Lifestyle
Tesla ridesharing video shows how Model 3 wins over potential electric car customers
Tesla is a unique carmaker in the way that it does not advertise like traditional auto companies. Over the years, Tesla’s brand got stronger mostly through word-of-mouth. Now that the company is already producing its first attempt at a mass-market car, its advertisement strategies are still pretty much the same. Save for a couple of promotional videos shared online from time to time, Tesla’s primary means of promoting its brand is still its customer base.
This was recently depicted in a video shared by YouTube tech reviewer Andy Slye. The YouTuber, who took delivery of his Long Range RWD Model 3 earlier this year, admits that he is not really a “car guy.” What he does know inside and out, though, is tech. And when it comes to tech, Syle has noted that his Tesla Model 3 is one of the best cars on the road today. One of the YouTuber’s recent uploads featured him picking up Uber and Lyft riders on his electric car. During the drive, he would show his passengers some of the Model 3’s features and capabilities. As could be seen in Syle’s video, sometimes, it only takes some firsthand experience to encourage someone to purchase a Tesla.
Immediately notable in Syle’s video were the reactions incited by the Model 3 from its passengers. Components of the vehicle, such as its 15″ touchscreen, its tinted glass roof, as well as its minimalistic interior, immediately became a point of conversation. The car’s smooth ride and drive, as well as its power and acceleration, notably impressed the car’s riders, while Autopilot’s capabilities proved compelling as well. By the end of their rides, practically all of Syle’s passengers were won over by the Model 3, and some even noted that they would likely get one for themselves.
Ultimately, the tech YouTuber’s recently uploaded clip is a glimpse into how Tesla’s electric cars win over potential customers. Tesla has one of the most dedicated communities of owners out there, to the point where owners volunteered to pitch in at the end of the third quarter to help the company deliver as many vehicles as it can before September ended. As could be seen in social media, Tesla owners give test rides to their friends and family frequently, and the result is usually another electric car being purchased from the company.
https://twitter.com/Andrew31889/status/1047713117134708741
https://twitter.com/megangale/status/1048403696613085184
In a way, it is the Tesla experience that really has a tendency to win over potential customers. The stigma of electric cars being “soulless” or “boring” has been around for a long time, and the skepticism about the capabilities of premium electric cars are still abounding. That said, test drives are usually enough to convince even veteran “car guys” that Tesla’s electric cars are every bit as capable and powerful (perhaps even more) than the best high-performance vehicles in the market. Such an experience was shared recently by a longtime BMW owner, who was won over by the Tesla Model 3 Performance after test driving the vehicle.
The company addressed the power of experiencing Tesla’s electric cars firsthand during the Q2 2018 earnings call. While discussing the ongoing rollout of the Model 3, Tesla global head of sales Robin Ren noted that sometimes, even customers who have no idea what the Model 3 is end up ordering the vehicle after a test drive.
“I think that’s something that we found super exciting, because these are the people who actually had no idea about Model 3 and they heard about Model 3 is available to order, many of them requested test drives. And since early July, we have over 60,000 test drive requests in the U.S. alone and these people come into our stores, do the test drive, and they become super excited, and they decide to order the car,” he said.
Watch the Model 3 impress its Uber and Lyft riders in the video below.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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