News
Elon Musk’s SpaceX AMA: Living on Mars, Spaceship Info, Timeline
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hosted a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) earlier this afternoon and spent several hours drinking whiskey, trolling the audience, answering some great questions, and generally having a blast. He revealed a vast array of fascinating new details about SpaceX’s giant new rocket (BFR), its upper stage spaceship (BFS), and much more.
All of Musk’s answers from the AMA have been collated and organized by category below. You’ll want to shy away from the AMA page itself, currently clocking in at more 10,000 comments.
When useful, particularly dense and technical responses have been summarized in italics for a broader audience.
Living on Mars
Q: Obviously there will be an extreme amount of care put into what is sent on the first missions, and the obvious answer of “Solar Panels” and “Fuel Production Equipment” is included, but what else?
A (Elon): Our goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
Q: Does your Mars city feature permanently anchored BFS spaceships?
A (Elon): Wouldn’t read too much into that illustration
The aforementioned Martian city. Spaceships can be seen near the center. (SpaceX)
Q: Have any candidate landing sites for the Mars base been identified?
A (Elon): Landing site needs to be low altitude to maximize aero braking, be close to ice for propellant production and not have giant boulders. Closer to the equator is better too for solar power production and not freezing your ass off.
Q: Who will design and build the ISRU system for the propellant depot, and how far along is it?
A (Elon): SpaceX. Design is pretty far along. It’s a key part of the whole system.
Without ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization), BFS is unlikely to ever be able to take humans to Mars affordably enough to enable large colonies. This news is thus of huge importance, and suggests that SpaceX will be able to focus on developing BFR and BFS near-term.
Another hypothetical SpaceX city on Mars. Bases will need to be located near water resources. (SpaceX)
SpaceX Big F** Spaceship (BFS)
Q: Will the BFS landing propellants have to be actively cooled on the long trip to Mars?
A (Elon): The main tanks will be vented to vacuum, the outside of the ship is well insulated (primarily for reentry heating) and the nose of the ship will be pointed mostly towards the sun, so very little heat is expected to reach the header tanks. That said, the propellant can be cooled either with a small amount of evaporation. Down the road, we might add a cryocooler.
A (Elon): exactly (while methane could be kept in its liquid form solely through high pressure storage, the pressures required are immense and would require tanks that would be far too heavy for a rocket’s second stage.
Cold liquid oxygen and methane will unavoidably warm up over time, eventually returning to their gaseous forms if allowed. SpaceX’s solution for BFS, which will spend several months between Earth and Mars, is to rely on the Ship’s already great insulation, as well as minimal evaporative cooling (similar to how swamp coolers work).
Q: Will the BFS heat shield be mounted on the skin, or embedded?
A (Elon): The heat shield plates will be mounted directly to the primary tank wall. That’s the most mass efficient way to go. Don’t want to build a box in box.
Dragon 2’s PICA-X heat shield can be seen on the right. BFS’s heat shield will be made of the same material, albeit on a much larger scale. (SpaceX)
Q: Can the BFS delta wings and heat shield be removed for deep space missions?
A (Elon): Wouldn’t call what BFS has a delta wing. It is quite small (and light) relative to the rest of the vehicle and is never actually used to generate lift in the way that an aircraft wing is used.
Its true purpose is to “balance out” the ship, ensuring that it doesn’t enter engines first from orbit (that would be really bad), and provide pitch and yaw control during reentry.
Q: Why is the 2017 BFS spaceship largely cylindrical?
A (Elon): Best mass ratio is achieved by not building a box in a box. The propellant tanks need to be cylindrical to be remotely mass efficient and they have to carry ascent load, so lowest mass solution is just to mount the heat shield plates directly to the tank wall.
For a rocket, mass ratio refers to its weight with a full load of propellant divided by its weight while completely empty. The lighter a rocket’s structure, the more mass it can lift into a given orbit.
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- SpaceX’s conceptual Interplanetary Transport System from 2016 was considerably larger and more structurally complex than 2017’s BFR. (SpaceX)
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- The relatively cylindrical BFS reduces complexity and lowers weight. (SpaceX)
Q: How does the BFS achieve vertical stabilization, without a tail?
A (Elon): Tails are lame
A (Elon): +1 (The space shuttle’s vertical stabilizer was completely useless for most of the reentry profile, as it was in complete aerodynamic shadow. I think it’s clear a craft doesn’t need one for reentry, only for subsonic gliding, which BFS doesn’t really do.)
