Lifestyle
Slacker Internet Radio on the Tesla Model S
In a previous post I slammed Tesla on the almost-there functionality of their USB music player so you might be expecting me to go off on a rant on their implementation of Slacker Internet Radio in the Model S, but you’d be wrong. Tesla got Slacker Internet Radio right in the Model S.
Slacker Internet Radio
Before taking delivery of my Model S I had only heard about Slacker radio as a feature included with the Model S and even then I didn’t do any reading or research on it. I just figured it would either be useful or not, no big deal. I had low expectations. At the time I sort of thought it was going to be a bit like Pandora which I had used on and off in the past.
ALSO SEE: Playing Music from a USB Drive in the Tesla Model S
Slacker is one of two internet radio options included on every Tesla Model S. I’ll cover the other one, TuneIn, at some other time. Slacker Radio is music delivered over the internet via the 3G connection within every Model S. What’s great about the version of Slacker that comes equipped with the car is that it’s commercial-free.
Slacker appears to have two paid versions available, and the one provided with the Model S seems to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of features:
Full disclosure: this is my hack of a feature chart based on what I saw
It will be great if someday Tesla also added the lyrics and custom playlists options that Slacker is capable of.
Slacker offers a number of playlists you can choose from that are specific to genres, popularity etc. I find the selection to be quite rich. With Slacker you can listen to unlimited ad-free music of your preference any time you want. But what if a song comes on that you don’t like?
Slacker Controls on the Model S
The basic options to Pause/Play and Skip songs are all there, but what’s missing is a re-play or go back to the previous song button. You may be able to get to a previous song with music search (more on that later) but otherwise once played it’s gone.
Two other options that I enjoy on Slacker are the “I like this song” and a “I hate this song” icon. This sends your preferences to the Slacker app, and in theory it should use this information to either play more songs like the one you liked, and omit the ones that you do not. Whether it’s using that information for more intelligent behavior tracking is unknown.
You can favorite stations which are either ones you’ve picked from a list or ones you’ve found via search, but you can’t favorite individual songs. Overall the controls are really decent.
Music Search
The Model S allows you to play songs on demand using the “push to talk” button situated on the right of the steering wheel. Holding it down and speaking the name of the artist, song or both will return a list of results that matches your criteria.
What’s interesting is that selecting a result from the list doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll hear that exact song that you selected. It’s merely a station that Slacker feels is within that genre/category. Your song will eventually come up, but it’s definitely not always the first one played.
ALSO SEE: The Sound in the Tesla Model S
Elon is on record saying that you can play any song at any time , but that doesn’t always hold true. You can play most any song, and you can play that song pretty close to when you want it to be played, but you can definitely not play any song at any time.
Slacker Account
Your Slacker equipped Model S gets the music over the internet via 3G connection. It requires a normal user account and password to connect, but thankfully Tesla pre-configured it using their own account. You can use your own Slacker account if you choose to do so, but unless it’s a Slacker Premium account with custom playlist settings, its really not worth your time.
There are some reports of owners getting Tesla to disclose the Slacker account password and then using that account online too.
Special Feature & Quirk
One really cool feature of Slacker in the Model S is that you can pause and resume music at any time. It does this on its own when you exit the car. That means you can be listening to a favorite song, go out and do some shopping, get back in and the music will resume from where it last left off. You’d expect this behavior from a DVD or USB player, but not from internet radio. Pretty cool.
That said, there’s also a quirk in Slacker that makes it skip to a new song after resuming from a previous one. People have speculated that this may be due to some legal licensing limits, or perhaps even bugs in the Tesla or Slacker systems or software. Either way its annoying on the rare events it does happen.
Summary
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well Slacker works in the Model S. The album art is great, the controls are good and the sound quality is fine for me (even on the “medium” setting). Although I was disappointed with the USB music player, the Model S Slacker Internet Radio functionality is impressive.
Lifestyle
Tesla Semi hauls fresh Cybercab batch as Robotaxi era takes hold
A Tesla Semi was filmed hauling Cybercab units out of Giga Texas for the first time.
A Tesla Semi loaded with Cybercab units was recently filmed leaving Gigafactory Texas, marking what appears to be the first documented delivery run of Tesla’s autonomous two-seater. The footage shows multiple Cybercabs secured on a flatbed trailer being hauled by a production Tesla Semi, a truck rated for a gross combination weight of 82,000 lbs. The location is consistent with Giga Texas in Austin, where Cybercab production has been ramping since February 2026.
The sighting follows a wave of Cybercab activity at the Austin facility. In late April, drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer spotted approximately 60 Cybercabs parked in two organized groups in the factory’s outbound lot, the largest concentration observed to date. Units being staged in an outbound lot is a standard pre-delivery step, and the Semi footage is the logical next frame in that sequence.
En route with @tesla_semi pic.twitter.com/ZfuOjaeLH1
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) May 7, 2026
This is not the first time Tesla has used its own Semi to move Tesla products. When the Semi was unveiled in 2017, Musk noted it would be used for Tesla’s own operations, and over the years Semi prototypes were spotted carrying cargo ranging from concrete weights to Tesla vehicles being delivered to consumers. In 2023, a Semi was photographed transporting a Cybertruck on a trailer ahead of that vehicle’s delivery launch.
The Cybercab itself was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event on October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk stated at the event that Tesla intends to produce the Cybercab before 2027. The first production unit rolled off the Giga Texas line on February 17, 2026, with Musk posting on X: “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.”
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once multiple factories reach full design capacity, with the company targeting a price under $30,000 per unit. Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
by
u/Joshalander in
teslamotors
Tesla Semi gets strange-but-understandable comparison from Jay Leno
Tesla expands its mass-market color palette in the U.S.
