Starlink is keeping everyone connected, including a former Tesla employee who went viral on TikTok for his dome in the desert. While using the app, a viral video by Always Kenny popped up on my For You Page. He’s known on the app as the hole guy or the dome guy.
In the video, Reid explained how he was able to have internet while living in the desert. I thought his story would be great to share here and I asked him to share it with me.
From Tesla to the desert
Reid told me that he was working for Tesla after he’d finished college and left Tesla to work for a few startups here and there. However, he wasn’t fulfilling his purpose in life just yet.
“I kind of knew that there was something bigger–more different that I wanted to do. Covid hit and Tesla stock shot up so I drove around the country looking for a place to settle down. A place that wasn’t Seattle or San Francisco.”
While working at Tesla, Reid purchased a Model 3 and was one of the first people to actually live out of his Tesla.
“I did that for about a year. That’s how I saw the country. I did a loop through the West Coast, saw the national parks, and then I did a loop going through the South, sleeping at Superchargers.”
“Weirdly enough I came out here and fell in love with this place, dug a hole and put a dome in it and the rest is history. It’s still being written.”
Reid has made his home in the desert and went viral on TikTok when he built the dome. He asked viewers for feedback and has gotten a lot of great tips on how to make his dome efficient and better.
Although Reid lives in the dome, he told me he does go to civilization, however, this is where his heart is. It’s his home.
Starlink in the desert.
Reid has had Starlink since he first decided to make his home in the dome.
“I had Starlink since I got here. I was on the waiting list and luckily, right before I came out, they sent me the satellite dish. It was actually waiting here in mid-March when I came out. It was an essential part of me doing this entire thing.”
“Going somewhere this remote, it was super important that I stay connected to my friends, family, and the outer world, in general. I couldn’t have done this last year.”
I asked Reid to share his thoughts about the new partnership between SpaceX and T-Mobile. The new partnership will end mobile dead zones with the launch of a new mobile service that is enabled by Starlink’s second-generation satellites and T-Mobile’s bandwidth.
“That’s great news. I would love to be able to drive around and never lose service. I’ve spent so much time on the road that I have to have my playlist downloaded so I end up listening to the same song over and over again. It’s not worth the pain of going through service challenges.”
The new Starlink and T-Mobile service is what Reid is the most excited about, he said. It takes him two hours to get to the grocery store and the majority of that is out of service.
“So to be able to still call people and move things forward with my life while on the road out here, that’s going to be huge.”
Some of the challenges of living in a dome in the desert.
Some of the challenges Reid has faced head-on include extreme heat and staying cool. He’s also seen a few scorpions and snakes here and there–but nothing poisonous, yet.
“It’s been nothing but challenges but that’s kind of why I did this. I knew that putting a dome that I bought at Walmart for $600 in a hole that I dug with pretty much no other preparation was going to be a little problematic.”
“But right now, I’m fixing a problem where the sand is caving into the sides of the dome and making all the beams snap and bend. In its current state, it wouldn’t last very long. So I’m currently putting some wood around the side. I actually made a video asking TikTok for help and people have really good suggestions on reinforcing the dome to make it last longer.”
Reid is also building a house and is learning all things that go into building a home.
“It just makes me appreciate any building and structure that people live in so much more. It’s been eye-opening.”
The heat is another challenge. Although he expected it to be hot in the desert, it’s actually hotter inside the dome.
“It’s not well-designed for the summer. It’s about 15-20 degrees hotter in there than it is outside. It’s like 100 outside and 118 in the dome.”
While waiting for things to cool off, Reid has kept himself busy and cool by digging out another hole and making it into a pool.
“I dug a pool one night and put some tarps in the bottom of it and put another dome that I built over that. It’s created an indoor shaded pool which has been nice for hanging out during the day. I also bought an umbrella.”
Reid’s story is one of many provided by Starlink users. I’ve received a lot of feedback on my Starlink-related articles with people sharing their stories or wishes for Starlink to be available in their rural areas.
