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Behind the Scenes of Tesla’s First ‘Weekend Social’ Event

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Tesla Weekend Social Invitation

On Thursday, Tesla sent an email to owners to introduce the Tesla Weekend Social program.

This program, a way to get local owners together in one place, promised a light breakfast and a chance to engage and learn more about new features. Having already been planning to get together with some local owners the same day and time, the whole group of us decided to attend Tesla’s official event instead.

Tesla Weekend Social Event Dates

We arrived right on time at 10:00am to quite a few other Teslas pulling in at the same time. As expected, every charger was already in use and the parking lot space on both sides of the Devon, PA Service Center location had quite a few cars – no doubt including those in for service as well as yet-to-be-delivered new cars.

There was a light breakfast, as promised, including bagels, pastries, fruit and coffee from Panera Bread. For at least 30 minutes, guests were free to eat, roam and mingle. Some sat in the waiting room to eat, others stood around chatting. There was a white Model X available for viewing and climbing in. I, for one, got inside and really played around with the seating, steering wheel and mirror positions. As expected, there is a generous range of seating options to grant my petite stature visibility. I also have no issues with the Model S, so this wasn’t a surprise.

After a while, the main Tesla employee responsible for the event (Bryan) made an announcement to gather us all around. I was pleased that by this point, I had already learned that the guests ranged from long time owners to those waiting for delivery to a woman who was just returning a 2 day test drive Model S and was seriously in love. We were welcomed and told that Tesla wanted to bring owners together to showcase and demonstrate some new features as well as gain feedback. There were cars set up outside to show us how to use the summon, parallel park and perpendicular park features. Plenty of owners and soon-to-be owners flocked toward those demonstrations once they started, so it appears that even those with AP-enabled cars were unsure of or hadn’t yet used these new features.

“the very first software update on Model S – introducing creep mode – was born from owner feedback”

The conversation inside flowed informally with members of the crowd offering questions and feedback, which was something our host Bryan mentioned wanting. He emphasized many times just how valuable owner feedback is and that Tesla takes both positive and negative feedback very seriously. In fact, he told us that the very first software update on Model S – introducing creep mode – was born from owner feedback. He also confirmed what we already suspect, which is that Tesla does monitor their own forums. By monitor, I really mean monitor, so we were encouraged to keep up the good work giving feedback. As he seemed to expect by a playful comment he made, the conversation turned to charging. Everyone is interested in more Superchargers, specifically at certain hot locations that are currently unserved.

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Tesla plans to double the number of Superchargers between now and when Model 3 deliveries really get rolling, but as we know their charger plans don’t always pan out. Much of the discussion was around the newer features with one gentleman making a wonderful suggestion to have a learning mode where you can park your car in your garage while in this mode and have it memorize your position. This would probably be perfect for another guest whose feedback was that he can’t use Summon to get his car into his garage due to a center pole that the car just seems bent on getting too close to comfort to. Other feedback was that eventually, the car needs to know how to handle driveways that are not a straight line out of the garage, as well as have a higher tolerance for driveways on an incline with lipped garage openings.

Tesla Weekend Social gathering at the Devon, PA Store and Service Center

Tesla Weekend Social gathering at the Devon, PA Store and Service Center

Once we were done chatting, we all made our way outside to see some of the demonstrations. As someone who is well versed in the features, I hung back and chatted with other owners. As always, this was the highlight of the event. Some of them I already knew and others were my pleasure to meet. One couple that seemed too shy to join the group and stood alone turned out to be soon-to-be owners in the midst of a wait for a 70D. They already have an outlet in their garage, it just needs the car.

For more than an hour I chatted with what felt like half of the 4 dozen guests about everything from Model 3 speculations to overlapping day jobs (it’s a small world!) and everything in between. This car, as most owners and enthusiasts already know, has a very unique way of turning people into true believers. There is no shortage of things to discuss about the Tesla experience, be it at an intentional meet up or a happenstance Supercharger encounter. (My latest Supercharger experience led me to an 11 year old who knew more than I did about Tesla and let me try out his super cool electric skateboard!)

Tesla hit a home run with this idea and I encourage every owner to attend the Tesla Weekend Social to enjoy the company of other owners and make your voice heard to Tesla.

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Lifestyle

Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

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?

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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.

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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.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

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 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.

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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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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking

Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.

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Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley
Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley

Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.

Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.

This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.

Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.

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Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.

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