BFS doesn’t need a tail because tails add weight, are of little use during orbital reentry, and BFS is not intended to glide.
Q: Why was the number of BFS landing legs increased from 3 to 4?
A (Elon): Because 4
A (Elon): Improves stability in rough terrain
Q: How is the radiation shielding in the ITS?
A (Elon): Ambient radiation damage is not significant for our transit times. Just need a solar storm shelter, which is a small part of the ship. Buzz Aldrin is 87.
While radiation fearmongers may balk at this statement, it is to some extent true. The risks from radiation (PDF) for a six month journey in deep space are approximately similar to several dozen CT scans, while two years spent on the surface of Mars with little to no shielding would result in about the same amount of exposure. Underground habitats could alleviate a considerable amount of the risk from living on Mars’ surface.
The issues and dangers posed by radiation ought not be trivialized but they can be dealt with, particularly if BFR can deliver massive payloads to the planet.
Q: Why was the location and shape of the BFS header/landing tanks changed?
A (Elon): The aspiration by the change was to avoid/minimize plumbing hell, but we don’t super love the current header tank/plumbing design. Further refinement is likely.
Header tanks refer to smaller tanks contained within the main propellant tanks that are used to ignite engines in microgravity. It’s easier to pressurize or simply fill the smaller tanks than it is to do so with the massive main tanks.
BFS’ header tanks circled in red. (SpaceX)
BFS Tanker
Q: Will the BFS tanker’s payload section be empty, or include extra propellant tanks?
A (Elon): At first, the tanker will just be a ship with no payload. Down the road, we will build a dedicated tanker that will have an extremely high full to empty mass ratio (warning: it will look kinda weird).
Using one version of the BFS as both a tanker and ship will streamline the initial development process for the rocket.
Two Spaceships docked for refuelling. (SpaceX)
Q: Will the BFS tanker ships (have to) do a hoverslam landing?
A (Elon): Landing will not be a hoverslam, depending on what you mean by the “slam” part. Thrust to weight of 1.3 will feel quite gentle. The tanker will only feel the 0.3 part, as gravity cancels out the 1. Launch is also around 1.3 T/W, so it will look pretty much like a launch in reverse….
BFS will land relatively gently, and BFR’s liftoff will also be gentle.
Development schedule
Q: With the first two cargo missions scheduled to land on Mars in 2022, what kind of development progress can we expect to see from SpaceX in the next 5 or so years leading up to the maiden flight?
Will we see BFS hops or smaller test vehicles similar to Grasshopper/F9R-Dev? Facilities being built? Propellant plant testing? etc. etc.
A (Elon): A lot. Yes, yes, and yes.
A (Elon): Will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance. Those are fairly easy on the vehicle, as no heat shield is needed, we can have a large amount of reserve propellant and don’t need the high area ratio, deep space Raptor engines.
Next step will be doing orbital velocity Ship flights, which will need all of the above. Worth noting that BFS is capable of reaching orbit by itself with low payload, but having the BF Booster increases payload by more than an order of magnitude. Earth is the wrong planet for single stage to orbit. No problemo on Mars.
The first real tests of the BFR will be done by hopping a full-scale BFS “several hundred kilometers”. BFS is capable of launching itself and a tiny payload into orbit, but the utility is limited on Earth. On Mars, BFS will be far more capable as a single stage to orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle.
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- F9R-dev, used to test vertical take off and landing for Falcon 9. BFR will go through a similar program with its spaceship upper stage prior to orbital missions. (Steve Jurvetson)
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- F9R sadly suffered a software bug and self-destructed in 2014, but SpaceX had already learned most of what it needed to begin Falcon 9 recoveries. (Steve Jurvetson)
Raptor and rocket propulsion
Q: Why was Raptor thrust reduced from ~300 tons-force to ~170 tons-force?
A (Elon): We chickened out. The engine thrust dropped roughly in proportion to the vehicle mass reduction from the first IAC talk. In order to be able to land the BF Ship with an engine failure at the worst possible moment, you have to have multiple engines. The difficulty of deep throttling an engine increases in a non-linear way, so 2:1 is fairly easy, but a deep 5:1 is very hard. Granularity is also a big factor. If you just have two engines that do everything, the engine complexity is much higher and, if one fails, you’ve lost half your power. Btw, we modified the BFS design since IAC to add a third medium area ratio Raptor engine partly for that reason (lose only 1/3 thrust in engine out) and allow landings with higher payload mass for the Earth to Earth transport function.
