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Porsche steps up Mission E marketing efforts with latest endorsement by Adam Levine

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With the Mission E expected to start production next year, Porsche is steadily ramping up its marketing efforts for its Tesla Model S-rivaling all-electric car. Just recently, Porsche opted to feature Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine as its latest endorser for the all-electric sedan.

Unlike Mark Webber, a former Formula One driver who recently took a Mission E prototype around the track, Porsche opted to give Adam Levine a hands-on experience with the Mission E concept car, a vehicle that has drawn eyes since it debuted in 2015 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Despite not being fully affiliated with Porsche like Webber, however, Levine is still a hardcore Porsche enthusiast, driving to the track in his beloved 1958 356A Porsche Speedster. During his segment in the promotional video, Levine stated that ultimately, the Mission E is every bit a Porsche as the company’s other offerings.

“Porsche people are not normal, because we want more out of driving. The problem with electric cars last time was that they just don’t have a soul. They don’t have a beating heart. This one actually does, which is amazing to me,” Levine said.

Porsche’s test drive video is not the only time that Levine brushed shoulders with the all-electric sedan, however. In a recent episode of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke featuring the singer, the Mission E concept car made a cameo as the late-night host and the Maroon 5 frontman were racing around on the track.

Overall, Porsche’s decision to utilize Levine as its celebrity endorser for the Mission E is a step in the right direction. Porsche, after all, has a hardcore fanbase that values its classic, iconic, ICE-based performance. Considering that the Mission E is the company’s first all-electric vehicle, Porsche needs a familiar face that its fans can relate too. Adam Levine, a self-confessed Porsche enthusiast, definitely fits the bill.   

Levine is no stranger to electric cars. The Maroon 5 frontman also owns a Tesla Model X. Levine’s Model X caught headlines in the entertainment and auto world back in 2016, when the all-electric SUV was rear-ended by a Ferrari. The Model X only ended up with minor damages, however, and Levine and his then-pregnant wife Victoria’s Secret Angel Behati Prinsloo drove away in their Tesla afterward.

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Adam Levine with the Porsche Mission E concept car. [Credit: Porsche]

While Porsche is steadily ramping up its marketing efforts for the Mission E, the company is currently dealing with a sales halt in Europe over the region’s new emissions standards. As we noted in a recent report, interested buyers who access Porsche’s online configurator in Europe are prompted that a “pending model revision” is currently ongoing and that none of the company’s lineup of vehicles are freely configurable. Porsche’s cars that will be produced according to the EU’s new emissions standards, such as the Panamera and the Cayenne, are expected to be unavailable until March 2019.

The Porsche Mission E is expected to hit the market sometime next year. The vehicle is equipped with specs that rival the Tesla Model S, with its 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds, a top speed of 155 mph, and a range of 310 miles per charge. The Mission E is also designed to support Porsche’s IONITY chargers, which are expected to have an output of 350 kW.

Watch Levine’s test drive of the Porsche Mission E concept car in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCdKezPKPIM

See the Porsche Mission E concept car’s cameo in the recent Carpool Karaoke episode in the video below.

https://youtu.be/CZkUNPBlJIQ?t=581

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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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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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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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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