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Tesla invites Europeans to take ‘Drive To Believe’ challenge: one week with Model S
A new program being offered by Tesla invites residents in select European markets to participate in the company’s latest ‘Drive To Believe’ challenge and win a chance to experience Model S through an extended one week test drive.
Residents of the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, and Ireland that win the challenge will have the opportunity to swap their existing vehicles for a Tesla Model S on specific dates between November 16 and December 31, 2016.
“At Tesla, we believe that it takes driving a Tesla and experiencing its superior performance, safety, and technology, to be convinced. We now want to give you that opportunity as well.”, reads the description on Tesla’s ‘Drive to Believe’ online form.
It’s no secret that Tesla is making a significant investment in expanding its European footprint. CEO Elon Musk recently told investors that the company has plans to expand its battery production into Europe with a second Gigafactory. The company also recently announced that it had acquired top-notch German engineering firm Grohmann Engineering to form a new division aimed at building automated assembly systems, a step towards Musk’s goal of “building the machine that builds the machine”. Continued efforts on scaling Tesla’s European infrastructure while streamlining manufacturing processes and logistics allows the company to position itself ahead of demand.
Meanwhile, programs such as the latest ‘Drive To Believe’ challenge allows the company’s sales arm to focus on driving demand overseas. Secondarily, by having prize winners sign off on terms that would allow Tesla to film their experience with a Model S, the company is able to leverage its Customer Stories program as a tool to build trust among interested buyers and further stimulate sales efforts.
We’ve included the full details of Tesla’s ‘Drive to Believe’ European competition.
TESLA ‘DRIVE TO BELIEVE’ EUROPEAN COMPETITION 2016
1. The promoter
1.1 The promoter is: Tesla Motors Netherlands B.V., Burgemeester Stramanweg 122 (1101 EN), Amsterdam Netherlands (Tesla).
2. The competition
2.1 The title of the competition is TESLA ‘DRIVE TO BELIEVE’.
2.2 Entrants must answer a skill-based question within the space provided in the competition field online at www.tesla.com/drive-to-believe
2.3 The competition will run in one phase. For you to be eligible for the competition, your entry must be submitted between 00:01 on 16th November to 23:59 on 31 December 2016
2.4 You may enter the competition only once.
2.5 All competition entries received after 23:59 on 31 December 2016 will be automatically disqualified from the competition.
2.6 To enter the competition you must fill in all required fields on www.tesla.com/drive-to-believe
2.7 Participation in the competition can only take place at www.tesla.com/drive-to-believe. No applications to enter made in any other manner will be accepted.
2.8 No purchase necessary.
2.9 Tesla will not accept:
(a) responsibility for competition entries that are lost, mislaid, damaged or delayed in transit, regardless of cause, including, for example, as a result of any equipment failure, technical malfunction, systems, satellite, network, server, computer hardware or software failure of any kind; or
(b) proof of transmission as proof of receipt of entry to the competition.
2.10 By submitting a competition entry, you are agreeing to be bound by these terms and conditions.
2.11 The competition entry selection will be based on the entrant’s specific eligibility for the competition. The decision of Tesla (acting reasonably) will be final. Tesla reserves the right to amend the criteria used to judge entries.
2.12 By entering the competition, you hereby warrant that all information submitted by you in your entry is true, accurate and complete in every respect. Tesla reserves the right to verify any information contained in your entry and/or your eligibility to enter the competition.
2.13 Tesla reserve the right in its absolute discretion to disqualify any entrant if it has reasonable grounds to believe that an entrant has breached any of these terms and conditions or any applicable law. Each entrant acknowledges and agrees that any failure to comply with these terms and conditions could lead to Tesla disqualifying that person, without Tesla giving any reason for such disqualification or granting any opportunity for challenge.
2.14 In the event that a prize-winner is disqualified from the competition, Tesla will select an alternative prize-winner in the same manner as the original prize-winner and such selection will be subject to these terms and conditions.
3. Eligibility
3.1 The competition is only open to all residents in the following European markets: UK, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, Ireland
3.2 Entrants must be 25 years of age or above and own a car and hold a valid driver’s license for the market they reside in and enter the competition from.
3.3 Entrants must be able to provide proof of identity.
3.4 Entrants must be willing to be filmed and for all footage and image and voice recordings of their person to be used for Tesla promotional purposes, in all media, globally, in perpetuity for no additional fee or financial remuneration of any kind.
3.5 Any person that is any of the following is not eligible to win the competition:
(a) an employee of Tesla or its holding or subsidiary companies;
(b) an employee of agents or suppliers of Tesla or its holding or subsidiary companies, who are professionally connected with the competition or its administration; or
(c) a member of the immediate families or households of (a) and (b) above.