The Raptor engine’s maximum thrust has been decreased mainly because the size of the rocket decreased, from 12m to 9m in diameter. For redundancy’s sake, SpaceX has added a third central engine to the spaceship, versus the two engines mentioned at the 2017 IAC.
BFS’ delta “wings” from the rear of the ship. Also shown are the Raptors, with the two in the center now reportedly expanded to three engines. (SpaceX)
Q: Will the BFR autogenous pressurization system be heat exchanger based?
A (Elon): We plan to use the Incendio spell from Harry Potter
A (Elon): But, yes and probably
Autogenous pressurization refers to the method of propellant tank pressurization used. In microgravity conditions, tanks must be pressurized to keep fuel flowing to the engines and to improve the density of the fuel. While Falcon 9 currently uses high-pressure helium, ITS and now BFR have been designed to use the actual propellant in their tanks (methane and oxygen) for pressurization. This reduces the number of failure modes on BFR and improves the spaceship’s payload capabilities.
Q: Will the BFS methalox control thrusters be derived from Raptor or from SuperDraco engines?
A (Elon): The control thrusters will be closer in design to the Raptor main chamber than SuperDraco and will be pressure-fed to enable lowest possible impulse bit (no turbopump spin delay).
Like Falcon 9, BFR will need gas thrusters (RCS, reaction control system) to control its orientation (and refuel) while in microgravity conditions. While Falcon uses cold nitrogen gas thrusters, BFR will utilize the propellant it is already carrying for Raptor, methane and oxygen. Again, the goal of this is to reduce complexity.
Q: Could you update us on the status of scaling up the Raptor prototype to the final size?
A (Elon): Thrust scaling is the easy part. Very simple to scale the dev Raptor to 170 tons.
The flight engine design is much lighter and tighter, and is extremely focused on reliability. The objective is to meet or exceed passenger airline levels of safety. If our engine is even close to a jet engine in reliability, has a flak shield to protect against a rapid unscheduled disassembly and we have more engines than the typical two of most airliners, then exceeding airline safety should be possible.
That will be especially important for point to point journeys on Earth. The advantage of getting somewhere in 30 mins by rocket instead of 15 hours by plane will be negatively affected if “but also, you might die” is on the ticket.
SpaceX’s subscale Raptor, the one seen in videos and photos of it firing, is understood to be a bit more than half the size of the operational engine described at IAC 2017. Increasing the scale of the engine is not the difficult aspect of development. Rather, optimization, weight reduction, and extreme reusability are the main sources of difficulty needed before Raptor is flight-ready. This reusability is central to the goal of reliable and rapid reuse of orbital-class rockets.
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- SpaceX revealed this stunning photo of Raptor’s first (partial) hot-fire test the night before Musk’s talk at Guadalajara. (SpaceX)
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- SpaceX’s subscale Raptor engine has completed more than 1200 seconds of testing in less than two years. (SpaceX)
Q: Can BFS vacuum-Raptors be fired at sea level pressure?
A: The “vacuum” or high area ratio Raptors can operate at full thrust at sea level. Not recommended.
Put simply, vacuum nozzles do not like to operate in an atmosphere.
Mars communications
Q: Does SpaceX have any interest in putting more satellites in orbit around Mars (or even rockets) for internet/communications before we get feet on the ground? Or are the current 5-6 active ones we have there sufficient?
A (Elon): Yes
Q: Also will there be some form of an internet or communications link with Earth? Is SpaceX going to be in charge of putting this in or are you contracting some other companies?
A (Elon): If anyone wants to build a high bandwidth comm link to Mars, please do.
Taken side by side, this likely indicates that SpaceX will develop a high-bandwidth Mars-Earth communications link if nobody else does, but that they would logical prefer that someone else builds that infrastructure beforehand.
Q: The concept of an internet connection on Mars is kinda awesome. You could theoretically make an internet protocol that would mirror a subset of the internet near Mars. A user would need to queue up the parts of the internet they wanted available and the servers would sync the relevant data.
A (Elon): Nerd
A (Elon): But, yes, it would make sense to strip the headers out and do a UDP-style feed with extreme compression and a CRC check to confirm the packet is good, then do a batch resend of the CRC-failed packets. Something like that. Earth to Mars is over 22 light-minutes at max distance.
