Lifestyle
What it’s like to take delivery of your very own Tesla Model S
Driving home in the Tesla Model S
On Monday, April 21 2014 amongst the celebrations of Earth Day, the Boston Marathon and Patriot’s day, another big event was happening, the delivery and first drive of my very own Tesla Model S.
As I eagerly pulled out of the Tesla Delivery Center in Watertown, MA a billion things were crossing my mind and near the top were the following:
- This is a normal car, not a SUV, am I going to bottom out pulling out of the inclined lot? I didn’t.
- I need to get out of here, meet my family, and its my first time with the GPS – will I be able to reach where I’m headed to? Fortunately we had pre-programmed my work location as a ‘favorite’ during my delivery walkthrough.
- I just missed that turn and now I have to cross 3 lanes and turn around, is the turning radius tight enough? It was.
- Will I get in a lot of trouble if I give my mother-in-law whiplash on her first ride with me? I avoided any sort of whiplash by showing great restraint.
- Can I resist fiddling with the screens and focus on the road?
- Can I avoid the Boston Marathon route and high congestion areas? I did.
For each area of concern I had the Model S delighted and amazed me with answers.
On the way home from the delivery center is Natick Mall Tesla Store which has five public charging stations so I figured I’d give it a try and juice up while I have lunch with the family. The two HPWCs that they had were already in use so I carefully backed the car, with my eyes focused on the parking sensors, into one of the other spots that were outfitted with a charge outlet.
I grabbed my Universal Mobile Connector (UMC) kit which we practiced using during my delivery walkthrough and prepared myself for the first electric car challenge that lay before me. The outlet that I backed into was not a style I had an adapter for which turned out to be a NEMA 6-50. The UMC did not have an adapter that would fit that type of outlet so rather than blocking the outlet for someone else who may be better equipped, I moved the car and parked away from it. A Tesla employee was just arriving for work so I cornered him and confronted him with the issue. He was very friendly and said he’d look into it.
Also see: Should You Leave Your Tesla Charger (UMC) Plugged In?
Tesla Universal Mobile Connector (UMC)
I dropped by the Tesla store after lunch to follow up on the issue and they mentioned that the NEMA 6-50 was not a common plug therefore the adapter was not intended to be included with the UMC kit. They offered to lend me an adapter for the time being or move one of the test drive cars from the HPWC so that I can use it. Since I didn’t really need a charge, having taken the car with 219 mile of range, and my intention was only to test the charging capabilities, they told me I could just order the extra adapter from the Tesla Motors online storefront.
That led to my second electric car challenge. I tried to buy the NEMA 6-50 adapter later that day from the online store as advised but the adapter was listed as “Out of stock”. I immediately contacted sales but was told I had to be put me on a waiting list for the part. If you look at the site now the adapter isn’t even listed and there are rumors that they’ve told others they won’t be selling them any more. Unfortunately no other site that I know of sells a NEMA 6-50 Tesla adapter. I was later told that Tesla Motors will be swapping out the NEMA 6-50’s for NEMA 14-50’s which is the recommended outlet type and that every UMC will be outfitted with this adapter.
After lunch I got a different passenger for the ride home, my daughter. I told her there was a mandatory stop for a photo shoot. I had been thinking about where to get a good picture for a while and I think it turned out great!
The ride home was uneventful but fun. On my bumpy street the Tesla handled the potholes, frost heaves and other standard New England type road conditions perfectly. Once I got home I practiced pulling in and out of my garage and tested my NEMA 14-50 for the first time. The outlet and charger worked great and I got a full 40A (at the delivery center we had charged at 80A proving my dual chargers were there too).
I spent some time installing the extra frunk and trunk mats that I had ordered online prior to delivery and moved a few things from my old car to my new Model S. 
My compact umbrella fits great in the glove box and the little shelf under the 17″ touchscreen was the perfect spot for my sunglasses and the screen cleaning wipe that they provide you with.
Also see: Tesla Model S Screen Cleaning Kit Review
Perhaps the most important test for me was finding out whether my large Dunkin’ Donuts Ice Coffee would fit within the armrest cup holder – I live in New England after all. I’m very pleased to say it fit without a hitch. It would have been a shame to have to return the car after all this waiting!
