Lifestyle
Tesla is going to light solar on fire
Here we go again!
AC verses DC, much like Mac verses PC, is a tale as old as time. Battles fought, but the war never won. We use both everyday depending on the use and application. Each current has its place.
Energy is a pretty hot topic these days and solar is poised to become the next great battleground for the Current War. Much like it has always been, most people spend little time thinking about electrical currents. They plug something into something else and it typically just works. EV and solar aficionados on the other hand are keenly aware of the difference.
Here is a general and very basic reminder of the difference between the two currents: Typical solar panels, by their nature, have a direct current (DC) output. Household circuits and electric utility service lines use alternating current (AC). An inverter converts DC from a solar panel into household AC. String inverters handle the current conversion for a group of panels, while micro-inverters convert the current for each individual panel. Some panel manufacturers offer micro-inverters mounted on each panels and designate them as AC panels. In general, these two configurations have similar efficiency but offer unique sets of benefits for how they are used, installed, and maintained. It is important to note that each time current is converted to AC from DC and vice verse, there are losses in efficiency.
Batteries for solar arrays are similar to the panels in the sense that they are also DC by nature. These too need an inverter to get from DC to AC. There are even some that are packaged with built-in charger/inverters and marketed as “AC batteries”.
It is widely accepted that batteries are integral to the viability of solar as sustainable energy solution. Additionally, the best place for solar arrays are at their point of use, i.e. homes, office buildings, and garages. Battery storage is the key component for bridging the gap of time between energy production and use.
In a residential application the Current War is a matter of how far DC should be carried into a home, when and where it should be converted, and how many times it needs converted.
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As a challenge for manufacturers and system designers, every system configuration needs to be unique to the user’s needs and goals. Some solar manufacturers have addressed the different complexities by converting everything to AC as quickly as possible. This makes a system very easy to configure, install, and expand. Each panel has a micro-inverter that essentially ties into a household AC system directly. “AC batteries” compliment this system by also tying into the house AC system directly. The generation and storage can both be easily scaled up or down based on a user’s needs. Working with AC is considered safer than with DC, which add to the reasons for why this method is appealing. The downside comes from converting current twice between the panels and the batteries, resulting in a slight reduction in efficiency.
Ironically, Tesla is expected to make a big push for a very DC-focused system, integrating a bunch of functions and elements. Nikola Tesla might be turning in his grave. Their goal is to limit the current conversion to a single point at the most downstream point possible, immediately before entering the household AC system.
Everything but the motor and onboard charger in a Tesla vehicle uses DC. Supercharging is achieved through DC and bypassing the onboard charger. The Tesla Powerwall is DC. Solar panel output is DC. It’s pretty obvious why Tesla is growing it’s DC ecosystem.
Energy generation and storage stay on the same side of the inverter. Additionally, Tesla is expected to switch another element to the DC side; the vehicle wall charger. Removing the current conversion bottlenecks will enable the vehicle to charge directly from the DC home battery to the car’s DC battery. I like to think of it as a dam exploding and releasing it’s reservoir of electrons, turning a trickling stream into a raging river!
Speculation is also swirling around the idea of vehicle-to-grid power. This would open a whole new realm of possibilities. It’s hard to say what use Tesla will make of this technology, but it could be possible to use your Tesla vehicle battery to power your home if the grid fails, or even send energy back to grid during demand spikes.
For comparison, lets look at how an AC-focused system would compare to a DC-focused system in everyday use for a house with a Tesla vehicle from the vantage of an electron (keep in mind that these two examples hardly represent the entire spectrum):
Current Conversion Points:
AC:
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- Solar panel generates DC current
- Unused mid-day Solar DC current converted to household AC at the panel
- Household AC converted to DC at the house battery as excess storage
- House battery DC converted back to household AC at night to charge your vehicle
- Household AC converted to DC in the vehicles onboard charger and sent to vehicle battery
DC:
- Solar panel generates DC current. Unused mid-day solar DC sent to house battery as excess storage. Then the same current flows from your house battery to your car battery.
Zero conversions in the DC ecosystem compared to four conversions in the AC ecosystem. No loss of efficiency. No bottlenecks. Pretty slick, right?
Yeah, I didn’t address what happens when your DC house battery is low and you draw from the grid and need an AC to DC conversion. Tesla is expected to seamlessly integrate this capability into their system. One conversion is still better than four.
Both systems will have their share of advocates, and neither of them should be seen as universally ‘wrong’. It comes down to which configuration would best suit the needs and goals of its user. One major comparison between the two systems is the number of components and the likelihood of complete system failure should one single component stop working.
With an AC system, you have a lot of conversion points, but they are fairly independent. If one fails, the rest still work and your system can still function.
With a DC system, you may have one single inverter. If it fails, your entire system fails.
With varying degrees of grid reliability or “prepper” mindfulness, the spectrum of system variations can address every need. The Tesla DC ecosystem will be best used by Tesla vehicle owners. The list of which is about to explode. Not unlike that electron dam.
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.
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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
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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.
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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
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