Lifestyle
Tesla’s biggest competition lies within itself
Tesla’s biggest competition is remarkably similar to the biggest competitors in our day-to-day lives: ourselves. In a way, this seems strange considering we wake up every morning and battle things like motivation, drive, determination, and ailments that can derail us from our goals. A car company has to battle things like product development, economic turmoil, parts shortages (like we saw this week in Fremont), and demand, among several other things. But ultimately, Tesla’s biggest competition in the future is itself because the company’s ability to expand the idea of the EV market is something that will be tough to keep up with, especially when frontman Elon Musk calls it quits.
Yet, headlines of mainstream media and others still suggest Tesla’s biggest competition lies within the hands of another automaker. For the last few years, we’ve all heard it: “This is a Tesla killer,” or “Tesla is doomed.” Here we are, in 2021, still with Tesla sitting atop the EV leaderboard with a considerable distance between gold and silver. In reality, Tesla really has to battle itself to keep growing, and here’s why.
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Tesla has no shortage of innovation. Let’s think about it for a second: a car company with almost no money 13 years ago still ended up creating one car, then another off of the profits of that, and now it is the most valuable car company in the world. It managed to turn the automotive industry’s focus to EVs instead of how the sector could make gas cars better. It turned the widely-successful automakers of the past century into the lost and unguided entities who are struggling to keep up. Lastly, it showed that, while business is serious, it’s not necessarily life or death. Make a good product that people believe in, and people will follow.
Every day when I wake up, one of the first things I do in the morning is go to Google and see what headlines are trending for Tesla. Every morning, at least one suggests that Tesla has met its match, and it is never a surprise to see that it is some legacy automaker who has claimed to have figured out all of the issues that have plagued them for years in terms of their EV development. For Volkswagen, it’s software. For Ford, it is product availability and a plan, and for GM, it’s just getting the ball rolling and expanding past the Chevy Bolt.
Even when those companies say they’ve figured it out, it is funny how in a span of days or weeks, there ends up being some unexpected bottleneck that ruins their chances of “catching up” to Tesla. It’s not going to happen, at least not anytime soon. These car companies have proven for months and years on end that they are all talk and little to no action. The EV industry ultimately lies within the hands of Tesla and other all-electric automakers once they begin production. Rivian and Lucid are sure to make some noise once their vehicles come out, which have already attracted a pretty loyal following. Tesla fans may not want to hear it, and I get it, but the EV movement isn’t going to be sprung forward by brands like VW and Ford, at least not anytime in the near future.
Tesla’s biggest challenger in the coming years will be itself. It will need to keep developing new and exciting products, like the $25,000 EV that will come in a few years. It will need to develop products that it has announced but haven’t been released yet, like the Cybertruck and the Roadster, and it will need to continue improving upon the already unbelievable foundation that it has built by improving its cars even further through OTA updates. Things like range and performance will get better with time, but it’s not to say that Tesla hasn’t already proven itself a worthy competitor in both of those categories. It is obviously the leader in them. However, technology will continue to develop, especially at the pace Tesla is moving, meaning things are only going to get better down the road.
There isn’t any reason to believe that Tesla will be dethroned by any company within the next 5-10 years. Why? Because nobody has proven that they have the capability to do so, at least in my opinion. While I am supportive of other car companies, there is no denying that Tesla is in first place and it doesn’t seem like any company is going to take that from them at any point within the near future. Until companies like VW and Ford put a sole focus on EVs, they will not make up any ground on Tesla. And until companies like Rivian and Lucid come out and produce cars that prove to be wanted by car buyers, then things will lie in Tesla’s hands for the foreseeable future.
We have learned that it isn’t always about making some fancy new car with a million bells and whistles. Make a product people believe in, make it fun, and make the company about a mission people want to believe in, and the rest will take care of itself.
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Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching
SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell just made a quiet gesture toward Tesla
Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
