Lifestyle
Tesla Arcade is priming us for the self-driving future, we just don’t know it yet
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A stone’s throw away from Giants stadium in downtown San Francisco parked an unassuming Midnight Silver Metallic Tesla Model 3, only this one was loaded with a real game-changer. Literally.
“Thanks for coming out to check out the latest Beach Buggy Racing 2,” said game developer and co-founder of Vector Unit, Ralf Knoesel, to Tom Cross and I who had just arrived to witness Tesla’s first foray into the billion-dollar global gaming industry.
“We’re really excited to show you guys what we’ve been working on,” a Tesla representative tells us, further explaining that the electric carmaker had been working with game studios like Vector Unit on developing fun and unique experiences for Tesla drivers and passengers alike. Experiences that would keep them entertained while they’re Supercharging or waiting in a car.
Sure, one can argue that there’s no replacement for the entertainment value that comes by way of Tesla’s in-car fart-on-demand app and its Classic Atari games, but they would be sorely mistaken.
Tesla Arcade has taken the richness and interactive gameplay of traditional mobile apps and gaming consoles and made them available directly inside the vehicle.
Lightning bolt powerups? Check. Ability to unlock secret boss levels? Absolutely. And do this while challenging a passenger (or perhaps, one day, other outside players) in multi-player mode? F-yeah! It’s all there. And this can all be experienced in full surround sound with active feedback from the vehicle’s steering wheel which doubles as a gaming controller. Playing Tesla Arcade is akin to gaming in the world’s most realistic simulator. Well. Because it is.
This is going to be a game-changer. We went up against @vectorunit in a multi-player bout of Beach Buggy Racing 2 and got schooled – @_TomCross_ pic.twitter.com/6Qgt7QLkNi
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 18, 2019
40 minutes of gameplay whizzed by before we knew it. And that, my friend, is precisely what Tesla wants. You see, by zapping away time, the feeling of having to wait while charging your car becomes non-existent. More importantly, by creating an SDK that allows app developers to interface with the vehicle’s hardware, Tesla is planting the first seeds that will sprout an iTunes-like ecosystem to support our autonomous future. We just don’t know it yet.
Entertain Me
If you think about it, it makes complete sense to have a rich library of apps and games inside a vehicle. This will especially be the case when self-driving cars become prevalent.
In a culture where human-to-human connections have given way to our digital overlords, having an extension of your life that includes your favorite video streaming platforms; your favorite business apps; and all of your favorite on-demand services (hi DoorDash, I’m looking at you) with you, while passing time during a commute inside a Tesla, feels like a no-brainer.
By the end of 2020, Elon Musk says Tesla owners will be able to add their vehicles to the company’s self-driving, ride-hailing “Robotaxi” network, which will enable Tesla and its vehicle owners to run a similar business model to Uber or Airbnb. Having entertainment will be paramount, filling the void of awkward conversations with strangers and enhancing the overall ride-sharing experience.
We’re at the cusp of a massive behavioral shift toward enhanced in-car lifestyles. Tesla’s opening of a gaming SDK that allows 3rd party developers to interface with the vehicle’s hardware is a pioneering moment for an entirely new industry that is about to awaken.
“Tesla, order a deep dish pizza from Zachary’s for home delivery at 7 pm.”
What do you think? Let’s chat in the comments below.
Lifestyle
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.
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.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
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.
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.
Elon Musk
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.
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.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
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.
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.
Lifestyle
Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip
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.
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.

