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Tesla owner evades tragedy after Model 3 gets hit by 37-pound boulder

[Credit: Ryan Nisle/Facebook]

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When Tesla Model 3 owner Jade Insko left his home this past Monday, he thought his drive heading to his workplace would be just like any other. As Insko drove east on Highway 14 near Cape Horn, WA, though, a freak accident happened. Out of the blue, a 37-pound boulder crashed into his electric car. The impact was massive, shattering a large part of the Model 3’s windshield. The rock also bent the steering column, split the dash, and moved the practically immovable 15″ center touchscreen before landing in the passenger seat.

“All of a sudden, my car just seemed to explode as this 37-pound rock flew through the windshield, smashed into the dashboard, and bounced directly into the passenger seat,” the Model 3 owner said.

Relating his story to a local news outlet, the Model 3 owner stated that it took him a second before he could process the freak accident. Fortunately, his Model 3, bent steering column and split dashboard and all, was still able to move. Insko was eventually able to pull over to the side of the road, despite being unable to see due to glass in his eyes and face.Β 

Jade Insko’s Tesla Model 3 after the accident. [Credit: Ryan Nisle/Facebook]

β€œI just pulled forward slowly with my hazards on. I couldn’t see anything, I had glass in my face and eyes and a giant hole in my windshield,” he said.

Insko was alone in his vehicle, and fortunately enough, he was largely unharmed. He had some minor injuries due to glass from the shattered windshield, but other than that, Insko was fine. His prized Model 3, though, was extensively damaged. Apart from the main impact from the 37-pound boulder, the Model 3’s front end was also damaged due to other rocks on the road, which the car hit while it was pulling over. In a later statement to KGW8 News, Insko noted that he and his family were shaken by the experience.

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β€œI have a wife and two young children, (ages) 7 and 8, and it hit them hard as well. Knowing that could have been, in an instant, the end,” he said.

Jade Insko’s Tesla Model 3 after the accident. [Credit: Ryan Nisle/Facebook]

While the freak accident could have ended on a tragic note, Insko has nonetheless adopted a rather positive take on the incident. After the crash, the Model 3 owner decided to keep the boulder that hit his car. He plans to keep it in his yard as a monument and a reminder about how bad things could have been.

Tesla’s electric cars have a reputation for being some of the safest vehicles on the road. Thanks to their all-electric design, Tesla’s vehicles have large crumple zones and a low center of gravity. Just this past September, the Model 3 earned a stellar 5-Star Safety Rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In the days that followed the announcement, Tesla released a follow-up blog post stating that among the vehicles tested by the NHTSA, the Model 3 stands as the car that has the lowest probability of injury. Β 

Teslas have been involved in freak accidents in the past. Last September alone, a Model X owner from Texas was driving through Sugar Land when it was hit by an actual crashing airplane. The aircraft in the incident was owned by the DEA, and according to later reports, the crash was caused by a mechanical failure. The pilot was able to conduct an emergency landing on the road, but during the maneuver, the aircraft clipped several power lines and hit some vehicles, including the Model X. Thanks to the electric SUV’s durability, the Model X’s driver and his companion were able to escape from the accident unharmed.

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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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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.

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tesla cybercab with no manual controls showing a movie with two employees inside

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.

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.

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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.

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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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