Lifestyle
2014 – The Year of the Tesla Model S
2014 has been a year of amazing experiences one of which is my journey with owning a Tesla Model S.
I entered 2014 researching and thinking about purchasing a hybrid car to replace my aging high mileage Acura MDX but ended up buying a Tesla Model S. I couldn’t convince myself that having two separate power systems in a hybrid actually made sense plus the improvements in MPG was marginal at best. My quest to purchasing a new car turned out to be something much larger than I expected.
After benchmarking cost of ownership of a Tesla versus a new MDX, I was convinced that I could afford the Model S. That was the beginning of a wonderful journey to come.
Tesla Model S Ownership
Like many potential buyers, I was nervous about buying a crazy-expensive car from a high-tech startup that was a new player in the automotive world. While researching everything I could I encountered the Tesla Motors and the Tesla Motors Club forums and found an active and vibrant community of early adopters and potential owners. The Tesla community eased many of my fears and answered a lot of questions which ultimately helped me cope through the painful waiting phase until the day I took delivery of my Model S.
As I went through the process I realized that researching, buying, taking delivery and owning the Model S was going to be quite a different experience and adventure so I decided to document my journey by writing about it.
Tesla Lifestyle Community
I created a starter WordPress site and wrote my first “Hello World” post in March before test driving the Model S. Fast forward nine months and here I am with well over a 100 posts. I started actively engaging on Twitter via @teslaliving and made many friends along the way. I started this adventure as a small fish learning to swim in this great big sea, but 1,500 tweets and more than 1,000 followers later, I’m getting the hang of things and starting to find my niche as a voice within the Tesla community. This I find amazing.
As I continued to learn more about owning the Model S I wrote candidly about both the good and the bad. And despite being a a huge fan of Tesla and the Model S, I believe that constructive feedback helps people improve and get better with time (ie. shuffle anyone?).
By the end of the year I was writing independent product reviews (my leather jacket was seen in a coat hook ad!), writing joint posts and collaborating with other well known voices within the Tesla community such as Nick Howe and the TeslaOwnerBlog.
Engaging with the Tesla community has been an amazing experience. As time went on I realized that there was an even larger community out there, that of Electric Vehicle (EV) owners that are coming together to help educate and change the auto industry as a whole, and it’s been exciting to be a part of that larger community.
Giving Back
I felt a need to help the growing Tesla community beyond my writing.
There wasn’t a good way to keep track of all of the new developments of Tesla Motors so I decided to develop a Tesla monitoring system which emails and tweets as new Superchargers, Tesla Stores, Service Centers, and Model S versions are released. I’m actively working with a number of groups to help integrate these notices into their own initiatives and am excited to be a part of that.
I look forward to the day when Tesla opens up its APIs to third party developers so applications like VisibleTesla and dash apps such as Tesla Apps can take things to the next level.
The Future is Bright
Having just finished my solar installation project, the future is looking bright. Between my new Solar City installation and the new local Auburn, MA Supercharger location my electric bills should drop significantly.
I’m looking forward to measuring and reporting on my experiences with the Model S as I continue down the road of ownership and graduate from being a new owner to an experienced Model S owner especially having notched several Tesla road trips, services, and other experiences under my belt.
Tesla has made mind-blowing improvements to the Model S in 2014 with the announcement of autopilot, all wheel drive rounding and 691hp to an already amazing vehicle. Tesla’s rapid growth of the Supercharger network (over 330 Superchargers worldwide at the time of writing) has been impressive to watch and as a Model S owner and investor I truly believe the company has unlimited growth opportunity ahead.
2014 was an exciting year and certainly the year of the Model S but I’m equally excited about the upcoming year of the Model X.
I wish you all a Happy New Year and thank you for following along in my adventures.
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.
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.

