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What happens when a Tesla races on a track that has no electricity?

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This was the ultimate test – taking our 48 Tesla to a race event that was so remote that it had no electricity. The track is Chuckwalla Valley Raceway on the border of CA and AZ. The track had no electricity so as one might imagine our main goal of the event was to survive.

The Circuit

Chuckwalla Valley Raceway is a recently built track that’s 2.68 miles long with 17 corners of different configurations. Every apex is marked with a cone which we found very helpful on late apex corners. This is the least EV friendly track we’ve been to due to the simple fact that the track is in such a remote location and far removed from any sort of electric vehicle charger.

Chuckwalla Valley Raceway Track

 

The Tesla Model S

The Model S handles this track quite well since most of the turns are flat with no banking. Straightaways are fairly short but with enough room for passing. Power limitation is still an issue and limits acceleration after two laps.

Also see: The Tesla Racing Series

The Fun

Our very favorite part of the track was the 180 degree turn #13 that has a 10 degree bank. It’s similar to Fontana’s turn #1 and we found it to be a good part of the track to practice on since there’s no retaining wall to crash into if you do happen to make a mistake.

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The R1 tires provided just enough tire grip and allows for a slight drift around the corners. The traction and stability controls could not catch it so and it made for the most fun driving experience.

If you are coming from the south, we highly recommend taking CA route 74. It’s a small road that winds through the mountains and provides a breathtaking view from a 3000 foot elevation.

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adkins-hwy74

 

Charging and Power Consumption

The track consumed approximately 13 miles of rated range per lap, or 3 miles of rated range per actual mile. A 6-lap session cost approx. 75 rated miles. Power consumption was approx. 780 wh/mile.
The track does not have electricity, which makes it very challenging for an electric car to say the least.

The closest RV park nearby is called Green Acres and they have a 240V 50Amp NEMA 14-50 outlet which the owner was kind enough to let us use. It’s 4 miles between Green Acres and the track and we needed to make 5 round trip journeys between the 2 places.

The location is remote with limited charging options around. The nearest supercharger at Quartzsite, AZ is 75 miles away, and because the last leg of the trip is over a mountain, you need to have at least 100 miles of rated range to account for the unforeseen.

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We were only able to complete about 15-20 laps over 3 sessions and spent 2.5 hours recharging after the last session. We needed to ensure that we had enough juice to reach the next Tesla Supercharger station.

By the Numbers

Track Length: 2.68 miles
Top Speed: 104 mph
Run Group: Purple (Solid Intermediate) with “Speed Ventures”
Best Lap Time (only one session available): 2:20 (for comparison, the fastest car in the class was 2:08 and the slowest – 2:27)

 48 Chuckwalla 5

48 Chuckwalla 4 48 Chuckwalla 3 48 Chuckwalla 2 48 Chuckwalla 1

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Lifestyle

Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

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?

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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.

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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.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

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 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.

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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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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking

Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.

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Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley
Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley

Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.

Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.

This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.

Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.

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Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.

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