Tesla reserves the right to disqualify any person that it knows is, or has reasonable grounds to believe is, ineligible for the competition as a result of this condition.
3.6 In entering the competition, you confirm that you are eligible to do so and eligible to claim the prize. Tesla may require you to provide proof that you are eligible to enter the competition.
3.7 Tesla will not accept competition entries that are:
(a) automatically generated by computer;
(b) completed by third parties;
(c) illegible, have been altered, reconstructed, forged or tampered with;
(d) incomplete.
3.8 There is a limit of one entry per person for the duration of the competition. In the event that Tesla discovers or has reasonable grounds to believe that the same person has made multiple entries, such person and any entries made by them shall be disqualified and, if such entrant has already been selected as a prize-winner, an alternative prize-winner will be selected in accordance with condition 2.14
3.9 Tesla reserves all rights to disqualify you if your conduct is contrary to the spirit or intention of the competition or if you engage in political slogans or homophobic language, behaviour of a lewd or explicitly sexual nature or engage in content which is defamatory, obscene, illegal, vulgar, offensive or otherwise unsuitable or infringes others’ rights (including intellectual property rights).
4 The prize
4.1 The prize is as following:
(a) Competition winners must swap their current car for a Tesla Model S for the duration of one week to take place on specific dates Tesla will select between 00:01 on 16th November to 23:59 on 31 December 2016.
4.2 The prize is supplied by Tesla.
4.3 There is no cash alternative for the prize. The prize is not negotiable or transferable.
4.4 In order to claim the prize you must comply with condition 6.
5. Winner announcement
5.1 The winners of the competition will be announced across all media to be selected by Tesla on a date or dates to be selected by Tesla.
5.2 The decision of Tesla is final and no correspondence or discussion will be entered into.
5.3 Tesla will contact the winner personally as soon as Tesla has selected a shortlist of winners.
6. Claiming the prize
6.1 If you are the winner of the prize, you will have 2 days from the Announcement Date to claim the prize. If you do not claim the prize within this timeframe, your claim will become invalid.
6.2 The prize may not be claimed by a third party on your behalf.
6.3 Tesla will make all reasonable efforts to contact the winner. If the winner cannot be contacted or is not available, or has not claimed their prize within 2 days of contact, Tesla reserves the right to offer the prize to the next eligible entrant selected from the correct entries that were received.
6.4 Tesla does not accept any responsibility if you are not able to take up the prize.
6.5 No prize will be awarded where any entrant has committed any form of misconduct (as determined by Tesla in its sole discretion).
7. Limitation of liability
Insofar as is permitted by law, Tesla, its agents or distributors will not in any circumstances be responsible or liable to compensate the winner or accept any liability for any loss, damage, disappointment, personal injury or death occurring as a result of any entrant entering this competition, taking up the prize, or as a result of any entrant winning or not winning any prize, except where it is caused by the negligence of Tesla, its agents or distributors or that of their employees. Your statutory rights are not affected.
8. Ownership and intellectual property rights
8.1 You agree that Tesla (and any third party authorised by Tesla) may use your person, voice and image for any promotional purpose (for example, placing it on the Tesla webpage and social channels for advertising media. You give Tesla (and any third party authorised by Tesla) your irrevocable permission to use, reproduce, publish, display, transmit, copy, amend, store, sell and sub-license your person, voice and image worldwide and in perpetuity for promotional purposes and for the purposes of the competition. Tesla will own the right to your image and voice recordings captured during the duration of the competition.
8.2 By submitting your competition entry, you agree to:
(a) assign to Tesla all your voice and image rights with full title guarantee; and
(b) waive all moral rights,
8.3 You agree that Tesla may, but is not required to, make your personal image and voice recordings available on our social media channels and websites and any other media, whether now known or invented in the future, and in connection with any publicity of the competition. You agree to grant Tesla a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable license, for the full period of any intellectual property rights in your image and voice recordings, to use, display, publish, transmit, copy, edit, alter, store, re-format for such purposes.
9. Data protection and publicity
9.1 If you are the winner of the competition you agree that Tesla may use your name, image, and town or country of residence to announce the winner of this competition and for any other reasonable and related promotional purposes.
9.2 You further agree to participate in any reasonable publicity required by Tesla.
9.3 By entering the competition, you agree that any personal information provided by you with the competition entry may be held and used only by Tesla or their agents and suppliers to administer the competition.