A (Elon): 3 light-minutes at closest distance. So you could Snapchat, I suppose. If that’s a thing in the future.
The communication delay between Earth and Mars (at least several minutes one-way) will prevent any Martian habitats from simply integrating with Earth’s Internet. The delay will require some sort of mediation. As an example, a user on Mars could select the websites they want to browse or videos they want to watch beforehand, and they would be available between several minutes and an hour later.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation efforts could provide the company with valuable experience that can be applied around Mars. (unofficial logo by Eric Ralph)
Boring!
Q: Boring question about Mars:
A (Elon): More boring!
Miscellaneous silliness
Q: This is one bizarre AMA so far…
A (Elon): Just wait…
Q: i feel like thats a threat. “just wait. it will get way more bizarre than that. let me finish my whiskey”
A (Elon): How did you know? I am actually drinking whiskey right now. Really.
…No comment…
All things considered, this was a wildly successful AMA. Elon clearly had a whole lot of fun, the audience got lightheartedly trolled, and SpaceX fans will undoubtedly be chewing over the technical details he elucidated for weeks to come. Special thanks are owed to the subreddit /r/SpaceX and user /u/_Rocket_, who together managed to flood the AMA with an array of intelligent, pointed, and reasonable questions, at least ten of which were answered by Musk.
Cybertruck
Tesla’s most delayed Cybertruck feature is finally here
Tesla finally links Cybertruck Powershare with Powerwall 3 for extended home backup after years overdue.
Tesla’s Cybertruck can now pair with a Powerwall 3 to keep a house running longer during an outage, a feature the company first promised when the truck launched in November 2023.
The official Cybertruck account posted the update on X Thursday: “Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together. This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls,” Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill confirmed the rollout separately, calling it the first time a vehicle and a home battery have worked together this way. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ compatibility is still coming later this year, per both the Cybertruck account and Morrill.
Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together⁰ ⁰This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls pic.twitter.com/8G2twIm6AN
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 10, 2026
Powershare itself is not new. Tesla enabled the version that lets Cybertruck power tools, appliances or another EV through its bed outlets when the truck launched in 2023. Home backup through a Powershare Gateway and Universal Wall Connector arrived in 2024, and Tesla extended that support to homes with solar the following year. What has been missing until now is Powershare working alongside an existing Powerwall, instead of functioning as a separate backup source competing for the same job.
The pairing matters because a single Powerwall home battery typically covers a home for about a day, less if usage is heavy or the outage stretches into a heat wave or freeze. A second Powerwall for more backup storage costs several thousand dollars installed. A Cybertruck instead uses a battery the owner already has, one large enough here to add roughly three more days of backup without mounting another unit or booking an installer visit. For households in wildfire, hurricane or winter storm regions where outages run past a day, that keeps the refrigerator and medical equipment running instead of shutting down.
The company told owners in October 2024 that Powerwall integration was coming sometime in 2025. That date passed, and in December 2025 Tesla pushed the target to mid-2026, with Morrill explaining at the time that two grid-forming devices need to negotiate which one manages a home during an outage, and that certifying the process across multiple generations of Powerwall took longer than expected.
For owners who bought Powershare hardware expecting it to work with whatever battery setup they already had, Thursday’s update closes a gap that has shown up repeatedly in owner complaints since Cybertruck deliveries began. Tesla has also rolled out a separate Powershare grid support program in Texas, letting Cybertrucks send power back to the grid during high demand events, so the truck’s role in a home’s energy setup keeps expanding even as individual pieces of it arrive later than promised.
I picked up my Tesla Model Y one year ago, on August 30, and for roughly a year, I have had this vehicle prove to me that any other carmaker’s product is ruined for me forever.
One year and over 16,000 miles later, the Tesla Model Y is easily the best car I’ve ever had. Of course, everyone always says that about the car they currently drive, but for the longest time, I truly believed some of the other cars I drove — my 1998 Volkswagen Jetta K2, or my 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid — would never be topped.
Most of this was due to nostalgia, but dependability also played a role.
My Tesla has taken over the number one spot. Everyone I talk to about my car always has a lot of questions, and they’re usually the same ones that someone else asked me: “Is it really so cheap to drive?” “How much does it cost to charge?” “Does it really drive itself?” “How long is the warranty on your battery?”
