Lifestyle
Life after my Tesla 30 day Autopilot Trial ends: Where do I go from here?
As I lament the end of my 30 day trial of Autopilot, I thought a summary of the features would be helpful to those not yet familiar with the technology.
I bought my Tesla S70D in November of last year as an inventory model with nearly every feature I would have selected on line including the color. At the time, all of the hardware for Autopilot was included in the build but the software had not been installed.
I travel around New England for my work and had an opportunity to show a business associate, who happens to be a big “car guy” from Dallas Texas my new Tesla. I alerted him that I didn’t have the famous Autopilot that he had been watching in videos on line, but the car was still beautiful and thrilling to drive. I picked him up at the airport late and headed to the hotel before customer visits the next day. When we came out to the car in the morning, there it was! A software download overnight giving me a 30 day trial of Autopilot! The timing couldn’t have been better!
First thing we did, stood in the parking lot and summoned the car out of the spot. After all, there’s no reason to ding your car doors for the very first time when you can open them wide in a place just 15 feet back from where you parked!
Next, we got on the highway and pulled the cruise control stalk one time. I felt the accelerator hold where we were so I took my foot off and relaxed a bit. Slowly creeping up on the car in front of us, the dash showed me the silhouette of the car in front getting closer. I’d have to push the stalk down to reduce my speed in the past, but as we got within 2 car lengths, I saw the MPH start to go down as we tracked perfectly behind the next car at a constant distance. Cool! Traffic aware cruise control! When the guy in front slows down, you slow down without a thought and even if he comes to a stop, when he takes off, you take off maintaining the set car length distance.
Next, pull back on the stalk twice. The steering wheel goes stiff and takes over keeping the car right in the middle of the lane. With decent lane lines on both sides, the steering was better than I would have been on my own, right down the center. Even in bends in the road, the vision system looks far enough ahead to anticipate the turn and keep you right in the center of the lane.
We got to our first appointment and entered the parking lot. I drove slowly by a spot and not seeing any others close by I put the car in reverse and to my surprise, the center screen showed the spot on my left and a button to “Auto Park” I pushed the button and the car started backing up, then the steering wheel started turning very fast on its own to back me into the spot. We were a little close to the lane before starting the process so we couldn’t quite make it in the first go, but no intervention necessary, the car went into drive, wheel turned the opposite way, we pulled forward a bit, then continued backing right in the middle of the spot. Perfect!
Getting the hang of Autopilot on the highway, I decided to try it out long distance for my trip from Central Connecticut all the way to Boston. I didn’t need to touch the wheel, accelerator or break except when we were exiting the Mass pike. Even in stop and go traffic on Storrow Drive, the car stayed in Autopilot and performed flawlessly.
After dropping my associate off at the airport, I travelled the rest of the way home to Southern New Hampshire again “no hands, no feet”! I did keep a finger on the wheel just in case, but I got confident enough with the system that I know I could have let go all together. The car does, however remind you to keep a hand on the wheel with a notification on the dash and by turning the radio volume all the way down until you grab the wheel.
The next day, I went back to Boston with my wife to pick up my daughter at the train. We were to park outside the train station and wait for her to arrive. Slowly pulling up the street, we passed an open parking spot (actually a fire hydrant location, there’s no open parking spots in Boston!) but we’d be sitting in the car so no problem. Again, as soon as I put the car in reverse, the parallel spot showed up on the center screen with a button to auto park. Again, the car took over turning the wheel and reversing right into the spot with perfection. My wife told me to pull out and do it again so she could video this time!!!
Over the weekend, it was time to wash the Tesla. I did a thorough job on the exterior and vacuumed and wiped all surfaces on the interior. Now I’ve got to put the car in the garage, but, I just cleaned everything and if I get in the car, I’ll probably drag in and deposit sand or small pebbles on the rug! No worries! Autopilot allows you to stand along the side of your car, and using the key fob, park it in the garage and close the garage door with one tap of the fob! Amazing!
Now, I’m not that compulsive about my rugs, so I’ll probably not need to use the “Auto park in my garage” feature, and I’m still parking at the far end of parking lots away from other potential dings so I have no problem opening my doors, but if I had to park in a very tight spot, Autopark will be an awesome feature to have.
Auburn Massachusetts Supercharger
For the most part, my daily travel is a few miles from home to the office on town roads but frequently I am on an extended road trip somewhere in New England. I’ve gotten over the range anxiety with a number of strategically placed Supercharger stations available and having used Plug share in a pinch a couple times. I definitely see using Autopilot on the highway allowing me to relax a bit but also keep me safer on the trip than if I were driving myself!
Do I take the plunge and plunk down $3k to keep this going or not? I still have a few days left to figure it out. Maybe Elon will just “forget to turn it off”?
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
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
