Lifestyle
The Tesla Dilemma: Texas or Tulsa
When news broke that Tesla had announced the finalists for its next Gigafactory, which actually could be called a Terafactory based on the expected cell production output from the facility, comparisons between Austin, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma was rampant across social media. Each location has its own distinct advantage and disadvantage, which I’ll explore.
I will start with Austin, Texas, because of the location’s notoriety as the “favorite” of the two locations. Also, it is fairly evident that Elon seems to think highly of the Lone Star State based on his Tweets about the state and also the presence of his SpaceX business there.
Texas has a lot of available lands, and it’s very cheap. Houses and businesses can get the same amount of land in Texas that they can in California, but at a significantly cheaper price. Tesla could save a lot of money on the purchase price of the land and it could be using Tulsa as leverage to get an even better deal on the Texas property.
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One of my favorite reasons for a Texas Factory is the fact that the state has long been the heart of oil and gas, and the world’s largest electric automaker in the same region. I find that to hysterical to me. I feel that Tesla establishing its largest and most dominant production facility in that area would be a big “middle finger” to the pollution-causing gas and oil drillers who, for a long time, have called Texas home.
Texas also has a hearty history of automotive manufacturing and is ranked fourth out of all fifty U.S. states in the sector. Also, Tesla could provide a stable economic boost to the State. While this also applies to Tulsa, Texas already has a strong presence in automotive manufacturing, which could ease regulations and transition time in the state.
Texas is also home to SpaceX’s Boca Chica Launch Facility. This statement solidifies Musk’s presence in the state and makes it an already familiar option for the CEO’s other company.
However, Tulsa has its own array of advantages, a lot of which are similar to Texas but in a slightly different way.
Tulsa also offers a sizeable amount of affordable land that Tesla could use for its next production facility. Although the company has roots in Texas and not in Tulsa, local authorities are ready to make a strong push for Tesla, knowing that the electric automaker could provide a substantial positive economic injection into the state’s employment rate.
Tulsa is also slightly more centralized than Austin, as it is closer to the geographical center of the country. While it may not provide much of an advantage as far as location goes, it is slightly more centralized than Austin is.
I also feel like Tulsa may want the factory a little bit more than Austin. I could be wrong here, because what city wouldn’t want a manufacturing plant that will provide 12,000+ with jobs and provide a positive economic impact? But Tulsa took a statue of an oil driller and put Tesla’s logo on it, and I feel like that is pretty special in itself considering the city’s rich roots in oil drilling. It is especially impressive that the local figures in Tulsa are willing to sit there and modify a very notable statue in the area to woo Tesla in their direction.
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Simply enough, it’s pretty obvious that Texas is the favored choice. At least it is for me. While Tulsa does have its advantages, it just doesn’t seem like it would provide enough benefits that make it a clear favorite over Texas. Elon has also mentioned Texas on numerous occasions like I previously mentioned, and really, economically, I think it provides more benefits to Tesla as a company.
What do you think?
I’d also like to add that there were plenty of great emails last week that I received after sending out the Fremont piece. Thanks for being sure to send me messages. I really appreciate the feedback and I love the fact that whether you agree or disagree, you’re telling me your thoughts. Thanks again!
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