I never mind answering those questions because it is an opportunity to educate someone on EVs. There are a lot of things about EVs that I hear from people, and I can’t help but chuckle at times. However, I hope this review clears some of those things up, because I truly want everyone to know how great this vehicle really is.
My brand new ride! Thank you @tesla @elonmusk for building one badass car
Officially a battery boy pic.twitter.com/jzpMawmTZs
— Joey Klender (@KlenderJoey) August 30, 2025
How my Tesla has changed my life
I was in two car accidents in high school, and I was a passenger in both. I am very happy I went through those as a teenager, because if I didn’t, I think I’d probably be much less aware of the road, how other drivers are so unbelievably unaware of others, and how inconsiderate most drivers are.
I’ve always considered myself a good driver because I was always taught to be defensive. Because of those two accidents, I am a tad jumpy in passenger seats, even with people like my parents, who drove me around for 16 years before I got my Learner’s Permit. On a drive home from Florida to Pennsylvania with my Dad two years ago, he actually told me at one point to “stop being so jumpy.”
Truth is, I trust my Dad behind the wheel more than anyone. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I just prefer to drive myself.
That is, until I met my Tesla and Full Self-Driving. I still remember the first drive I took after taking delivery: I immediately typed in my Fiancèe’s (my wife in 30 days!!!) favorite lunch spot, picked up her favorite meal, and pulled into the hospital where she delivers babies. I can remember thinking after 15 minutes, “Okay, that’s enough for me; I’ll drive manually now.”
Over the next 2-3 weeks, that length of time slowly but steadily increased. Every passing week, I got a tad more comfortable with the car driving me. Now, I have had FSD log 75% of my 13,000 miles since v14. I barely drive my car manually, and that’s exactly how I like it.
My Tesla has changed the way I drive and how I choose to travel.
🚨 Guys this is why you all NEED to stay vigilant behind the wheel, even on Tesla Full Self-Driving
Human drivers are UNHINGED and have no idea what they’re doing anymore. This was a kid obviously younger than 20 years old with zero awareness.
First drive with v14.3.7 https://t.co/1vTbCMpCn8 pic.twitter.com/lz7KKEF6bj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
In the past, I was always one of those anxious drivers, overly concerned about the parking situation, never wanting to drive in cities, and avoiding anything that made me a little uncomfortable when on the road. FSD has changed that completely.
Took my Fiancè and her friends to the airport this morning and my Model Y chose to bring me through the Inner Harbor during the morning commute
At least I got to see some fun stuff on my way home
I handled the city driving manually, FSD took care of the rest pic.twitter.com/7wcswtTUB0
— Joey Klender (@KlenderJoey) September 18, 2025
It has made traveling fun, driving less stressful, and parking a non-issue. I truly love this car and what it has done for me and my driving anxiety.
Maintenance and Cost Savings
A buddy of mine who took delivery of a Model Y right after me, also his first EV, texted me yesterday and said, “When do I take this thing for service? I don’t even know what it needs.”
This year I have spent $67.41 on service for my car:
- Free Front Camera Housing Cleaning
- $65 for a Tire Rotation at home from Tesla (easily avoidable if I just would have gone to a tire place or did it myself, but it was less than 20 degrees outside and the Service Tech did it at 7 am while I was asleep)
- $2.41 on a jug of Windshield Washer Fluid at Sheetz with my reward points
No spark plugs, no oil changes, no anything. Combine it with what you save on charging at home, and my ownership experience overall has been relatively cheap. I pay no more than I did for my Bronco for the car payment (around $400 per month), and my insurance went up about $60, but within the first four months I was given a safe driving discount by my agent. This brought it to about a $40 increase.
Now let’s factor in what I’ve saved in gas for the year:
Writing my 1 year Model Y ownership review and here’s my charging states for the year. April is when I started charging at home. Crazy to think how much I would have saved on charging if I would have been doing that all along pic.twitter.com/cpuSNop63G
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 10, 2026
According to my Charge Stats in the Tesla App, I’ve saved $836 over the course of the year by driving a Tesla over an ICE vehicle. If you look at the graph, you’ll notice my Supercharger utilization dropped significantly in April, which makes sense.
This is when I started charging at home. Those savings would likely be closer to $1,500 if I had been charging at home all along.
Real-World Range
I never reset any Trip on my Tesla when I bought it, so all of these efficiency stats are for the life of the vehicle thus far through 16,063 miles.
