Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 wireless charger: Factory-look and it’s fast
A big thanks to Nomad for providing me with this Model 3 wireless phone charger. This isn’t a mandatory glowing review – you can find those on YouTube. Rather, this was an opportunity for me, a product person, to inspect the design of a product that I needed/wanted and photograph it. I like photos. A lot.
The Tesla Model 3 is full of forward-thinking technology and amazing performance stats, but if I’m being honest, its built-in elements for phone charging have some room for improvement.
In a car that requires neither gas nor keys to operate, wireless phone charging seems like a natural fit, but it isn’t a factory option (yet anyhow). Thankfully, a company called Nomad has recognized the void in charger options and now offers a product specifically designed for the Model 3.
I got a hold of one and had a look for myself.
The Nomad Wireless Phone Charger for the Tesla Model 3 is basically what it sounds like – a pad for charging your compatible iPhone or Android device (7.5 W charge output or Qi-enabled) simply by setting it down in your car’s center console. An LED indicator confirms the process is working: amber while charging, and white when fully charged. Since Nomad’s charger supports two phones, your passenger can enjoy the same wire-free perks that you do. My passenger definitely appreciated it when I was trying the device out.
Even though I was looking for an improvement to my Model 3’s factory phone charging options, I’m still a huge fan of the Tesla aesthetic and wince at the idea of interfering with the look and feel of my car. That said, I was really pleased with how Nomad’s charger matched my Model 3’s design. It’s actually one of the core reasons I chose their charger over the many other wireless chargers that I saw were available on Amazon.
Photo by me.
Since there’s obviously a lot of motion involved while driving, Nomad’s pad has a matte black, soft rubber coating to keep your phone from sliding around. For small phones, spacers are included for extra stability which is a pretty cool compatibility consideration in my opinion. The specs of the charger say that some larger phones won’t fit into the charging space with their cases on, but my iPhone fits perfectly.
I did look at other wireless pads on the market that utilize a horizontal charging position, but personally didn’t like that look, and found Nomad’s upright mount to simulate more of the Tesla look and feel that’s similar to the Model S and Model X. Also, this is a minor detail to some, but it’s worth noting that I finally reached out to Nomad for a charger after seeing online reviews indicating that their charging was faster than the competition.
In terms of installation? Easy peasy. Open the top center console; remove the non-slip pad and USB cables inside Nomad’s Apple-like packaging; feed Nomad’s wires through the cable hole and plug into the Model 3’s USB ports. Not much to write about beyond that.
Photos by me.
While the standard setup of the Nomad charger worked great for my needs now, I also liked that there’s flexibility with the product in case my needs change in the future. For example, two USB splitters are included in the box if I have an audio device that requires a USB port or I want to record video from my dashcam.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with Nomad’s wireless phone charger in my Tesla Model 3. If you’re in the market for a factory-looking wireless charger, that charges quickly and has a solid, premium build, I recommend giving this phone charger a go. Full specs and pricing details can be found on Nomad’s website.
Thanks for listening and happy charging!
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’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
Tesla is building its own maps to fix Navigation issues
