Lifestyle
Life after my Tesla 30 day Autopilot Trial ends: Where do I go from here?
As I lament the end of my 30 day trial of Autopilot, I thought a summary of the features would be helpful to those not yet familiar with the technology.
I bought my Tesla S70D in November of last year as an inventory model with nearly every feature I would have selected on line including the color. At the time, all of the hardware for Autopilot was included in the build but the software had not been installed.
I travel around New England for my work and had an opportunity to show a business associate, who happens to be a big “car guy” from Dallas Texas my new Tesla. I alerted him that I didn’t have the famous Autopilot that he had been watching in videos on line, but the car was still beautiful and thrilling to drive. I picked him up at the airport late and headed to the hotel before customer visits the next day. When we came out to the car in the morning, there it was! A software download overnight giving me a 30 day trial of Autopilot! The timing couldn’t have been better!
First thing we did, stood in the parking lot and summoned the car out of the spot. After all, there’s no reason to ding your car doors for the very first time when you can open them wide in a place just 15 feet back from where you parked!
Next, we got on the highway and pulled the cruise control stalk one time. I felt the accelerator hold where we were so I took my foot off and relaxed a bit. Slowly creeping up on the car in front of us, the dash showed me the silhouette of the car in front getting closer. I’d have to push the stalk down to reduce my speed in the past, but as we got within 2 car lengths, I saw the MPH start to go down as we tracked perfectly behind the next car at a constant distance. Cool! Traffic aware cruise control! When the guy in front slows down, you slow down without a thought and even if he comes to a stop, when he takes off, you take off maintaining the set car length distance.
Next, pull back on the stalk twice. The steering wheel goes stiff and takes over keeping the car right in the middle of the lane. With decent lane lines on both sides, the steering was better than I would have been on my own, right down the center. Even in bends in the road, the vision system looks far enough ahead to anticipate the turn and keep you right in the center of the lane.
We got to our first appointment and entered the parking lot. I drove slowly by a spot and not seeing any others close by I put the car in reverse and to my surprise, the center screen showed the spot on my left and a button to “Auto Park” I pushed the button and the car started backing up, then the steering wheel started turning very fast on its own to back me into the spot. We were a little close to the lane before starting the process so we couldn’t quite make it in the first go, but no intervention necessary, the car went into drive, wheel turned the opposite way, we pulled forward a bit, then continued backing right in the middle of the spot. Perfect!
Getting the hang of Autopilot on the highway, I decided to try it out long distance for my trip from Central Connecticut all the way to Boston. I didn’t need to touch the wheel, accelerator or break except when we were exiting the Mass pike. Even in stop and go traffic on Storrow Drive, the car stayed in Autopilot and performed flawlessly.
After dropping my associate off at the airport, I travelled the rest of the way home to Southern New Hampshire again “no hands, no feet”! I did keep a finger on the wheel just in case, but I got confident enough with the system that I know I could have let go all together. The car does, however remind you to keep a hand on the wheel with a notification on the dash and by turning the radio volume all the way down until you grab the wheel.
The next day, I went back to Boston with my wife to pick up my daughter at the train. We were to park outside the train station and wait for her to arrive. Slowly pulling up the street, we passed an open parking spot (actually a fire hydrant location, there’s no open parking spots in Boston!) but we’d be sitting in the car so no problem. Again, as soon as I put the car in reverse, the parallel spot showed up on the center screen with a button to auto park. Again, the car took over turning the wheel and reversing right into the spot with perfection. My wife told me to pull out and do it again so she could video this time!!!
Over the weekend, it was time to wash the Tesla. I did a thorough job on the exterior and vacuumed and wiped all surfaces on the interior. Now I’ve got to put the car in the garage, but, I just cleaned everything and if I get in the car, I’ll probably drag in and deposit sand or small pebbles on the rug! No worries! Autopilot allows you to stand along the side of your car, and using the key fob, park it in the garage and close the garage door with one tap of the fob! Amazing!
Now, I’m not that compulsive about my rugs, so I’ll probably not need to use the “Auto park in my garage” feature, and I’m still parking at the far end of parking lots away from other potential dings so I have no problem opening my doors, but if I had to park in a very tight spot, Autopark will be an awesome feature to have.
Auburn Massachusetts Supercharger
For the most part, my daily travel is a few miles from home to the office on town roads but frequently I am on an extended road trip somewhere in New England. I’ve gotten over the range anxiety with a number of strategically placed Supercharger stations available and having used Plug share in a pinch a couple times. I definitely see using Autopilot on the highway allowing me to relax a bit but also keep me safer on the trip than if I were driving myself!
Do I take the plunge and plunk down $3k to keep this going or not? I still have a few days left to figure it out. Maybe Elon will just “forget to turn it off”?
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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