Lifestyle
Tesla is finalist in prestigious advocacy and customer experience award
Tesla Motors, Inc. has been identified as one of three finalists for the Extole Advocacy and Customer Experience (ACE) Award. Extole, the leading advocate marketing platform, recognizes brands that turn customers into advocates with exceptional referral marketing programs. Tesla has one of the world’s most acclaimed refer-a-friend programs, and Extole’s nod to Tesla reflects the view that customers acquired through advocate referral programs spend more, are more loyal, and are more likely to refer their friends to the brand.
“We know that without our customers we would not be where we are today,” Tesla shares on its website. Their Referral Program is a substantial way of thanking customers for their “support in building the Tesla community.”
Extole describes Tesla Motors as follows:
“Tesla Motors created a movement around its innovative products and its mission, and the brand is equally as inspiring with its marketing. The company relies almost exclusively on its community of brand advocates to promote its products and offers one of the most well-known referral programs available to consumers. With a disdain for paid advertising, Tesla Motors is leading the trend of reaching new customers through existing ones.”
The current Tesla Referral Program began October 16 and will run until January 15, 2017. Anyone who orders a new Model S or Model X during this period using the referral link of a Tesla owner will get a $1,000 credit towards the purchase price. Tesla demonstrates its appreciation to referring owners through a system of Referral Program awards:
- 10 Qualifying Referrals: Those who make 10 qualifying referrals will receive an invitation for them and a guest to attend the next Tesla unveiling event;
- 7+ Qualifying Referrals: Those who make 7 or more qualifying referrals will receive an exclusive red Founders Series Powerwall 2, hand signed by Elon Musk, JB Straubel, and Franz von Holzhausen. This limited edition Powerwall is not available to the public;
- 5+ Qualifying Referrals: Those who make 5 qualifying referrals will receive an invitation for them and a guest to take an extended VIP tour of the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California, including a Q&A with Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s Chief Designer;
- 3+ Qualifying Referrals: Those who make 3 or more referrals will receive an exclusive thermal Tesla Owners Jacket;
- 2+ Qualifying Referrals: Those who make 2 or more qualifying referrals will receive a Tesla carry-on.
- Ludicrous P100D Model S or Model X Drawing: Each qualified referral a Tesla customer makes gives her or him an additional entry into a drawing to win the choice of either a Ludicrous P100D Model S or Model X.
The annual ACE Award is now in its second year. Along with Tesla, Hanna Andersson and Ulta Beauty have received ACE Award nominations due to their successes as they engage existing advocates in the process of helping to acquire new customers. The criteria for the ACE Award speak to each finalists’ refer-a-friend program with regard to creativity, breadth, and overall success.
“Advocacy goes beyond being nice to your customers,” said Matt Roche, Extole’s founder and CEO. Extole helps brands to harness the power of online sharing to the benefit of their bottom line. It enables marketers to scale word-of-mouth to acquire new customers and increase loyalty using their greatest competitive advantage: their customers. “Customer-centric companies recognize and reward customers, making them part of the brand. Our finalists are exemplars and are all worthy of this award. Only one, however, will win.”
Tweet @teslamotors and congratulate them as finalists for its second annual #ACE award! Tell them #teslarati sent you.
Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
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.
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.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
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.
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.
Elon Musk
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.
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.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
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.
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.
