Lifestyle
Tesla “Loaner Wheels” program and Tire Hazard Protection saved the day
This winter Los Angeles has received an enormous amount of rainfall, sorely needed, as the Governor comes close to finally declaring the drought “finished.” One negative effect of the large rainfall is the huge number of potholes that now need fixing across the Los Angeles basin.
My Flat Tire
On January 25, 2017, I experienced the issue first hand: on the way back home from Montebello, CA, I hit a pothole that was about 1.5 feet wide and 5 inches deep. The “thump” noise sounded enormous when my left rear tire hit the pothole. My tire immediately went flat. The onboard alert immediately told me that I had to stop. I had hit a double whammy: the pothole and a large nail. I was quite fortunate that a Shell station was near where I found enough space to park safely.
Tire Damage due to pothole
Next I called the Tesla Roadside Assistance toll free number 877-79-TESLA. This service is available during the first 4 years or 50,000 miles, whichever occurs first for vehicles covered by the New or Pre-Owned Vehicle Limited Warranty at the time of the occurrence.
In all markets, Tesla will arrange for your vehicle to be transported to the nearest Tesla Service Center. Tesla will cover up to 50 miles for a trained tow provider to assist you with a flat tire.
Notice that wheel and tire damage is not covered by the New or Pre-Owned Vehicle Limited Warranty.
In some markets, and that includes the Los Angeles area, Tesla has contracted with trained tow providers that carry a limited number of loaner wheels to quickly exchange for the damaged wheel so one can continue his or her journey.
After about 5 minutes of muzak, I was finally connected with a Tesla Roadside Assistance representative that immediately offered me the “loaner wheel” service. After about a 45-minute wait, a small van showed up, which had inside an entire set of all available tires for Tesla Model S and X, all mounted on wheels. My flat tire was a MICHELIN PILOT SPORT PS2 XL, 265/35ZR-21. The tow provider took no more than 15 minutes to do the tire and wheel swap, and put the damaged tire, still mounted on my 21” Turbine grey wheels, inside a large plastic bag and then in my trunk. In less than an hour I was back on the road.
The tow provider told me that he was also servicing Mercedes, Lexus and other luxury cars, but Tesla was the only one providing the loaner wheels.
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My next steps were to simply arrange with my local Tesla Service Center a good time to drop in within a few days to exchange the loaner wheel for a new original wheel. I e-mailed my service center in Torrance, CA that I already had purchased a new replacement tire and was able to get an appointment for the next day at the opening time of the center.
Looking at several messages in the official Tesla forum, the “loaner wheel” service is not available in all markets, so you may want to call your local Tesla Service Center and inquire if your area is covered by the program.
TIRE RACK
In case of a flat tire, if you have not purchased a tire yourself, Tesla will sell you the tire at the time you get you flat tire replaced. There are two issues with that transaction. First, Tesla will sell you the tire at a relatively high price ($440 in the case of the MICHELIN PILOT SPORT PS2 XL, 265/35ZR-21 that I needed replaced), but more importantly tires purchased from a Tesla Service Center do not come with any “hazard warranty”, just the basic OEM warranty (from Michelin in this instance) that does not cover any type of road hazards.
When I purchased my Tesla Model S P90D I wanted to have at least one spare tire ready for each of my staggered tires and I found tirerack.com to offer OEM tires for all Tesla models at discounted prices, and provided “Tire Road Hazard protection”.
For example the MICHELIN PILOT SPORT PS2 XL, 265/35ZR-21 that I needed to replace is available from TIRE RACK for $344, a 22% discount on Tesla’s price.
Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 “staggered” tires
According to TIRE RACK (emphasis added), “road hazard damage is damage that occurs when a tire fails as a result of a puncture, bruise or impact break incurred during the course of normal driving on a maintained road. Nails, glass and potholes are the most common examples of road hazards. These types of road hazards are not typically covered under tire manufacturers’ warranties.”
During the year that I owned my Tesla Model S, I had experienced a flat from both nails and potholes, and this time I was going to test the TIRE RACK program.
I called TIRE RACK prior to my visit to the Tesla Service Center and was told that:
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- Tires are covered for 24 months from the date of purchase or until 2/32″ or less of tread remains, whichever occurs first;
- Repairs are reimbursed up to $25 per tire per occurrence;
- During the 24 month benefit period, I would be reimbursed for 100% of the original cost of the tire covered by the Tire Road Hazard Protection, if the tire could not be repaired;
- To demonstrate that the tire could not be repaired, I could either send pictures or alternatively have the Tesla Service center call them with the details. In the first case, TIRE RACK could ask to have the tire returned to them, at their expense;
- I would have to first purchase a replacement tire from TIRE RACK and/or pay for the repair.
Since I always wanted to keep a spare around, I went ahead and purchased a new tire from TIRE RACK.
I then went to the Tesla Service Center, where they took back the wheel loaner, and for $50 installed my replacement Michelin tire. They also called TIRE RACK and confirmed that my tire could not be repaired. Incidentally, I was told at the Tesla Service Center that when the “loaner wheel” program was started, waiting times used to be in 2-3 hours range, which made quite a few Tesla owners upset, but lately the wait time was less than an hour and comparable to the wait time when using AAA roadside service.
TIRE RACK accepted my claim and sent me a check for the full price of the original tire plus shipping.
In the end my whole experience of having a flat tire was the best I ever had in probably 40+ years of driving. Between the Tesla “wheel loaner” and the TIRE RACK “Road Hazard Protection,” I had spent just about 2 hours of my life on the issue and no money at all. Not a bad deal.
Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Elon Musk
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.
Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.
One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.
As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.
If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.
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Tesla Diner is turning 1 on July 21st, so we’re throwing a party
Come swing by for a day full of fun:
– Cybercab on display
– Birthday menu
– @Tesla_Optimus
– Face painting for kids & adults
– Photo booth
– Servers on roller skates delivering your order
– Light show
– Skypad DJ… pic.twitter.com/TD8pOjihYs— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) July 18, 2026
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