Lifestyle
Yes, I heard the news about Tesla: here’s what I really want to say
Talking about the Tesla is one of my favorite hobbies. I love to educate or give my opinion on it, whether it’s online, in a parking lot, or all day long at a car show. Inevitably once people know you’re linked with Tesla through ownership or enthusiasm, some folks will come to you with innocently incorrect assumptions or downright annoying selective negative news.
I didn’t know you had one of those “Telsas”. Who makes that “Telsa”?
- Answer: It’s Tes-La. Like the inventor. That is the name of the brand.
- What I want to say: It’s a notable and American-made car! How do you still not know what it is?
Did you hear that one of your cars killed someone?
- Answer: Yes, I did hear that unfortunately someone died in an accident while the autopilot feature was engaged. That was the first death in 130 million miles. I think I read that in the US one death occurs per 94 million miles and worldwide, it’s something like every 60. So we’re doing pretty well!
- What I want to say: No, a crash killed someone; as it did with the other hundred or so people who died in a car accident that day that the news isn’t talking about.
Did you hear about the new cheaper Tesla?
- Answer: Sure did! Actually, I got to go to the launch party in LA and have a reservation for one.
- What I want to say: Did you hear the sky is blue? I literally have a countdown on my phone of how many more times I have to bring this wretched gas car to the gas station before my Model 3 arrives.
I saw a Tesla on the side of the road. He ran out of charge.
- Answer: That’s unusual. It’s pretty hard to run out of charge. (Shrug.)
- What I want to say: That driver was probably either an idiot or knowingly playing with fire. Have you ever run out of gas? I sure haven’t. And that big, bright display showing how many miles you have left? That’s something you should probably look at once in a while.
Did you hear that a Model X rolled over on the PA Turnpike? I thought these cars were supposed to be safe.
- Answer: I did. No injuries were reported, so that’s good news.
- What I want to say: Safety literally means the probability of injury in an accident, not the inability to be in one. What was the driver doing anyway? It’s pretty hard to roll over a car with a big, heavy battery pack in the floor. By the way, did you hear about Jeff in Accounting? He rolled his SUV a few months ago and nobody even talked about it. (Thankfully, no injuries resulted.)
I heard those batteries can catch on fire.
- Answer: Technically yes, but they’re far less likely than gas cars to do.
- What I want to say: Use your head. It’s that lump 3 feet above your ass!
Did you hear…. (insert any Tesla news here)?
- Answer: Yes I did. (Insert correct facts to supplement their sparse comments.)
- What I want to say: I’m a giant nerd who follows all things Tesla more closely than I follow any other news topic. I even publish my thoughts about the car that my fellow nerds sometimes read.
Feature photo of the Fountain Valley, CA Supercharger courtesy of Dennis Pascual
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.
Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
