Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 race-tuned by Unplugged heads to historic Tokyo Auto Salon exhibit
Amidst the impeccably-detailed engines and stunning matte wraps of tuned cars in this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon event, a gunmetal gray electric sedan stands as a symbol of what may very well be the future of tuning. Shipped from the United States, the Tesla Model 3 Performance equipped with Unplugged Performance’s Ascension R package joins the ranks of the best JDM cars in the country. It’s arguably the most aggressively-modified Model 3 in the market today, and it looks every bit like it belongs in a Japanese track, ripping through corners with legends like the Nissan GT-R.
Twenty years ago, Ben Schaffer took inspiration from the Tokyo Auto Salon and brought home a vision to the United States. That vision took form as Bulletproof Automotive, a tuning house that would eventually create monsters out of high-performance cars. From European monsters to hyper-tuned vehicles from Japan, Bulletproof Automotive has pretty much done it all. Being a true automotive enthusiast, Schaffer did not turn his nose up on electric cars. Instead, with the Tesla Model S, he saw a new breed of vehicles that can revolutionize motoring, and in extension, tuning. And thus, Unplugged Performance was born.
With its headquarters in California, Unplugged Performance took everything that Schaffer learned from Bulletproof Automotive and translated them for all-electric mobility. From body kits to brake upgrades, Schaffer’s tuning house became one of the go-to companies for aftermarket Tesla modifications. Just like Bulletproof, Unplugged has made a few monsters of its own, including the Tesla Model S-APEX P100D widebody, which made its debut at the 2019 SEMA Show.
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- Tesla Model 3 by Unplugged Performance heading to Tokyo Auto Salon. (Credit: Ben Schaffer/Facebook)
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- Tesla Model 3 by Unplugged Performance heading to Tokyo Auto Salon. (Credit: Ben Schaffer/Facebook)
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- Tesla Model 3 by Unplugged Performance heading to Tokyo Auto Salon. (Credit: Ben Schaffer/Facebook)
The Tesla Model 3 Performance Ascension R Package is even closer to Schaffer’s JDM roots than the Model S-APEX. The best JDM cars like the R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R are amazing machines for the track, but at the end of the day, the Model S is a vehicle that’s more of a grand tourer, not a track car. Tesla’s actual track-capable car is the smaller, nimbler Model 3 Performance, making it the perfect platform for a true all-electric track project.
The Tesla Model 3 Performance in question is owned by owner-enthusiast Erik Strait, who hosts the DAErik YouTube channel. Strait’s Model 3 Performance features a long list of upgrades that make it a track-optimized all-electric car. Following is the full list of upgrades fitted in Strait’s Model 3.
- Unplugged Performance Ascension Front Bumper
- Unplugged Performance Ascension Carbon Side Skirts
- Unplugged Performance Ascension Carbon Rear Bumper
- Unplugged Performance Ascension Carbon Rear Diffuser Fins
- Unplugged Performance by Voltex Carbon GT Wing
- Unplugged Performance UP-03 Superlight Forged 19×10.5 Wheel Set with Michelin 305/30ZR20 Cup 2 Tires
- Unplugged Performance Coilover Suspension Kit
- Unplugged Performance 6 Piston 15.5 Inch Carbon-Ceramic Big Brake Kit
- Unplugged Performance Competition Brake Pads
- Unplugged Performance Sport Brake Lines
- Unplugged performance Billet Adjustable Front Upper Control Arms
- Unplugged Performance 3 Way Adjustable Front and Rear Sway Bar Kit
- Unplugged Performance Billet Adjustable Rear Camber Arms
- Unplugged Performance Billet Adjustable Rear Toe Arms
- Unplugged Performance Carbon Racing Bucket Seat Set
- Unplugged Performance Seat Rail Set
- Unplugged Performance by Willans Racing Harness Set
- Unplugged Performance Superlight 64 Titanium Lugnuts
In a recently shared video on his YouTube channel, Strait has announced that he will be flying over to Japan to visit his car as it is being showcased at the Tokyo Auto Salon. Schaffer will be there as well, particularly as Unplugged Performance will have its booth at the event. The vehicle will not only be showcased at the TAS either, as the Model 3 will also be taken to the Tsukuba Circuit, a location iconic for time attack rounds, to determine just how well a track-optimized Tesla can perform on an actual closed circuit.
As for Schaffer, the Model 3 Ascension R’s arrival in Japan practically takes his motoring journey full circle. While the Tokyo Auto Salon provided him with the inspiration he needed to start his own tuning house in the United States, he is hoping that the Model 3 Ascension R can inspire new generations of tuning in Japan. If it does, then Tesla can very well end up tapping into what could very well be a very lucrative and iconic market — one that would likely push the company’s vehicles to the limit, and perhaps even a little bit beyond.
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Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
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It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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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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The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
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