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Rivian’s door flashlight uses the same 2170 battery as its car batteries, and that’s cool

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The New York International Auto Show is somewhat local to me (i.e., three hours via driving/train combo), so I was able to conveniently pop in for a bit during their media days last week and have a look around. That said, first on my list of automakers to find was Rivian with the goal of stocking up on plenty of great photos and learning a bit more than what I knew already from writing about their outdoor adventure vehicles.

Brian Gase, Body Engineering Director for the company, was kind enough to answer all my questions once I arrived at Rivian’s booth, and he even showed me the battery for the flashlight inside the R1T and R1S driver doors. It’s the same 2170 cell the company uses for its vehicles’ battery packs that are estimated to achieve about 400 miles of range.

In order to meet a 135 kWh capacity (the size of the R1S on the floor), Rivian’s batteries will contain 7,776 of the 2170 cells. If you include the extra battery in the flashlight, that makes a strong poker hand of quad 7’s (7,777) for total count. Pretty cool, right? (Thanks again, Brian for pointing that out to me.)

https://twitter.com/PrincessDeixa/status/1118957811285811200

Rivian R1S SUV at New York Auto Show 2019. | Image: Dacia J. Ferris/Teslarati
Rivian R1S SUV at New York Auto Show 2019. | Image: Dacia J. Ferris/Teslarati

Admittedly, I know there are plenty of very thought out features included in Rivian’s truck and SUV designs that should be given as much if not more accolades than the flashlight. For one, there’s the gear tunnel in the R1T that gets plenty of attention. While I was at the show, I overheard someone asking what could be stored in the long storage area behind the passengers that spans the width of the truck.

I thought Rivian’s answer to that was pretty creative, just like the tunnel itself. They had benches made into the shape of the gear tunnel with glass sides, all full with different types of gear one could fit inside. Funny enough, one of them was being used the entire time I was trying to take pictures (annoying, but no big deal and expected), so I came back later when they were all clear of resting show attendees. When I explained this to someone later, it was suggested to me that having a person on the bench was good for size referencing.

That’s true, actually. You can really see how much stuff can fit in the R1T gear tunnel once there’s a human providing proper perspective.

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The gear tunnel in the R1T is both unique and a testament to one of the many advantages provided by battery electric vehicles, meaning there’s plenty of extra space to work with, and Rivian has taken full advantage in their designs.

The cabin of both vehicles is very spacious with plenty of legroom for passengers, storage is available underneath the back seats in the R1T, both frunks have impressive capacity, and there’s even a storage tray under the front seats of the R1S (not sure of the R1T), which I don’t think I’d seen before going to the show. Back at the gear tunnel, there’s another compartment in the door that can hold smaller items (like dog treats). The doors to the gear tunnel can additionally function as seats or stools to help load gear on the roof.

Rivian R1S SUV at New York Auto Show 2019. | Image: Dacia J. Ferris/Teslarati

I was also happy to learn what the Flexible Crossbar System feature was all about. I mean, it’s one thing to read that feature listed on their website, but quite another to see what it does. Essentially, the cargo rack is expandable/collapsable, and it locks into specially designed places on the roof and truck bed. In all, there’s a place to stand while you plug in the easy-to-install luggage rack. Admittedly, I’m a bit lazy about using the roof of my car for road trip luggage space because it’s such a pain, and I know I’m not alone in my sentiments. From the look of it, it seems Rivian’s designers have met a few people like me, too.

My time at the Rivian booth of the New York International Auto Show was enjoyable and productive, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the company develops. Here are a few of my favorite shots of the R1T truck and R1S SUV.

More about the other electric/hybrid vehicles that were at the show coming soon!

Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

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Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

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Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

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Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

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Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

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This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

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Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

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A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.

“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.

Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.

Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.

He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.

Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.

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The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.

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