Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 battles Toyota Supra, Audi e-tron, and Jaguar I-PACE in 4-way bout
A Tesla Model 3 was recently involved in a four-way battle that featured two premium electric vehicles and one of the most interesting sports cars to come out of Japan in years — the Toyota Supra. Through a drag race, a rolling race, and a braking test, the Model 3 proved that it takes far more than a bigger battery pack and a lighter overall weight to take down a four-door family sedan from Silicon Valley.
The four-way battle was conducted by UK-based auto group carwow, which previously listed the Model 3 as the best EV buyers can purchase today due to its tech, quality, and driving dynamics. As noted by carwow host Mat Watson, each vehicle in the test brings something interesting to the table.
The Jaguar I-PACE EV400, a premium crossover SUV, is a very quick vehicle, with a 90 kWh battery pack, 400 hp, 700 Nm of torque, and dual motor AWD. For its size, the Jaguar I-PACE is quite heavy at around 2.2 tons (4,400 lbs). The Audi e-tron 55 is the largest car of the bunch, with its 95 kWh battery, 406 hp, 664 Nm of torque, dual motors AWD, and a weight of about 2.5 tons (5,000 lbs).
In comparison, the Tesla Model 3 Performance is equipped with a 75 kWh battery pack, 450 hp, 640 Nm of torque, dual-motor AWD, and a pretty balanced weight of about 1.8 tons (3,600 lbs). The Toyota Supra, the only vehicle in the group equipped with an internal combustion engine, is fitted with 3.0-liter straight-six turbo from BMW with 340 hp and 500 Nm of torque. Unlike its electric challengers, the Supra is Rear-Wheel Drive. It’s also the lightest at just around 1,560 kg (3,400 lbs).
The four vehicles were subjected to three tests: a classic quarter-mile drag race, a rolling race from 50 mph, and a brake test from 70 mph. The results of the quarter-mile race proved favorable to the Model 3 Performance, as the vehicle was able to cross the finish line in 11.8 seconds. The Tesla was followed by the Jaguar I-PACE, which finished the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds; the Toyota Supra, which completed the race in 12.8 seconds; and finally, the Audi e-tron, which took 13.5 seconds to finish the run.
The Tesla Model 3 almost seemed a class above its competitors in the 50 mph rolling race. The Model 3 Performance simply pulled ahead, followed by the Jaguar I-PACE. Unfortunately for the Jaguar, the Supra eventually caught it at 128mph, though the Japanese sports car still couldn’t catch the Tesla. Similar to the previous race, the Audi e-tron came last.
Perhaps most surprising were the results of the braking test. Despite being the lightest car in the group, the Toyota Supra only came second to the Tesla Model 3 Performance. Quite surprisingly, the Audi e-tron performed very well in the braking test despite its heft, beating the lighter Jaguar I-PACE and stopping only a few feet beyond the Supra.
What’s impressive about the results of carwow‘s test is that the Tesla Model 3 Performance is actually the most affordable car of the bunch at just around GBP 50,000 ($61,400 in the UK). For comparison, the Toyota Supra is sold in the UK at around GBP 52,000 ($65,000), the Jaguar I-PACE is priced at around GBP 64,000 ($78,600), and the Audi e-tron is priced at a premium GBP 70,000 ($85,900).
Watch carwow‘s four-way battle featuring the Tesla Model 3, the Toyota Supra, the Jaguar I-PACE, and the Audi e-tron in the video below.
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.
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
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.
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
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
