Lifestyle
Should you buy the Tesla Pre-Paid Service Plan?
After counting down the days until the much anticipated delivery of your Tesla Model S another timer begins – counting down 60 days from the time of delivery until the Tesla pre-paid service plan offer expires.
Tesla Service Plan Choices
MyTesla portal on Teslamotors.com outlines various service plan offerings under the section titled “MODEL S SERVICE SIGN UP.” A standard annual service from Tesla Motors (not pre-paid) is $600 when paying per visit or one can opt to purchase a pre-paid service plan as follows:
- 4 year plan – Tesla Service for four years/Up to 50,000 miles. Cost: $1,900. This represents a 21% effective discount from the base price.
- 4 year plan + 4 year extension – Tesla Service for eight years/up to 100,000 miles. Cost: $3,800. This too represents a 21% discount from the base price.
Both plans plans include an annual inspection or an inspection every 12,500 miles. Despite having a service plan option, Tesla still makes a bold statement stating that warranty is not impacted even if you chose to never bring your Model in for service.
Tesla Service Plan Value
Although you’re receiving a 21% discount by pre-paying, that doesn’t take into account the opportunity cost with shelling out the money in advance. Let’s first look at the basic 4 year pre-paid service plan and assume you can earn a relatively risk-free 5% gain on an investment. Pre-paying $1,900 is effectively $2,309 in future value 4 years from now. Paying $600 per year starting a year from now for 4 years adds up to $2,586 in future value. So, accounting for the time value of money, the pre-paid plan is about 11% less expensive given the assumptions above.
Following the same model on an 8 year pre-paid service plan we get a much different picture. A $3,800 pre-pay has a $5,614 future value assuming a 5% annual rate of return. Forgoing the pre-pay option and paying $600 per year as-you-go, has a future value of $5,729 which means you’re only saving 2% with the pre-pay plan.
Also see: Tesla Model S Service Plan – Is it Worth it?
Naturally these results will vary based on the rate of return of your investment and inflation rate at the time. In times of high inflation the pre-pay option is much more attractive. But if you can get a 10% return on your investment (buy TSLA stock!) the pre-pay option is less attractive.
Mileage Adjustment
Tesla service plans are based on an annual mileage of 12,500 miles. At my current rate of driving, I’ll likely reach 32,000 miles within a year which means that my 4 year plan is more like a 2.5 year plan and the 8 year plan is more like a 5 year plan, assuming I need to pay a visit every 12.5k miles. The shorter plans reduces my opportunity cost thus increasing the value of the pre-pay service plan.
For example, if I plan on driving 100K miles in my Model S and purchase the pre-paid service plan, I’m going to pre-pay $3,800 for the 100K miles worth of services which I must perform every 12,500 miles or so. If I pay as I go and pay $600 every 25,000 miles its going to cost me $2,400. Not even considering the time value of money, paying as you go is a clear winner for high mileage drivers.
Poll Results
Nearly 60% of owners are pre-purchasing service plans. Reading through forum threads it seems that owners are doing this:
- Buy shortest term pre-paid service contract
- Decide later on extending that for a longer term (it’s not obvious but if you pre-purchase only the 4 year plan and later want to extend that to the 8 year plan, you could.)
- Waiting until 30 days before standard warranty expiration (4 years/50K miles) before deciding/buying extended warranty.
Summary
The 4-year pre-paid service plan, for Model S owners that have annual mileages at or under the 12,500 miles per year, works out to be an approximate 10% savings.
So,what course of action did I take when selecting a Tesla pre-pay service plan, knowing that I will nearly triple the assumed 12,500 annual mileage? The answer, thanks to Tesla service’s recommendation, is nothing. I did nothing.
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Elon Musk
NASA sends humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – Here’s what’s next
NASA’s Artemis II launched four astronauts toward the Moon on the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Operations and Support Building II at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 6:35pm EDT from Launch Complex 39B. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA launched four astronauts toward the Moon on April 1, 2026, marking the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket at 6:35 p.m. EDT, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon and back.
The mission does not include a lunar landing. It is a test flight designed to validate the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space with a crew aboard for the first time. If the crew reaches the planned distance of 252,000 miles from Earth, they will set a new record for the farthest any human has ever traveled, surpassing even the Apollo 13 distance record.
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX holds a central role in what comes next. The Starship Human Landing System is under contract to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for Artemis IV, now targeting 2028, after NASA restructured its mission sequence due to delays in Starship’s orbital refueling demonstration. Before any Moon landing happens, SpaceX must prove it can transfer propellant between two Starships in orbit, something no rocket program has done at this scale.
The last time humans left Earth’s orbit was 53 years ago. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 were the final people to walk on the Moon, a record that stands to this day. Elon Musk has long argued that returning is not optional. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the Moon,” Musk said. “That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the Moon.”
The Artemis program involves 60 countries signed onto the Artemis Accords, and this mission sets several firsts beyond distance. Glover becomes the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American astronaut to reach the Moon’s vicinity. According to NASA’s live mission updates, the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed successfully after liftoff and the crew completed a proximity operations demonstration within the first hours of flight.
Artemis II is step one. The Moon landing and the permanent lunar base come later. But after more than five decades, humans are heading back.
Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
Tesla’s Optimus robot left the Hollywood Diner within months of opening. Now Musk is planning its return with a bigger role and a major Gen 3 upgrade underway.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus robot was one of the most talked-about features when the Tesla Diner opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on July 21, 2025. Dubbed “Poptimus” by Tesla fans, the Gen 2 robot stood upstairs at the retro-futuristic, drive-in theater and Tesla Supercharging station, scooping popcorn into bags and handing them to guests with a wave.
The diner itself had been years in the making. Elon Musk first floated the idea in 2018 with a tweet about building an “old-school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant” at a Hollywood Supercharger. What eventually opened was a unique two-story neon-lit space, with 80 EV charging stalls, and Optimus serving as a live demonstration of where Tesla’s ambitions were headed.
If our retro-futuristic diner turns out well, which I think it will, @Tesla will establish these in major cities around the world, as well as at Supercharger sites on long distance routes.
An island of good food, good vibes & entertainment, all while Supercharging! https://t.co/zmbv6GfqKf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2025
But Optimus did not stay long, and was gone by December 2025.
Now, the robot is set to return with a more demanding job. Musk has ambitions for Optimus to take on a food runner role in 2026, delivering meals directly to cars at the Supercharger stalls. While the latest Gen 3 Optimus is likely to initially take on its previous popcorn-serving role, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Optimus to see a quick promotion. With improved hand dexterity that features 50 total actuators and 22 degrees of freedom per hand, and significantly more powerful processing through Tesla’s latest AI5 chip that includes Grok-powered voice interaction, Musk described Optimus at the Abundance Summit on March 12, 2026, as “by far the most advanced robot in the world, Nothing’s even close.”
Back to work
See you at Tesla Diner tomorrow pic.twitter.com/H3tTajrUbu
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) March 30, 2026
That confidence is backed by a major manufacturing shift. At the Q4 2025 earnings call in January, Musk announced Tesla would discontinue the Model S and Model X and convert those Fremont production lines to build Optimus. “It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end,” he said, calling for a pivot that reflects where the Tesla’s future lies.
Tesla broadens most-wanted Model Y to eight new markets
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
