Tesla Model S
1,500+ Miles in a Tesla Model S
I knew that when I signed out our Tesla Model S, I had a lot of weekend traveling in front of me. I left the office with 240 miles showing on the projected range, but I was confident the Tesla wouldn’t hinder my plans.
I headed about 9 miles east to Riswick’s house for a quick little hangout. It also gave traffic a chance (albeit slim) to die down for a later destination. After shooting the breeze there, I headed home to feed the pet and pack for the night. I pointed the car north to Valencia to spend the night with the girlfriend. Without traffic, it’s a 45-minute trek. But it was Friday night, just before St. Patrick’s Day, and a sobriety checkpoint brought traffic flow through Hollywood to a crawl.
I finally got on the highway and up to speed, then more traffic. Ugh. I had traveled about 20 miles, but the range was showing that I’ve used up 30 miles worth of charge and there was still a big hill to climb. This was not how I thought it’d go.
The next afternoon I drove back home and the range was estimating 140 miles left, with actual miles coming to about 95. A couple of smaller trips to a taco stand on Sunset and the Petersen Automotive Museum kept chipping away at the range.
I wouldn’t call it range anxiety, maybe range awareness by the time Sunday morning rolled around. The L.A. Marathon kept me from making my direct route back up to Valencia, so I had to drive through Downtown to head north. Luckily, Ikea was on my weekend to-do list and they just so happened to have a charging station nearby.
With 80 miles of range showing, I parked and plugged in as we headed into Ikea in Burbank, or as I like to call it, “the place where couples go to fight.” We had no such disagreements in the store so we resorted to fabricating an argument about curtain rods to keep our sanity in the rat maze. We were out of there in only 30 minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough time to get a decent charge. It was close enough to lunchtime, so I proposed we grab a bite in the dreaded mall food court.
As we ate, I texted Magrath to get an update on the charging. He has the Tesla app and I don’t. He said I was at 105 miles of range, then asked how Burbank was. It’s creepy having someone with the ability to shadow me, so I shut the remote access feature off as soon as I got back in the car.
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A quick stop in Valencia and then back to L.A. The range was down to the 50s so I had the girlfriend look up charging stations in my neighborhood. There was one just a mile away in Beverly Hills, so she hopped in her car and followed me over. Another plug-in and we left in her car for a few hours. Honestly, this last charge was probably unnecessary, but I wanted more than 25 miles of a buffer zone to get back to work Monday morning.
We picked up the Tesla just before dinner, then swung by my sister’s place a few miles south and dragged her kids to dinner in West L.A. Back up to my place to pick up out iPads and then back to my sister’s to keep the kids from burning the house down for at least a few hours. When we finally got back to CasaHashi, I had 50 miles left on the range. Good enough for the 7-mile drive to Santa Monica in the morning.
Now that I’ve thoroughly bored you with what a Takahashi weekend is like, there’s a moral to the story. The Tesla was able to handle the many destinations with ease. In L.A., there are plenty of charging stations to facilitate buzzing all over the county, and I’m sure more stations are on the way.
If I owned this car, and I didn’t have to log every time I charged-up, I’d probably charge at every available station (movie theatres, supermarkets, Home Depot, etc.) whether or not I really needed to. A few miles added here or there give me that added security and, hey, you get rockstar parking in front! Then there’s the cool factor. Once you get out of L.A.’s westside, Teslas are a rarity. I spotted a lot of people stopping to check out the car as it charged and there was no shortage of looks while on the road.
Yup. I like it. The Tesla Model S represents the first electric car that I consider aspirational. At some point, I’ll take it into the canyons to see if it’s inspirational, too.
Mark Takahashi, Automotive Editor @ 1,641 miles
Click here to view original web page at www.edmunds.com
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Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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In a move echoing its earlier commitment to open innovation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced recently that the company plans to make the design and software of its Model S and Model X fully open source.
This follows the same approach Tesla took with its original Roadster, releasing all available design, engineering, and diagnostic materials in November 2023 so that “whatever we have, you now have.”
Just as Tesla made the original Roadster design & software open source, we plan to do the same with Model S & X
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 24, 2026
The Model S, introduced in 2012, was Tesla’s first mass-produced vehicle and a groundbreaking luxury electric sedan. It offered impressive range, rapid acceleration, and over-the-air software updates that redefined expectations for electric cars.
The Model X, launched in 2015, built on that foundation as a high-performance electric SUV notable for its distinctive falcon-wing doors, spacious interior, and advanced safety features. Both models served as flagships that helped establish Tesla as a leader in the EV industry and popularized long-range battery-electric vehicles.
Production of the Model S and Model X was wound down earlier in 2026, with manufacturing ending in the second quarter. Tesla redirected the Fremont factory space previously used for these vehicles toward higher-priority projects, including Optimus humanoid robots and the Cybercab autonomous vehicle.
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By the time of Musk’s open-source announcement, custom orders had closed and only remaining inventory was available.
Open-sourcing the designs and software offers several clear advantages. Owners of these aging but still capable vehicles gain better access to technical documentation, diagnostic tools, and software resources, making independent repairs and modifications easier and more affordable.
Independent repair shops and third-party specialists can support the large existing fleet without relying solely on Tesla’s service network. Enthusiasts and engineers can study real-world implementations of Tesla’s battery, powertrain, and software systems, potentially accelerating broader industry progress in electric mobility.
The step aligns with Tesla’s 2014 patent pledge and its overall mission to advance sustainable transport by sharing hard-won knowledge rather than locking it behind proprietary walls.
By releasing these materials now that the models have left production, Tesla ensures continued support for its early adopters while freeing internal resources for future technologies. The open-source release of the original Roadster already enabled simulations, community projects, and deeper technical understanding.
Extending that practice to the Model S and Model X should deliver similar benefits on a larger scale, helping keep these influential vehicles relevant and repairable for years to come
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
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