Lifestyle
Tesla’s march to mainstream Model 3 consumers
Some great books of literature involve traveling down a road or up a river, and can provide great insight on human nature, such as Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” This novella was the basis for the movie, Apocalypse Now, where Colonel Kurtz has to be eliminated “with extreme prejudice.” Kurtz had gone mad and created his own army in this fictional story.
The movie’s cryptic themes resonate, such as who are the good guys and sound institutions as seen through Capt. Willard’s eyes.
So, with that as a background, how are certain institutions and Tesla supporters perceived in 2016? We know some of the characters: the Koch brothers and their multi-million dollar media campaign against electric vehicles; the conservative — whatever that means these days — LA Times, the short sellers at Seeking Alpha; and the tired histrionics of the old guard automotive press.
https://twitter.com/russellgold/status/793144519885590528
We’ve all seen the hit jobs, which portray Musk’s companies as some raging socialist entity receiving all these huge subsidies while everybody else is pure as the capitalist, driven snow. Volkswagen’s sweet dollops of government incentives for its Tennessee plant are just business for this old guard company or nevermind the fact that Tesla Motors has never gone bankrupt and bailed out like Chrysler and GM.
Musk recently acknowledged the continuous hypocrisy regarding green incentives during the last earnings call last week:
“And then – I need to maybe write a longer blog piece sort of going through this, but Tesla’s sometimes criticized for relying on kind of tax credits and that kind of thing. People really misunderstand this. What matters is, what does Tesla receive relative to its competitors? Not, what does Tesla receive in the absolute?”
And, right on cue, an article titled Behind the Myth: Has the Onetime Valley Visionary Lost His Magic? from Salon.com touched all the bases.
The piece is pure rubbish but the well-written headline does tantalize. Maybe some insights on the manufacturing ramp-up for the Model 3? Or, the very real integration challenges between Solar City and Tesla, and possible cash drain for the company?
Nope, nada. Of course, the article provides a litany of nanny-state “points” for why this fledgling automaker is still standing.
To Musk’s point, there’s no mention in the article that the federal $7,500 tax credit is capped at the first 200,000 electric vehicles or that other car manufacturers actually receive the same credits. And, for old time sake, the author cites the Department of Energy (DoE) program loan program, created by the Bush administration, and delivered to Tesla in 2010 as a point of real contention in 2016. Yep.
Dear cult members, I love you https://t.co/1OzRaSQzhT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2016
How about a dollop of government contracts for SpaceX as a huge conspiracy for this socialist rocket company to spread its political correctness to the universe, eh? Check.
The shit screed never mentioned that SpaceX builds its own motors and 80% of its components for its rockets and has literally upended the aerospace business model.
That could be the reason for the big contract, eh?
How about Boeing or Lockheed Martin — and United Launch Alliance — taken to task for their government contracts or $63 million in incentives from state of Illinois some 15 years ago. Ruins the narrative, I guess.
The argument from relatively sane Tesla detractors is that the media or enthusiast sites are just Tesla supporters. All these sites have reports of Musk turning everything into gold. However, Tesla does miss. Like the Model X falcon wing doors, delivery numbers and deadlines. It’s reported everywhere.
But Tesla and Elon Musk has hit from day one with the Model S. Does anybody remember the derision thrown at Musk for introducing a luxury electric car first. Mmmmmm?
CNBC missed on that one and did they ever admit their mistake? No and what do they do now? They have Bob Lutz trot out the same old tired nanny state talking points. This shit is tired.
That’s partially why the Tesla Army is on guard or the Tesla Cult is in force, to call out these these rubes and ghouls…and well-financed freaks, too. The other side of it is following a transformative company that is completely dedicated to its mission.
As my wife says, maybe it’s a “death rattle” for the old guard and thinking. Let’s hope so.
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 wants to catch Starship for launch 14, Elon Musk says
Tesla to open source Model S and Model X designs and software
