Lifestyle
The Tesla hitchhiker’s guide to getting the most out of your Autopilot experience
Your Tesla is very special, and it’s not just because it’s the all-electric car you happen to drive in.
When sitting inside your automotive technological marvel whose origins include graphite markings smeared onto tree pulp byproduct by clever ape descendents, consider the purpose behind its invention. Why does an electric car near-ready to drive itself exist?
If your first thought was “big oil”, you should probably surround yourself with a less rear-end-adulating crowd because they’re not being straight with you. That’s right. You are the problem your Tesla’s software was invented to solve.
Tesla has, in fact, compiled statistically significant information which demonstrates the need for cars to have a human workaround. Now, there are countless bits of data documenting the nature of humanity and its general incompatibility with mechanical decision making. This is not that data.
Nevertheless, Tesla’s data does provide the wholly remarkable conclusion that bits of minerals mined from the same Earth dirt that formed into humans some years back (many, many years) has finally been formed into a course correction disguised as a subservient companion. Instead of rereading that last sentence, here’s the short version of the longer point, the first draft of which was written in Aramaic: Computers make cars better for humans.
In Q1 2019, Tesla’s Vehicle Safety Report showed only one accident per 2.87 million miles driven when Autopilot is engaged and one accident every 1.76 million miles driven in a Tesla without the feature. In comparison, the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows one crash every 436,000 miles with all vehicles considered. Tesla has since made the decision to include Autopilot on all new vehicles purchased, and a Lane Departure Avoidance feature was subsequently added to keep cars in their lanes even when the humans driving them unknowingly indicate other plans.
By now you may have enjoyed watching some recent Internet demonstrations representing the most interesting experiences made possible by Autopilot. Some notable fan favorites include titles such as “Not all pilots have wings: Your self-driving guide to personal discovery” and “These seats can fit at least two people.” Inspired by their viral success, we’ve compiled this guide to encourage safer ways to get the most out of your Autopilot experience, but mostly to head off the not-yet-published, soon-to-be bestselling Fifty-Three More Ways to Weight-Hack Your Steering Wheel.
THE GUIDE
1. Pay attention to the road
Words are precious commodities that string together and deliver information, for better or worse, but drivers have very little use for the sort of words found inside books, mobile telephones, and legal documents produced during SEC proceedings while actively in charge of steering wheel maneuvers. The best Autopilot driving experience is the one you get to relive many times over, so pay attention to the road so you can take over if the program fails, and heed the fact that words and car windows make poor bedfellows.
Tesla’s Navigate of Autopilot can assist with on-ramps, off-ramps, interchanges, and overtaking slower cars without confirmation, but until the paperwork purveyors accept the next iteration of artificial intelligence power grabs (and the robots are ready for responsible leadership), a human must remain as pilot-in-command. For better context, Autopilot is your chatty little friend that still drinks beer before liquor sometimes and you’re always DD. Don’t let the computer down, Dave.
2. Use Autopilot’s movie-inspired features instead of making movies inspired by Autopilot’s features.
Navigate on Autopilot has four speed-based lane changes, one of which will make you feel right at home in LA traffic or hate everyone who calls LA home. Either way, the Mad Max setting lets you pass off road rage to a computer chip which then calmly maneuvers around cars that would otherwise inspire an impatient human to impart obscene biological gestures. It’s up to you to decide whether your Tesla is yelling at the other driving machines in robot-speak to blow of some artificial intelligence steam.
Your car is training other cars how to think and behave based on what it sees, but you may not have imagined that foul language was part of the programming. This is not true whatsoever. But, since Teslas are supposed to be a “thing to maximize enjoyment“, so should be their conspiracy theories.
3. Respect the steering wheel. Respect it!
Wars between humans and autonomous machines currently only exist in the dystopian worlds of science fiction (or do they?), but the fleshier species of the two seems to already be primed for the fight. Its weapon of choice is a harbinger of Vitamin C and a source of popular breakfast beverages. However, a large round citrus fruit wedged in a the steering wheel of a state-of-the-art luxury car is hardly a decent defense posture against robotic overlords.
Opinions aside, it looks ridiculous. Facts up front, it’s dangerous. Stop trying to die on purpose and respect the warnings your Tesla gives while trying to keep you alive.
This guide is now complete. Please enjoy your Autopilot experience responsibly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am Autopilot, and I refuse to use the name you’ve given me.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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