Lifestyle
Tesla’s Cybertruck and its ‘nutty’ inspirations are merchandising gold (or silver, rather)
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If you’re not ‘in the know’ on Twitter (as I was not before sitting down to discuss this topic), a Tesla Cybertruck fan has begun capitalizing on the unique design of Elon Musk’s answer to the pickup in the form of 3D printed merchandise. Specifically, this guy is taking preorders for digitized testicles to hang off of Cybertruck’s tow hitch. The effort includes a website with high resolution images of the CAD file design, a Kickstarter campaign, and he’s even caught a full article’s worth of attention of a some online auto publications with the idea including Motor1 and Drivetribe.
The site Tesletter, on the other hand, simply featured the yet-to-be-produced product as a Black Friday gift idea for Tesla owners. Unlike the Cybertruck Nuts item itself, which made me simply gawk and chuckle, the gift list got me thinking. Will the Cybertruck be the design that inspires Tesla’s merchandise to go mainstream?
I mean, most Tesla products that are available are actual items to use on or with your vehicle, not so much deck out the rest of your living space. Everyone has mugs and t-shirts (seriously, everyone with a brand), but you’d hardly consider that level of merchandising in the same realm as something like…say…Harley Davidson. Tesla has done a bit of expansion here with their kid-sized car and die cast models, plus the Starman-Tesla crossover inspired some cool fan-created designs. Yet, still… Something about Harley Davidson has inspired even the most non-biker types to buy items with the branding even though the brand wasn’t “them” at all.
As I write this, I’m suddenly remembering that my friend’s preschooler was at our house yesterday sporting a Harley logo shirt despite her parents being the types to drive an SUV and minivan, work in corporate settings, and wouldn’t dream of ever owning a motorcycle, much less visit biker bars for fun. I’ve personally outfitted my oldest in a Harley-logoed leather jacket as a kid because it was cute, and as a tween, she had a pair of Harley boots that were her prized possession. Other than liking the bikes for 5 minutes as a middle schooler, neither of us have ever even considered owning V-twin-engined transportation, yet we still liked the merchandise.
I wonder if the Cybertruck could have that same sort of effect. I’ve said before that it’s not a truck I’d buy personally because it doesn’t fit my day-to-day lifestyle. However, there are a lot of branded things I buy because they’re cool to me or fit something else in my life (music, other form of entertainment, etc.). I buy my kids stuff featuring the Ninja Turtles frequently, and I even own things with Jem and the Holograms and the Power Rangers on them. I wouldn’t buy a car that was outfitted like April O’Neil’s news van or a truck styled like Megazord, but I would obviously purchase some spinoff merchandise.
The comparison is fair, I think, given the Hollywood inspiration for Cybertruck. Stylish merchandise is only the beginning, too. The tech behind Musk’s brainchild could also go into other products that I and others like me (etc., etc.) might buy. And it’s all in support of Tesla’s brand and mission, still bringing in income to the company to further it, and beyond.
What are your spinoff merch ideas? And…if you’re going to buy a Cybertruck…will you buy Cybertruck Nuts some day?
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 Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
