from owner feedback”
The conversation inside flowed informally with members of the crowd offering questions and feedback, which was something our host Bryan mentioned wanting. He emphasized many times just how valuable owner feedback is and that Tesla takes both positive and negative feedback very seriously. In fact, he told us that the very first software update on Model S – introducing creep mode – was born from owner feedback. He also confirmed what we already suspect, which is that Tesla does monitor their own forums. By monitor, I really mean monitor, so we were encouraged to keep up the good work giving feedback. As he seemed to expect by a playful comment he made, the conversation turned to charging. Everyone is interested in more Superchargers, specifically at certain hot locations that are currently unserved.
Tesla plans to double the number of Superchargers between now and when Model 3 deliveries really get rolling, but as we know their charger plans don’t always pan out. Much of the discussion was around the newer features with one gentleman making a wonderful suggestion to have a learning mode where you can park your car in your garage while in this mode and have it memorize your position. This would probably be perfect for another guest whose feedback was that he can’t use Summon to get his car into his garage due to a center pole that the car just seems bent on getting too close to comfort to. Other feedback was that eventually, the car needs to know how to handle driveways that are not a straight line out of the garage, as well as have a higher tolerance for driveways on an incline with lipped garage openings.
Tesla Weekend Social gathering at the Devon, PA Store and Service Center
Once we were done chatting, we all made our way outside to see some of the demonstrations. As someone who is well versed in the features, I hung back and chatted with other owners. As always, this was the highlight of the event. Some of them I already knew and others were my pleasure to meet. One couple that seemed too shy to join the group and stood alone turned out to be soon-to-be owners in the midst of a wait for a 70D. They already have an outlet in their garage, it just needs the car.
For more than an hour I chatted with what felt like half of the 4 dozen guests about everything from Model 3 speculations to overlapping day jobs (it’s a small world!) and everything in between. This car, as most owners and enthusiasts already know, has a very unique way of turning people into true believers. There is no shortage of things to discuss about the Tesla experience, be it at an intentional meet up or a happenstance Supercharger encounter. (My latest Supercharger experience led me to an 11 year old who knew more than I did about Tesla and let me try out his super cool electric skateboard!)
Tesla hit a home run with this idea and I encourage every owner to attend the Tesla Weekend Social to enjoy the company of other owners and make your voice heard to Tesla.
Read more from Electric Jen
- Trip Planning in a Tesla Model S
- What it was like inside the Model 3 unveiling event
- Why Women Should Drive Model S: Passion, Passengers and Purses
- How Tesla Autopilot Changes Your Perception of ‘Driving’
Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory
Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.
Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.
The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.
Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory
Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.
Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years
Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.
Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.
In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.
The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.
This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.
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