Lifestyle
Tesla Autopilot will have a tough job covering all real-world anomalies
Having an always-on HD dashcam installed in the Tesla generally means that 99% of the footage captured is of your everyday run-of-the-mill commute, but it’s that out of the ordinary 1% that really makes things exciting.
On the way to a family luncheon held at a local sushi buffet we encountered a little more excitement than usual. Not because I’m convinced that Route 90 in Massachusetts is a magnet for idiots who like to drive while texting with their phones, express themselves using crazy bumper stickers, and do terrible things to their vehicles, but because among the mix of crazies and commuters, we also managed to encounter a flying hubcap.
The scenario
We were cruising along in our pre-Autopilot Model S when the hubcap of the van in front of us popped off. The hubcap would appear to roll to my left, but only before a steel band separated projecting itself left and up as the hubcap veered right. Surrounded by cars on either side of me, I was faced with the split-second decision to choose between which one to hit.
Flying wheel bands and hubcaps
The band looked a lot smaller, appeared lighter and was at a height where it would hit the glass rather than my paint so I decided to take that on. The band struck my windshield and went spinning off. The hubcap continued to veer to my right and rolled off the road. As far as I can tell neither the hubcap or band hit another vehicle.
My human reaction was to move slightly to my left lane after thinking about which would be the lesser of two evils while keeping safety in mind. Braking hard or swerving to either side could have resulted in a lot more negative consequences. While it’s instinct to dodge flying trash, debris and even animals, the unfortunate reality of it all is that striking the obstacles is sometimes the best decision.
I suppose, you never know what’s best until you’re faced with these rarities.
Autopilot and flying objects
This experience got me thinking about Tesla’s Autopilot and whether their team will incorporate an ethical component to the Autopilot algorithm. Navigating roads, dodging cars and avoiding the side of white trucks cast against a brightly lit sky is one big challenge Tesla continues to try and figure out. To make things even more difficult, how will autonomous vehicles adjust to airborne obstacles? The car can react a a lot faster than I can and technically has more opportunity to potentially make the wrong decision. One can argue that the additional time also provides the vehicle more opportunity to fully analyze the situation and make the right decision if programmed correctly.
With today’s sensors the car probably wouldn’t see the objects I encountered, but in the future it may very well be able to do so. Full autopilot that is as good as an experienced driver is a massive undertaking and Tesla knowingly still has a long way to go. The flying hubcap experience was a good first-hand reminder of why you should keep your hands on the wheel at all times – Autopilot or not.
Summary
In the end I was fortunate — I got some rubber on my glass that I could remove with baking soda, and I was left with a couple of scratches on the windshield near my line of sight. I’ll have to check with a glass expert to see if there are any safety issues with the depth of those scratches — tempered glass becomes a lot less structurally sound after the outside layer is compromised. You normally want every significant windshield impact repaired but I’m hoping not to be writing about the woes of a windshield replacement for the Tesla Model S anytime soon.
My dashcam caught the whole thing in action. Should I ever need proof of what happened for insurance, it’s all there including the van’s license plate, proof that the hubcap came from that van etc. The dashcam provides that extra level of comfort and the ability to go back and review your own reactions in situations like this so that, like Autopilot, you’re learning from each and every experience.
The brief video is below:
Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Elon Musk
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.
Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.
One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.
As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.
If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.
Tesla Diner is turning 1 on July 21st, so we’re throwing a party
Come swing by for a day full of fun:
– Cybercab on display
– Birthday menu
– @Tesla_Optimus
– Face painting for kids & adults
– Photo booth
– Servers on roller skates delivering your order
– Light show
– Skypad DJ… pic.twitter.com/TD8pOjihYs— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) July 18, 2026
SpaceX wants to catch Starship for launch 14, Elon Musk says
Tesla to open source Model S and Model X designs and software
