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Tesla Model S Plaid wins Pikes Peak’s Exhibition Class in dominating fashion

Credit: Unplugged Performance/Twitter

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The excitement was palpable at the base of Pikes Peak as this year’s racecars lined up for their attempt at conquering the treacherous mountain. The mountain already won a round this year, as its weather conditions forced the Pikes Peak committee to shorten the course. Yet as legendary racecar driver Randy Pobst lined up his black Tesla Model S Plaid on the starting line, the atmosphere seemed electric. 

The Tesla Model S Plaid racecar with parts from tuning house Unplugged Performance had been baring its fangs at Pikes Peak all week. Fresh off its dramatic comeback story last year with their Model 3 Performance racecar, Pobst and the Unplugged team were looking to complete some unfinished business. Last year’s Model 3 Performance, after all, finished the Pikes Peak Hill Climb after a heroic effort to rebuild the car following a major crash, but thermal issues prohibited the vehicle from completing the run at full power. 

Pobst and the Unplugged Performance team came back to Pikes Peak this year with a vengeance. Armed with Tesla’s most powerful production car to date and some of the tuning house’s premier upgrades, the team proved to be a force to be reckoned with, effectively dominating its peers at the Exhibition Class in practice runs. Perhaps this was the reason why the Model S Plaid was loudly cheered as it prepared to begin its ascent. The cheers only got louder as the black Tesla launched at full power from the starting line. 

Prior to the Model S Plaid, the Exhibition Class had been dominated by Nick Robinson in his 2017 Acura NSX, which completed the run in 7:14.704 on the shortened track. This was very impressive especially considering that immediately following it was another NSX, which finished its run in 7:53.615, about 40 seconds slower. A 2021 Model 3 driven by Joshua Allan completed the shortened course in a respectable 8:16.778 while another Model 3 driven by Dai Yoshihara encountered issues and finished its run in 11:41.162. 

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At some point, it seemed like Robinson and his NSX were all but certain to win this year’s Exhibition Class, but there was one more car waiting for its turn — the Model S Plaid. Accelerating at incredible speeds right out of the gate, Randy Pobst furiously attacked Pikes Peak with his Tesla, putting on a masterclass in driving. It did not take long before the Model S Plaid took the shortened course’s final corner, crossing the finish line in defining fashion. It’s time on the shortened Pikes Peak course was 6:57.220, effectively dethroning Robinson’s Acura NSX from the Exhibition Class’ summit. 

Speaking to Out of Spec Studios after his run, Randy Pobst was ecstatic. The legendary racer noted that the car was phenomenal, giving a good run up the mountain. “It was a good run. We ran good. Loads of power, took everything the Yokohama slicks had to offer, let me tell you. We have done a little sway bar change to try and balance it better. I’m really glad we did. The brakes held up, the suspension was fantastic,” Pobst said, raising his fist after seeing his results. From the base of the mountain, it was cheers and hugs among the Unplugged Performance team and the Tesla enthusiasts who came in support of the effort. 

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In a later tweet, Unplugged Performance noted that while a more thorough data analysis would certainly come later, the fact that the Model S Plaid completed the shortened course in 6:57.220 suggests that it may have been able to finish the full run up Pikes Peak in about 9:20. That’s an impressive time overall, and one that is already competitive with some of the most insane, bespoke vehicles that tackle the mountain every year. For now, however, Randy Pobst and the Unplugged Performance team, together with the group of Tesla volunteers that supported this year’s Pikes Peak attempt, could breathe for a bit knowing that the Model S Plaid does have what it takes to compete and dominate in one of the most dangerous racing events in the motorsport world. 

Watch Mobil 1’s livestream coverage of Randy Pobst’s Pikes Peak run in the Tesla Model S Plaid below. 

Do you have anything to share with the Teslarati Team? We’d love to hear from you, email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Lifestyle

Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

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Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

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Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

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Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

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This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

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Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

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A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.

“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.

Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.

Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.

He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.

Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.

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The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.

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