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Lightship L1 aims to bring RVs into the 21st century

Credit: Lightship

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A startup called Lightship is modernizing RVs into the 21st Century, as the industry has long been stagnated by a lack of advancement in not only technology but design. The company’s founders, who both started their careers at Tesla, have brought a new mentality to the RV sector that is geared toward sustainability, efficiency, and modernization.

Ben Parker and Toby Kraus believed RVs needed to be revolutionized by pushing them in the direction of what the automotive industry is: forward and with a mentality of sustainability.

Parker said that during his days at Tesla, he was confused as to why the line of food trucks at the company’s then-headquarters in Palo Alto was positioned next to one another for the fumes of diesel and propane generators to leak into the area where food was prepared and served.

“Inefficient, unreliable product designs and power experience that relies on smelly, noisy gas or propane generators fundamentally hinder the amazing experience of traveling in the outdoors,” Parker said.

Lightship’s initial RV design is called the L1, and they label it the “first purpose-built all-electric RV.” Like most EVs, it has a significant focus on aerodynamics and efficiency, and the design was one of the most important metrics of this initial project.

The L1 is three times as aerodynamic as a traditional RV and helps contribute to greater efficiency and range. Trucks with 300-mile range ratings will have 300-mile range ratings whether they are pulling the L1 or not, and the same goes for gas trucks with MPG ratings of 25 MPG, for instance.

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It also features an electric powertrain with up to 80 kWh of onboard battery capacity, which allows the trailer to propel itself and further contribute to the near-zero range and efficiency loss for the pulling vehicle, whether gas or electric.

Furthermore, the living experience in the L1 is unlike any RV on the market. It has a battery energy storage system that is coupled with up to 3 kW of solar power, and can operate completely off-grid for an entire week.

All-electric appliances, connected features, and modern amenities fill out the interior of the L1, which Parker and Kraus said was fully designed with a modern twist while also offering some customization.

The ultimate goal of Lightship is to bring towable RVs into flow with the vehicles of today. RVs are a sizeable industry within the United States, with 1 in 10 families owning one. It’s just the innovation that has been missing.

“With 90% of the market comprising of towable RVs, we began by creating an all-electric travel trailer that is unlike any RV available today and that is just the beginning,” Kraus said. “We are leveraging our expertise in automotive EV development and design to build a brand that creates delightful outdoor travel experiences for everyone and brings even more people into the pastime of RVing.”

The Lightship L1 is 27 feet long and 8-and-a-half feet wide and can weigh up to 7,500 pounds when fully loaded. It can comfortably sleep 4-6 people, depending on the configuration chosen, and features a variety of modes based on what the current application is, meaning Road Mode for travel time and Camp Mode when occupants finally arrive at their campground.

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A starting price of $125,000 for the L1 can be brought down to $118,400 after available tax credits and can be reserved with a $500 deposit. Production is expected to begin in late 2024.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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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.

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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.



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.

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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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