In September 2019, Elon Musk unveiled the Plaid Mode Model S. Tesla’s flagship sedan had received a “revamp,” or even a “rejuvenation” if you will. The Tri-Motor setup with a slightly wider body, front lip spoiler, rear diffuser, spoiler, and large front air intake was poised to become Tesla’s fastest and most aerodynamically superior vehicle to date.
The car hit the track at the Nürburgring in Germany, speeding around the “Green Hell” at speeds that are rumored to be a track record. However, we as Tesla fanatics never got a verified track time, and maybe, in a way, it is better that we didn’t. Elon knows something we don’t, and perhaps that the best is yet to come.
Here we are, around eight months after the Plaid’s initial announcement, and Elon drops another bomb on us: The Plaid Cybertruck. Of course, it is what he’ll drive around in, as he announced to the world on Twitter that the fastest and most polarizing truck will be his daily driver.
But to the average consumer who is looking for speed, efficiency, sustainability, and a unique look, the Plaid Cybertruck could be the perfect option. In my personal opinion, it is the ideal option.
I have several reasons for this: For car enthusiasts who love a good bit of speed, the Plaid Cybertruck will be the solution. It’s already got the Tri-Motor setup with a 0-60 MPH of 2.9 seconds, but the additional aerodynamics package that could come along with extra power from a bigger battery pack will give drivers even more of a punch when the accelerator hits the floorboards. Could the Plaid Cybertruck offer 2.5 seconds, or even less, from 0-60? Could this new truck be faster than some of the quickest performance vehicles in the world? It seems incredibly likely.
Next, the Tri-Motor variant of the Cybertruck already offers 14,000 pounds of towing capacity. Could the Plaid Cybertruck provide more? This would be more incentive for those owners who may be using their Cybertruck for utility, including construction. With a bigger battery pack and more horsepower, it could possibly offer 15,000 or 16,000 pounds of towing capability. While the Cybertruck is considered a large pickup, its Tri-Motor configuration is already capable of 14,000 pounds, 800 pounds more than the 2020 Ford F-150, which offers a class-leading 13,200 pounds of towing capacity.
Finally, the unique aesthetics of the Cybertruck are something that cannot be matched. We use the word polarizing a lot, and for a good reason: there is nothing like the Cybertruck on the market. Not only on the outside but the inside, too. The truck’s recycled dash, expansive and bright dash screen, interior LED bars, all are features no other vehicle can match. It truly is polarizing, unique, and individualized in every sense of the word.
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The question is: How will legacy automakers compete with the Plaid Cybertruck?
We see companies everyday adapting Tesla’s minimalistic interior style. Cars that once were equipped with enough bells, whistles, and knobs for everyone in the car to play with have opted for simpler designs because the Tesla look simply makes sense and allows for more effortless operation. With that tidbit of information, we know Tesla has an impact on other automakers.
One thing other manufacturers can’t compete with is the speed and performance of Teslas because their vehicles are not powered by batteries. Most of us know that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) offer instant torque, which is why Teslas are notorious for knocking off some of the fastest cars on a drag strip.
The problem for legacy is some of their customers have left them for Tesla. Why? The design. The speed. The engineering. The innovation.
More people will leave their leases and bought out F-150s and Raptors. GMC Sierras, Toyota Tundras and Tacomas for Cybertrucks. And the reasons are all there.
While legacy automakers are stuck with the same general designs for their vehicles year in and year out, Tesla’s cars and SUVs continuously change. While the design stays the same somewhat, the cars are updated through the internet on what is becoming a weekly basis. The cars continuously improve, and you cannot do that with a legacy vehicle. To have the newest technology, you have to have the latest car, and that is not an affordable strategy for many of us.
There are, of course, going to be a few owners who have driven vehicles built by legacy automakers for their whole lives, and they will not stray away from that. And that is perfectly fine. After all, competition is what drives the economy, right?
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However, legacy automakers will be forced to adapt to Tesla’s business model in order to compete with the Elon Musk-led company. Many pickup owners will seek speed, engineering, and towing capacity so they can have the most powerful and fastest truck on the market. The Plaid Cybertruck will offer that, and other trucks will not. Plain and simple.
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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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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
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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.
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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
Tesla FSD takes owner on a 20,000+ mile joy ride
Elon Musk explains what happens when AI outsmarts all of us