My Tesla has a lifetime average of 260.1 Wh/mi (watt-hours per mile), which equates to 3.84 mi/kWh (miles per kilowatt-hour). This is pretty average, and I know I could be more efficient, but I use climate control liberally (it’s always on, even if the windows are down), and I love to let FSD drive me around in Hurry Mode.
Even when I’m driving manually, it’s because I’m on a dry, windy road and I want to take advantage of the awesome suspension and damping that the Model offers. Driving that car on a back road with some twists is one of the most fun things to do.
To achieve really excellent range and efficiency ratings, you really have to be more conservative with some things, and those are sacrifices I’m personally not willing to make. I want the A/C or Heat on, and I occasionally will increase drag by driving with the windows down.
I prefer Hurry mode on FSD, and I’m willing to sacrifice a few miles of range for that certain style of driving.
Interior, Visibility, Accessories, and More
My Favorite Interior Ever
The Model Y interior, like every Tesla interior, is not for everyone. Personally, I was never a fan of the minimalistic approach prior to ownership. As ridiculous as it is, I liked a simple knob for adjusting the temperature and fan speed. Even so, to this day, it takes me longer to pull up the climate settings to adjust things in my Tesla than it ever did in cars with a million knobs and buttons.
I can’t tell you how many times my finger has missed the On/Off button on the climate screen in the Model Y because of dips, bumps, turns, and just normal movement during operation. Do I like the way things are controlled in my Tesla? Yes, of course. Plus, Grok is so integrated into the car now that I could truly never have to touch the screen again for anything other than starting Self-Driving.
🚨 Using Grok to control the cabin temperature and turn on headlights in 2026 Model Y on FSD v14.3.8 and 2026.26.6.5 pic.twitter.com/7clgQkGABk
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2026
However, I still find that there are valid arguments for people who like knobs and buttons. As ugly as it might be to me now, I think it is a tad more intuitive because it’s much harder to miss and much easier to make a quick adjustment than with a touchscreen.
With that being said, the touchscreen is great. It is so responsive and is as good as using an iPhone. There is no delay like most automotive touchscreens, where it feels sort of clunky for 2026.
I love to watch TV and Movies or YouTube on it when I’m parked anywhere. My Fiancèe and I have made it a date night several times over the past year: we’ll pick a spot to eat, get it to go, and enjoy it in the car while watching something. It’s great in the Fall when the leaves are turning orange.
The interior is, overall, a great part of the car. It’s very easy to keep clean, and when it’s clean, it truly feels like you’re in a spacecraft. It is one of the coolest interiors out there, maybe not as luxurious as some high-end Mercedes-Benz or BMW models, but it has a clean and simple feel that is better than many cars in its weight class.
I will say I do miss the Textile seats of the Model Y Standard, but I do not miss them when I am hot. I would still take the Vegan Leather because of the ventilated seats.
Rear Window Visibility is Pointless
If you like a rear windshield, just be aware of the fact that the Model Y basically does not have one. It almost feels pointless to be there, and the Model Y L has something that is much more “standard” in terms of rear windshields in a crossover/SUV:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
It doesn’t mean much to me because the rear camera is great. However, I have found myself just annoyed with the fact that it’s even there to begin with.
Accessories I Bought
I went for 3D MaxPider car mats throughout, some center console storage, trunk storage, and matching window tint on the front windows. I also bought Tesla’s Pet Liner, which is great because it comes with door coverage and a bit of a barrier. My pup, Finn, climbs right over it and prefers the front seat, so I fold it in half, and it still covers the passenger seat very well:
🚨 Something’s different about my best friend Finn in this video compared to the last…🐾🐶
Watch our full ride home from Finn’s haircut on Tesla FSD v14.3.8 https://t.co/eyrj1QefAj pic.twitter.com/f04jVIBgMV
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 8, 2026
They’re all pretty standard accessories, but the one thing I use the most is actually this phone mount from Amazon.
It’s great for making FSD content for TikTok or throwing my phone on it just to hold. I never use it to watch anything (I’m wildly against that concept), and I usually use the wireless charging mat that comes standard. It is really great and convenient, and the magnet is super strong.
Cabin Noise, Sound System Quality
The Model Y Premium comes with acoustic-lined glass, which really dampens a lot of the road noise. My car has one of the quieter cabins I’ve ever been in. I can still remember my 2008 Escape Hybrid and how loud it was in there; I thought my Tesla would be that way, but boy was I wrong.
