Lifestyle
Tesla leads the EV charge, but others are getting the credit
Tesla has an overwhelming amount of influence on the automotive sector, and for a company that has only been building cars for 12 years, that’s pretty impressive. Not only has the company shown that cars can be powered by batteries and still be cool, but it is changing other, more subtle details. For example, cars don’t need buttons and knobs for every function they hold. Other car companies are adopting minimalistic designs, simply because Tesla showed that they are just as, if not more, effective as all those annoying buttons that used to dominate car interiors.
In addition to those subtle details, the overall adoption of the EV sector by consumers can basically be attributed to Tesla’s mass appeal. While Elon Musk has always said that branding is dumb, Tesla has a great “brand.” Forever, people thought that EVs were these whining cars that could only go 80 miles before you’d have to plug it in again. But Tesla is different. Tesla has a mystique about it, a certain brand appeal. People look at $35,000 Teslas the same way they do a $200,000 Lamborghini.
But what might be more impressive about Tesla than its appeal to consumers is the fact that car companies that have been around for over 100 years are chasing after a 12-year-old car company run by a guy who loves video games, silly jokes, and is more interactive with followers than any other CEO on the planet.
The fact of the matter is, Tesla changed the game. While they might not have invented the first electric car, they made the idea better. While they may not be the first company to make a semi-autonomous car, they made the idea better. And while they may not have built the first battery that ever went into an EV, they made the idea better.
This is a preview of our weekly newsletter. Each week I go ‘Beyond the News’ and handcraft a special edition that includes my thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future. A big thanks to our long-time supporters and new subscribers! Thank you.
Now, everyone is hopping on board. This is where I ask: Do you think that Volkswagen, GM, Ford, and others would be developing EV tech if Tesla never existed?
I don’t think so. I think this is where examining the influence on the automotive market as a whole that Tesla has had so far is worth noting. But when you have this influence, there come some negatives.
This week, Tesla news has been flooded by reviews and examples of the Full Self-Driving Beta. It’s been out for about a week and a half, and we’ve seen the self-driving tech in a variety of settings and environments. We all know that this is a rough draft of what will be released in a few months to more owners, and we know that there are going to be critiques and criticisms about what Tesla could have done differently.
However, there are already reviews, like the one from Consumer Reports, claiming that Tesla Autopilot is a “distant-second” to GM’s Super Cruise. Unbelievably, the Tesla community has come to expect that mainstream publications and journalism outlets will side with other companies. It is something that has not surprised anyone when it comes to Tesla and another carmaker.
Interestingly, Super Cruise was not widely talked about by media outlets until Tesla’s FSD Beta was released. Now, the idea that GM has this all-capable Super Cruise that is so much better than Autopilot is supposed to be accepted. If this was the case, why was nobody really mentioning Super Cruise before? All we heard about was Tesla Autopilot.
Another case of Tesla “leading the herd” and influencing other car companies, is batteries. When Tesla started talking about a million-mile battery a few months back, everyone outside the community was skeptical. Telling family and friends about their developments was like trying to convince them Santa Claus is real. They just weren’t buying it.
However, GM then said that they were closer to a million-mile battery than ever before. Did they outline their plan? No. Did they say where they were sourcing material from? No. They just said, “We have a battery. It’s better than Tesla’s.” That was that, and everyone outside the community bought it.
What does Tesla do? Has an entire day devoted to batteries and cell development. Showing the new 4680 cells, breaking down how it will be better but more affordable, and how it will be on par with gas car pricing was something to admire. However, after showing the cell, how they were building it, and outlining that it was already being produced right down the street from Fremont, people still didn’t believe it.
GM was all talk, and it was believable. Tesla showed it, and it was unbelievable.
GM watches Tesla go from “graveyard-bound” to inspiration in pursuit of million-mile battery
Media will go after what is familiar and side with the established and long-lasting carmakers before it will ever admit that what Tesla is doing is groundbreaking in every sense of the word. With FSD, we see that Tesla is head and shoulders above GM with Super Cruise. However, these MSM outlets continue to give GM credit, stating that Super Cruise is better than Autopilot, and it isn’t close.
I know that this is likely due to money. It usually has to do with that. But the fact is, Tesla made all of these topics relevant, and the company truly gets no credit. Tesla made EVs relevant, but other car companies are getting the hype, even if their tech doesn’t even exist yet. Tesla made battery cell development relevant, but other companies are getting the credit and the praise, even if they don’t have an EV in production. Tesla made self-driving cars a real possibility. While Waymo was around, GM’s Super Cruise is now being talked about all because Tesla released the FSD Beta.
The reality is, legacy automakers are becoming relevant off of Tesla’s name because they’re following whatever Tesla does. None of these car companies would have changed their strategies if Tesla didn’t exist. This is all proof that Tesla is the most powerful car company on the planet, and everyone is chasing them.
The influence is more than just consumers. It is about an industry as a whole, which is now being controlled by a company that was “graveyard bound,” according to a former GM executive. Now, GM, along with the rest of the automotive world, is chasing after the little guy.
I use this newsletter to share my thoughts on what is going on in the Tesla world. If you want to talk to me directly, you can email me or reach me on Twitter. I don’t bite, be sure to reach out!
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.
Tesla’s Roadster appearance at SpaceX has merger watchers talking
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are trying to shut Starlink out before FCC vote
