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Tesla Cybertruck sure looks similar to NASA’s Mars rover concept
Elon Musk’s “Blade Runner” Cybertruck may only be a couple days away from being unveiled to the world, but the vehicle, from its final specs and design, remains a mystery. The Tesla CEO has stated that the vehicle will not look like a traditional pickup truck, and this has been confirmed by teasers from the company and clever Easter Eggs hidden in the CYBRTRK event’s invitation and the vehicle’s stylized logo.
Considering that Musk has stated that the Tesla Cybertruck will look like an armored personnel carrier (APC) from the future, it’s difficult to not see the potential similarities between the vehicle and NASA’s Mars Concept Rover, which was unveiled back in 2017. NASA’s Mars Rover concept looks a lot like an APC from the future, and it looks very tough. It’s massive at 28 feet long, its ground clearance is no joke, and its modular structure allows it to perform a variety of tasks on the harsh environment of the Red Planet.
Quite interestingly, Tesla’s CYBRTRK seems to have some design cues that may very well be similar to that of NASA’s Mars Rover Concept. Tesla’s Easter Eggs show the Cybertruck with a smooth sloping hood, high ground clearance, and an APV-like silhouette. The similarities between the two vehicles’ design (at least based on what Tesla’s Easter Eggs have shown so far) are so notable that one can’t be faulted for speculating that the CYBRTRK may be used by Elon Musk’s companies not just as a disruptive pickup on Earth; it may also be used as a basis for a potential SpaceX Mars Rover.
This sounds very much like a statement from a sci-fi novel, but considering Musk’s habit of doing the unorthodox and implausible, a double-purpose heavy-duty vehicle may actually make sense. Musk likely prefers to have as much overlap between Tesla and SpaceX’s technologies, after all. Last September, for example, Musk stated that Teslas have the potential to work in other planets. “Well, actually, Teslas will work on Mars. You can just drive them, pretty much, because electric cars don’t need oxygen, they don’t need air. So you can just drive them around, no problem,” Musk said during SpaceX’s Starship Q&A session.
That being said, creating a crewed Mars Rover from the CYBRTRK’s platform would be incredibly challenging. For a Mars Rover project, SpaceX and Tesla would most likely focus on making the vehicle as light as possible. This is due to the Rover being part of a payload that gets sent to space. Payloads are very expensive, and thus, equipment from the CYBRTRK that’s useful on Earth will likely not be relevant for a vehicle designed for Mars. Performance is also pretty irrelevant in a crewed rover. If Tesla were to design a crewed Mars rover based on the Cybertruck, it would have to create massive modifications to the vehicle in itself, from its battery cooling systems to its equipment.
This, of course, would be a pretty challenging endeavor on both Tesla and SpaceX’s part. The difficulties of creating a vehicle capable of traversing a foreign planet from the platform of an Earth-based truck are no joke, after all. Things do get a bit easier if SpaceX ends up using the CYBRTRK platform to create an unmanned Mars Rover.
Tesla has a lot of experience in autonomous driving, and this could play very well into its advantage if Elon Musk’s private space firm decides to deploy unmanned rovers to explore the Red Planet. With this concept in mind, a tough, lightweight vehicle that’s loaded to the teeth with tech and based on the CYBRTRK platform could make sense. Tesla and SpaceX would still have to overcome massive challenges in creating a space-capable land vehicle from a pickup truck platform, but there’s no denying that the electric car maker’s expertise in designing and making EVs can very well make an affordable, reliable unmanned Mars Rover feasible.
Inasmuch as these ideas may sound implausible, it should be noted that a Mars Rover project between Tesla and SpaceX will likely not strain either company. The number of rovers needed for the initial years of a Mars mission, crewed or unmanned, will likely be very small, perhaps an order of magnitude less than the rollout of the original Tesla Roadster. Thus, both companies could innovate to the limit based on the CYBRTRK platform and it would not be a difficulty at all. The size of a CYBRTRK-based rover may not even be much of an issue, provided that SpaceX’s Starship rollout goes off without problems.
Tesla deserves a lot of credit for keeping the CYBRTRK a secret until today. Considering its futuristic cues and Elon Musk’s fond references to the vehicle being a truck worthy of a sci-fi set, the pickup truck may very well be the machine that bridges Tesla and SpaceX, at least to some degree. Even if the only parts of the Cybertruck that can be used for a Mars Rover are its chassis and powertrain, such an overlap will still be incredibly useful. Such ideas are crazy, but they may also be classic Elon Musk.
Tesla made a dramatic change to the Online Design Studio to show its plans for Full Self-Driving, a major part of the company’s plans moving forward, as CEO Elon Musk has been extremely clear on the direction moving forward.
With Tesla taking a stand and removing the ability to purchase Full Self-Driving outright next month, it is already taking steps to initiate that with owners and potential buyers.
On Thursday night, the company updated its Online Design Studio to reflect that in a new move that now lists the three purchase options that are currently available: Monthly Subscription, One-Time Purchase, or Add Later:
🚨 Check out the change Tesla made to its Online Design Studio:
It now lists the Monthly Subscription as an option for Full Self-Driving
It also shows the outright purchase option as expiring on February 14 pic.twitter.com/pM6Svmyy8d
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
This change replaces the former option for purchasing Full Self-Driving at the time of purchase, which was a simple and single box to purchase the suite outright. Subscriptions were activated through the vehicle exclusively.
However, with Musk announcing that Tesla would soon remove the outright purchase option, it is clearer than ever that the Subscription plan is where the company is headed.
The removal of the outright purchase option has been a polarizing topic among the Tesla community, especially considering that there are many people who are concerned about potential price increases or have been saving to purchase it for $8,000.
This would bring an end to the ability to pay for it once and never have to pay for it again. With the Subscription strategy, things are definitely going to change, and if people are paying for their cars monthly, it will essentially add $100 per month to their payment, pricing some people out. The price will increase as well, as Musk said on Thursday, as it improves in functionality.
I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve.
The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD). https://t.co/YDKhXN3aaG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2026
Those skeptics have grown concerned that this will actually lower the take rate of Full Self-Driving. While it is understandable that FSD would increase in price as the capabilities improve, there are arguments for a tiered system that would allow owners to pay for features that they appreciate and can afford, which would help with data accumulation for the company.
Musk’s new compensation package also would require Tesla to have 10 million active FSD subscriptions, but people are not sure if this will move the needle in the correct direction. If Tesla can potentially offer a cheaper alternative that is not quite unsupervised, things could improve in terms of the number of owners who pay for it.
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Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla makes dramatic change to Online Design Studio to show FSD plans
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
