Lifestyle
World’s first industrial electric excavator has a 300 kWh battery pack that triples Tesla’s P100D
Pon Equipment based in Gjelleråsen, Norway has converted an industrial diesel-powered excavator to operate on batteries alone, the first of its kind. According to the company’s CEO, Erik Sollerud, the machine uses a 300 kWh battery pack that’s three times the capacity of Tesla’s 100 kWh battery that’s found in its flagship Model S and Model X vehicle. After an eight month development process, the first of eight excavators is ready for delivery to Norway’s largest construction company, Veidekke. As a company motivated by the impact of emissions on the environment, Pon Equipment is helping pave the way for an era of emissions-free construction equipment around the world.
The base model used for the electric conversion is the Cat® 323 Hydraulic Excavator, a 28-ton machine built by American construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. As perhaps can be expected, swapping the original 1 ton C7.1 ACERT industrial engine for 3.4 tons of batteries came with several challenges. The team at Pan first had to find batteries that could withstand the rigors of construction work, ultimately opting for the types used in boats and submarines. The torque was also problematic and had to be scaled back to behave more like a diesel. In an electric car, high torque gives rapid acceleration, but in an excavator, it will wear out the hydraulics and other systems from the stress.
A full charge on the Caterpillar 323F Z-line (zero emission) – Pan’s revised name for the modified machine – will keep it running for 5-7 hours. For reference, a 63 amp charger will give one hour of work per one hour of charging, and another option available is to keep the machine connected to power during the entirety of operation, all details provided by Sollerud as reported by Ole Henrik Johansen of Norwegian tech website Tek.no. The machine includes a built-in 400V charger.
- Pon Equipment’s modified electric excavator at work during testing. | Credit: Ole Henrik/Tek.no
- The battery panel of Pon Equipment’s modified electric excavator. | Credit: Ole Henrik/Tek.no
- The cabin of Pon Equipment’s modified electric excavator. | Credit: Ole Henrik/Tek.no
- The battery monitor for Pon Equipment’s modified electric excavator. | Credit: Ole Henrik/Tek.no
- The charging port on Pon Equipment’s modified electric excavator, shown by CEO Erik Sollerud. | Credit: Ole Henrik/Tek.no
Also, a feature of the excavator’s electric power source is the noise or rather lack of it. During operation, only a low hum and hydraulic pump actions are heard from the 323F Z-line itself, and a swapped out fuel gauge for a battery monitor is the only obvious difference inside the machine’s cabin. While the carbon emissions are negated with the removal of the diesel engine, it appears a reduction in noise pollution is a happy bonus. Each machine is estimated to cost about $650,000.
Caterpillar was supportive of Pon’s modification project, working with the company throughout the process – the industrial equipment manufacturer reportedly has an interest in developing a line of electrically powered machines. Pon has also made it clear that their goal was never to replace the Cat® 323, just create a carbon-neutral option. In a press conference on Monday, Sollerud explained, “We do not want to invent a new excavator. Cat® 323F is one of the world’s best excavators. We only want it in an emissions-free version, with the same performance as the diesel-powered.” Until Caterpillar and companies like it finalize and release its battery-powered fleet into the market, Pon Equipment will hold the title of the first and only producer of clean energy construction excavators.
Watch the below video to see the electric excavator in action:
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.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
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.