One of our readers told me that before Starlink, he couldn’t find cost effective internet service. “Thanks to Elon Musk he has made a difference in rural communities.”
Another one of our readers, a doctor, told me that they’ve been a rural Starlink client for over a year. “This service is akin to early man discovering fire or the wheel. Two children and an adult all zooming for college and work while recording other digital items with no issues is our new life.”
The doctor noted that the regulatory authorities who oversee Starlink have grossly misjudged Starlink. I believe he’s referring to the Federal Communications Commission’s reversal of Starlink’s $885.5 million infrastructure award. SpaceX is currently appealing the FCC’s reversal of the award and even FCC Commissioner Brendon Carr called out the agency for denying Starlink’s award.
I agree with the doctor, Commissioner Carr, and SpaceX. Starlink, in my opinion, will not only keep people connected but save lives during disasters. I’ve spoken about being without communications during hurricane Ida’s aftermath. And in my interview with Elon Musk, he emphasized the importance of Starlink as a life-saving tool. Elon told me,
“Well, just in general, Starlink, because it is not dependent on any ground-based infrastructure can provide internet connectivity to areas that have had floods or fires or earthquakes that t have destroyed the ground-based infrastructure.”
“That’s obviously extremely helpful for rescuing people and people being able to ‘I need to I need help. I need rescue.’ It’s like how do you find them? How do you communicate with them? Starlink can and has provided that in a number of situations.”
Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission.
Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.
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Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla Cybercabs swarmed Austin’s F1 Grand Prix as sightings hit a record during race weekend.
Tesla’s driverless Cybercabs used the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin as their biggest public stress test yet. On Sunday afternoon, Tesla head of AI software Ashok Elluswamy quoted a photo from X user Ben Steindl showing a long line of gold Cybercabs and Model Y Robotaxis stacked up on a road near Circuit of the Americas. “Robotaxis as far as the eye can see!” Elluswamy wrote. Steindl’s original post was more matter of fact: “@Tesla @robotaxi is busy for the Austin F1.”
The fleet also handled the trip home. The race started at 3 p.m. Central, and once it ended, Cybercab Spotter, an account that logs Cybercab sightings around Austin, posted that “People are requesting Cybercabs to get home.”
Robotaxis as far as the eye can see! 🤩
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) October 25, 2026
Tesla set this up days in advance without announcing it. Late on October 22, rider David Moss posted Robotaxi app screenshots showing the Austin service area wrapping around the track toward Elroy and FM 812, with ride requests open until 1 a.m. A banner in the app read “Last call is 1am · Limited to nearby dropoffs.” Austin rides ended at 11 p.m. as recently as early October, as Teslarati reported, before moving to midnight on October 17.
Not every rider got dropped at the gate. Early app searches showed spots like COTA Karting as “Service blocked,” and one rider who took a Cybercab to the track Friday said the rideshare area was less than a 20 minute walk from the front gate.
The weekend also produced a new activity record. Cybercab Spotter counted 1,250 Cybercab sightings in Austin on Saturday, qualifying day. The previous high was 1,072 on October 16. Sightings count the same car more than once, so they measure how busy the fleet is rather than how big it is. For size, the Texas automated vehicle registry listed 463 Cybercabs at midday Sunday, up from the 300+ Tesla claimed on October 10, when Elluswamy also said Dallas is next for Cybercab.
The track was out of reach for Tesla’s main rival. Waymo runs in Austin only through Uber, and its service area stops well short of COTA. Waymo did not announce any race day service.
Tesla has not said how many rides it gave to and from the circuit, or whether the expanded zone and 1 a.m. cutoff will stay after race weekend. On the third quarter earnings call, Elluswamy said 2 a.m. service is coming “pretty soon” and that Tesla plans to run Robotaxi around the clock before the end of the year. The company is also aiming to hand the first Cybercabs to customers before 2026 ends, which would put cars like these outside Tesla’s own fleet for the first time.
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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.
Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.
Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.
The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.
Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.
The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.
The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.
There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.
The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.
Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