It is such a peaceful ride that even sitting at stoplights behind loud, obnoxious Hondas with shopping cart handles as spoilers does not bother me. A buddy of mine in a 2021 Model Y said upon his first ride in my car that it was a “night and day” difference between the two.
As far as the sound system goes, two of the more outgoing people in my life who love loud music and concerts recently said to me that “the Tesla is quite a time” because of how immersive the listening experience is. The bass is excellent; the ambient lighting truly rounds out the experience.
Even my Dad, who is somewhat of a speaker snob (I can remember going to Tweeter as a boy with him to look at receivers, and he’s always had massive speakers in the house for cranking up some music) has commented on how good the sound quality is. I remember when I bought a Honda Civic a few years ago- his first ride in it- he said, “Damn, the speakers in here suck.”
He wasn’t wrong. They were awful. But in the Tesla, they’re damn good.
Should you buy a Model Y?
Look, I will recommend this car to anyone who asks. I tell my friends constantly that I love my Model Y so much, especially because it just gets better and better over time.
But I also understand the skepticism. I’ll admit one of the most disappointing things about this car is how much range I lose in the winter. In a 40-mile round-trip drive to get wings with some friends in January, I lost 120 miles of range. This is something that would not deter me from buying this car, but at the time, I also didn’t have home charging. Ownership, at that point, was a bit of a pain in the butt.
The thing is, to me, it’s still better than driving a gas car. I just have more fun in a Tesla.
A friend of mine recently bought a new car, and she said she went with a Chevy Equinox because it was a larger vehicle and she has a child. I told her, “I don’t think I’ll ever buy anything other than a Tesla. Once you go Tesla, you never go back.”
“I cannot afford a Tesla,” she said. We all know the ridiculous narrative around Tesla pricing by now, and after she found out how much I pay for my car and the fact that it has the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ rating, she admitted she probably would have done the same if she had known. I wish she would have asked.
The only car I would take over mine is the Cybertruck. And right now, I just can’t afford a Cybertruck, so I’ll stick with the Model Y. I am so satisfied with my pick, and I would buy this car time and time again.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk rips ABC News over fatal NYC Tesla crash report
Musk pushed back on NYC Tesla crash coverage, pointing to a pattern of premature blame.
Elon Musk pushed back overnight against media framing of a fatal Tesla crash in Midtown Manhattan, telling a user on X that “it wasn’t the car” and that the vehicle’s Autopilot system had nothing to do with the wreck.
The crash happened just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, when a 2024 Tesla Model Y struck a sidewalk shed outside 315 Madison Ave., a bus stop pole and a mailbox on East 42nd Street, according to the NYPD. The car kept moving several more blocks before stopping near Second Avenue. Both women inside, each 27, were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where the passenger was pronounced dead. The driver was charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while ability impaired and leaving the scene of an accident.
Police have not attributed the crash to Autopilot or Full Self-Driving in any public statement. The charges point to impairment, not software. Musk’s response followed a since-deleted ABC News post that he said mischaracterized the incident. Replying to a user on X, Musk wrote that if Autopilot had been engaged, “they would not have crashed,” and added that “the legacy media will never forgive Tesla for failing to advertise with them,”
The legacy media will never forgive Tesla for failing to advertise with them
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2026
It’s a familiar cycle for Tesla. In June, headlines from several national outlets described a fatal crash in Katy, Texas, as happening while the car was “on autopilot,” based on the driver’s own account to police after his Model 3 struck a home and killed a 76-year-old woman. Tesla’s data told a different story when Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, said the driver had pressed the accelerator to 100% and reached 73 mph in a residential zone. Harris County prosecutors later confirmed the human override and the driver was charged with manslaughter.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to that same Katy crash last month to argue that outlets routinely name Tesla in crash headlines while leaving other automakers unnamed, even after a driver’s own actions are shown to be the cause. A similar pattern played out in 2024, when Musk had to clarify that FSD was never even downloaded onto the Model 3 involved in a fatal Colorado DUI crash, despite a passenger’s claim that an “auto drive feature” was in use.
Tesla has not issued a separate statement on the Manhattan crash beyond Musk’s posts on X. The NYPD’s investigation is ongoing, and no cause for the driver losing control has been released.
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