Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla extends gratitude to employees with ‘Cars 3’ family movie night at Gigafactory 1

Published

on

As an expression of gratitude to its employees for their hard work in Q3 2018, Tesla has issued an invitation for a family night featuring a screening of the Pixar movie Cars 3 at Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, Nevada. The event, which is extended to employees and their family members, will be set up like an outdoor film outing, with the movie being projected on the side of Gigafactory 1. Food trucks and fun, kid-friendly activities will also be available.

Tesla’s invitation for the family movie night reveals that the event will be held this coming Saturday and Sunday. The event is completely free of charge, though attendees are advised to bring their own blankets and chairs for maximum comfort while watching the movie. Following is the text of Tesla’s email to its employees.

“In recognition of your hard work of the last year, we would like to celebrate with you.

“Join us for movie night– Pixar’s Cars 3 will be projected on the side of the Gigafactory, along with food trucks for dinner, bouncy houses for the kids, and concessions.

“This is all free of charge for you and your family as our way of saying thanks.

“Please pick one of two nights (Starting 7:00 pm: Saturday, October 6th or Sunday, October 7th) and RSVP by the link below. Bring blankets or chairs to get comfortable for the movie. Looking forward to seeing you there!”

Advertisement
-

Tesla’s employees have been on full throttle over the course of the third quarter. That said, their hard work has produced results, as Tesla achieved yet another record quarter in Q3 2018, producing a total of 80,142 electric vehicles including 53,239 Model 3. The company also delivered a total of 83,500 vehicles, comprised of 55,840 Model 3, 14,470 Model S, and 13,190 Model X. Tesla even noted in its Q3 2018 vehicle deliveries and production report that in the third quarter, it delivered 80% of 2017’s entire delivery figures.

https://twitter.com/_wongc/status/1046609449291370496

It was not easy getting to this point. Q3 saw Elon Musk sleeping inside the Fremont factory once more to address issues as they arise, and during the final weeks of the quarter’s delivery blitz, even the company’s executives were reportedly doing their part handing over vehicles to reservation holders. A day before Q3 ended, Elon Musk even rallied Tesla’s workers, stating that profitability was within reach while encouraging everyone to work extra hard on the quarter’s final day. Considering Tesla’s Q3 delivery and production numbers, it appears that the company’s workers dug deep and pulled through.

Being led by a man who made his fortune in Silicon Valley, Tesla’s work culture is quite similar to tech companies. Workload-wise, Tesla is known for its intense work culture and hyper-aggressive targets. This does not mean that Tesla is all work and no play, though. In true Silicon Valley style, Tesla is also known to adopt a “Work Hard, Play Hard” culture. Elon Musk’s employee parties are no joke, with one event at SpaceX involving the conversion of the private space agency’s factory floor to a full-blown carnival.

Back in 2016, Tesla also rented out a stadium for a massive employee party. Last year, Tesla hosted a family day for Gigafactory workers that included a waterpark outing and games that were paid for by the company. After achieving its then-elusive 5,000/week Model 3 production goal in Q2 2018, Tesla also gave a treat to workers at the Fremont factory, featuring a free concert from 12-time Grammy Award-winning musician Jack White.

Advertisement
-

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

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.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybertruck construction site

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.

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.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

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.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

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.

Published

on

By

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.

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.

Advertisement
-

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.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

Published

on

By

neuralink-patient-registry-volunteers

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.

Advertisement
-

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.

Continue Reading