10. General
10.1 If there is any reason to believe that there has been a breach of these terms and conditions, Tesla may, at its sole discretion, reserve the right to exclude you from participating in the competition.
10.2 In the event of any dispute regarding these terms and conditions, the conduct or results of the competition, or any other matter relating to a competition, the decision of Tesla shall be final and unchallengeable and no correspondence or discussion shall be entered into, comment issued, or reason given in respect of any decision made by Tesla.
10.3 Tesla reserves the right to hold void, suspend, cancel, or amend all or any part of the competition where it becomes necessary to do so. Any changes to these terms and conditions, or cancellation of the competition, will be posted on the Tesla website. It is the responsibility of entrants to keep themselves informed as to any changes to the terms and conditions.
10.4 These terms and conditions and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter (including any non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by the laws of the Netherlands and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of The Netherlands.
Tesla has spent years trying to engineer its way out of the automotive paint shop, one of the most expensive, space-consuming, and environmentally costly steps in vehicle manufacturing. With the Cybercab, Tesla confirmed on X this week that a new reaction injection molding process will embed color directly into the panel itself during production.
“Our new reaction injection molding (RIM) process shrinks Cybercab paint cycles from hours to minutes. This cuts those parts’ manufacturing and supply chain emissions by 35% and eliminating 100% of paint volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in traditional paint methods.” noted Tesla.
While the RIM process isn’t necessarily new and has existed since the 1960s, what makes Tesla’s application notable is how it is being used specifically for exterior body panels that traditionally required a separate paint process after forming.
Tesla’s RIM approach integrates the color directly into the panel material during the molding process itself. The pigment is part of the polymer mix injected into the mold, meaning the panel comes out of the mold already colored, with no separate paint application required. The clear coat or protective layer can be applied at the mold stage or through a much faster post-process than traditional multi-stage painting. Tesla claims this compresses what was a multi-hour paint cycle into minutes per panel.
Tesla’s obsession with killing the paint shop is one of the most consistent threads running through the company’s manufacturing philosophy going back years. As far back as 2018, Musk was trimming paint color options to simplify production, tweeting at the time: “Moving 2 of 7 Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing.” Two years later, in a 2020 Automotive News interview, Musk laid out his broader vision, saying he believed Tesla factories could one day be 1,000 times more efficient than conventional plants, and pointing to the paint shop as one of the biggest sources of waste, cost, and complexity. The Cybertruck was the most extreme expression of that thinking. Tesla chose an unpainted stainless steel exterior partly because it would eliminate the need for a $200 million paint facility at Gigafactory Texas. The stainless approach proved harder and more expensive than anticipated, but the underlying ambition never changed. The Cybercab is what happens when that same ambition meets a manufacturing process that delivers on it.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
Elon Musk
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
California passed a $135 million EV incentive that rewards Rivian and Lucid while sidelining Tesla
California just drew a line in the EV incentive sand to put Tesla on the wrong side of it. The state recently passed a $135 million program offering first-time electric vehicle buyers a direct incentive with no application required, but the rules were written in a way that leaves Tesla at a structural disadvantage compared to Rivian and Lucid.
The program caps eligible vehicles at $50,000 for new EVs and $25,000 for used ones. That pricing threshold rules out a significant portion of Tesla’s lineup, though some lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y configurations would still qualify. California-based automakers are exempt from the price cap entirely, regardless of what their vehicles cost. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, and Lucid, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, both benefit from that exemption. Rivian’s R2 starts at roughly $45,000 but has versions above the cap. Lucid’s Air and Gravity start at $70,990 and $79,990 respectively, well above any threshold a non-California company would face.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla built its reputation and a significant portion of its early market share in California, where EV adoption has consistently led the nation. The company operates its original factory in Fremont, California, and the state was home to Tesla’s headquarters for most of its existence. That changed in 2021 when Tesla moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Since then, the relationship between the company and California Governor Gavin Newsom has been openly adversarial, with Musk and Newsom trading public criticism on multiple occasions.
California’s EV incentive landscape has shifted repeatedly in recent years, and Tesla has previously lost eligibility for state-level programs as its vehicles exceeded income-adjusted price thresholds. The federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which Tesla models have qualified for and lost depending on policy cycles, is no longer available after it expired without renewal, making state-level programs more meaningful to buyers than they have been in years.
The practical impact for buyers is more nuanced than the headline suggests. California residents purchasing a Tesla under $50,000 for the first time can still access the incentive. But the exemption written for California-based manufacturers is a structural advantage that rewards where a company plants its headquarters flag rather than where it builds its products, and Tesla moved that flag to Texas.
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
