Tesla Model S
What it’s like to drive a transmission-less Tesla
Like many pure electric vehicles, the Tesla Model S is missing a whole lot of extraneous stuff including a transmission, gears and a clutch. This means there’s a plethora of things that don’t need to be maintained due to component wear or failure. But it also means that the Model S has a much different driving characteristic than any other car with a transmission.
Clutches
There are two types of transmissions in cars with a traditional gasoline-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) – automatic and manual. Manual transmission vehicles require engagement of a clutch typically through a clutch pedal. Some people prefer the direct control of the car by being able to shift through gears and engine braking through downshifting. I was one of them.
I’ve owned and driven a number of manual transmission cars over the years, anywhere from a cheap Ford Fiesta to a high-end Porsche 928. The feel of the clutch and quirks with shifting vary from car to car. Case in point was my 928 which I had to double clutch from time to time.
I eventually gave up driving any sort of manual transmission when my daily commute grew. Using the clutch and shifting on a manual transmission is a bear when it comes to heavy traffic. So, what does all this have to do with the Model S that has neither gears nor a clutch? The feeling.
Driving a Tesla Model S is eerily similar to driving a manual transmission vehicle. The car will roll if you take your foot off the brake while on an incline or decline. Tesla added the “hill assist” feature in the recent 5.9 software update, but that only holds the vehicle for 1 second before the car begins rolling again.
Letting go of the Model S accelerator pedal as you’re approaching a stop light will slow the vehicle down through regenerative braking which to me feels exactly like downshifting and engine braking, but without the noise.
Another thing I caught myself doing was quickly moving my foot from brake pedal to accelerator to prevent stalling the car only to realize that the Tesla will never stall. I guess it was just muscle memory.
Creep
Tesla added a feature called “creep” which simulates the behavior of an automatic transmission.
In an automatic transmission vehicle the car will begin moving forward when you let go of the brake pedal as opposed to sitting perfectly still and silent in the Model S. Creep makes this happen by moving the car forward when you let go of the brake pedal.
I took my Model S to an empty parking lot and gave the creep feature a try. You can only toggle this feature on/off when the vehicle’s in park mode. After turning on the creep setting, put the car in drive, take your foot off the brake and the Model S will begin to move forward. It starts off pretty slow but picks up speed quickly. I measured a top speed of 5 MPH which felt pretty quick to me. You can literally drive around a parking lot in this mode without stepping on either the brake or accelerator and just creep along.
I also didn’t like the idea of the car using energy unless I was specifically asking for it through the accelerator pedal. I had originally thought that the creep feature would be useful when pulling into a tight parking space but the accelerator pedal on the Model S is very well tuned for both fine and aggressive movements. Creep is not really needed in my opinion. That being said, the only time I’ve used this feature was for this particular test.
Summary
Elon Musk
Trump’s invite for Elon just reshuffled Tesla’s big Signature Delivery Event
Tesla rescheduled its final Model S farewell to May 20 after Musk joined Trump in China.
Tesla has rescheduled its Model S and Model X Signature Edition delivery event to Wednesday, May 20, 2026, after abruptly calling off the original May 12 celebration. The event will take place at Tesla’s factory at 45500 Fremont Boulevard in Fremont, California, the same location where the Model S first rolled off the line in 2012. Invitees received a follow-up email asking them to reconfirm attendance and download a new QR code ticket, with Tesla noting that all travel and accommodation expenses remain the buyer’s responsibility.
The reason behind the original cancellation came into focus the same day it was announced. President Trump invited Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, and executives from Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and Meta to join his trip to China this week for a summit with President Xi Jinping. The agenda covers trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan, and the Iran war, following weeks of escalating friction between Washington and Beijing over AI technology, sanctions, and rare earth exports. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am very much looking forward to my trip to China, an amazing Country, with a Leader, President Xi, respected by all.”
Tesla launches 200mph Model S “Gold” Signature in invite-only purchase
The vehicles at the center of all this are the last Model S and Model X units Tesla will ever build. Priced at $159,420 each, the 250 Model S and 100 Model X Signature Edition units come finished in Garnet Red with a one-year no-resale agreement, giving Tesla right of first refusal if the owner decides to sell. As Teslarati reported, the Model S defined Tesla’s early identity as a serious luxury automaker, and the Fremont factory line that built it is now being converted to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots.
Musk’s inclusion in the China delegation drew attention given his very public relationship with Trump, and the invitation signals the two have moved past and past grievances. Trump originally brought Musk on to lead the Department of Government Efficiency following his inauguration, and despite a sharp public dispute in mid-2025, the two have appeared together repeatedly in recent months. A seat on the China trip, the most diplomatically consequential visit of Trump’s current term, puts Musk back at the table on U.S. economic policy at a moment when Tesla’s China revenue remains one of the company’s most important financial pillars.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
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