My wife wanted to go for a test drive so I took her for a spin and then let her drive it. She has a Mercedes ML-350 so the controls were very familiar to her since Tesla uses the same parts around the steering wheel. We drove around, capitalized on many photo opportunities and took the highway back to our house. At one point I looked over at the dash and realized she was driving over 95 MPH. It’s effortless to get moving and moving very quickly for that matter, despite it feeling like you’re only traveling at 40 mph.
I mounted my EZ-pass tag in the black area of the windshield and to the right of the rear view mirror and it worked perfectly. On my Acura I had it positioned near the rear view mirror that was hidden from sight, but that’s not an option in the Tesla due to the special coating they have on the windshield which interferes with signal transmission.
UMC hook installed
The next trip was to a hardware store where I would try to find something that would prevent the weight of the UMC and charging cable from pulling on the NEMA 14-50 outlet. I found a simple hook at Lowe’s that can take the weight off the outlet and hold the entire cable.
A friend later called and told me that he was stranded at Boston Logan thanks to the Boston Marathon and needed a ride. That led to my third electric vehicle moment — did I have enough juice to go get him? I didn’t want to fight Boston traffic on my first day with the car so I had him take a bus to the Natick Tesla store (50 miles away) where I would pick him up. At this point I had 150 miles in range left from the 219 that I started with and had a 100 mile round trip ahead of me. I picked him up and we made it home with 45 miles to spare. Even though the car indicated that we would make it with range to spare, I nevertheless experienced range anxiety.
In summary, that first day I put 155 miles on my new Tesla and enjoyed every second of it. It was a pure dream to drive.
By the end of the day I was exhausted from my lack of sleep the night before, all the driving and the exciting new learning experience. I got my first good night’s sleep in the 6 weeks since pressing ‘Confirm Order’.
A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.
“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.
Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.
Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.
He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.
Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.
The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Elon Musk
India tells Elon Musk’s X to “Follow the Law” in latest censorship update
Elon Musk says X now exposes government censorship, but India’s secrecy laws complicate that promise.
Elon Musk’s promise to make government censorship requests on X “clearly visible” is running into a wall in India, where the law forbids the very disclosure Musk is promising.
On August 15, Musk responded to an update from X’s open-source algorithm team by writing “Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible.” The claim referred to a change X pushed two days earlier to its public xai-org/x-algorithm repository, which now includes a controversial filter written directly into the code. The filter suppresses posts from 665 accounts flagged by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court from appearing in the For You feed of any viewer located in Brazil, unless the viewer already follows the account. The election tied to the filter is scheduled for October 4.
India’s government wasn’t as impressed, and responded on Monday that “X will have to follow the law of the land,” in response to Musk’s transparency push covered by the Times of India. The problem is structural rather than political. India issues content blocking orders under Section 69A of its IT Act, and Rule 16 of the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules requires those orders to stay confidential. Publishing an India equivalent of the Brazil filter, naming specific accounts and citing specific government orders, would itself violate Indian law. Government use of Section 69A has grown from roughly 6,000 orders a year between 2018 and 2023 to about 24,300 in 2025, according to a Tech Times report.
The contrast puts Musk’s transparency pledge in an odd spot. It works largely as advertised in Brazil, where electoral law requires disclosure and X can point to specific account IDs and a specific court order in public code. It cannot work the same way in India, where the law requires the opposite. X users in India will keep seeing content disappear from search and their feeds without any public accounting of why, even as X tells the rest of the world that its censorship compliance is now inspectable.
This isn’t the first time X’s fights with a national government have shaped how the platform operates. Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to suspend the accounts of sitting lawmakers and journalists in 2024, a standoff that cost X its Brazilian revenue for months and froze Starlink’s local accounts before the investigation into Musk and X was closed in March with no evidence of wrongdoing found. X also sued California over a state law requiring moderation disclosures, arguing the mandate itself violated the First Amendment.
Whether India’s government pursues anything beyond a public statement remains to be seen. For now, the mismatch between what X can legally publish and what different governments legally allow it to publish is the real story behind Musk’s seven word claim.
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
Tesla Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms
