Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3s dominate Pikes Peak Exhibition class with twin podium finishes
This year’s Pikes Peak Hill Climb initially had three Teslas slated to take on the legendary and extremely dangerous mountain. But just like everything in the world of Tesla and Elon Musk, things usually do not turn out as expected. One by one, the treacherous mountain seemingly picked off the Teslas, until there was a day when only one Model 3, driven by two-time Pikes Peak winner Blake Fuller, was running in the qualifiers.
Yet, as Sunday’s event would show, Fuller and his near-stock Model 3 Performance were not fated to complete the Pikes Peak Hill Climb alone. Thanks to a near-inhuman effort, another Model 3, piloted by veteran racer Randy Pobst and modified by EV tuning house Unplugged Performance, would rise from the dead and get ready for the mountain in time for the race. By the end of the day, the twin Teslas stood at the number one and two positions in the Exhibition class, and the competition was not even close.
Blake Fuller and his Model 3 Performance completed the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in 11:02.802, cementing his place at the top of the Exhibition class. At a close second was Randy Pobst and his repaired Unplugged Performance Model 3 Ascension-R, which completed the run in 11:04.131. The closest competitor was Scott Birdsall, who ranked third in his 1949 Ford F1 with a time of 11:24.065.
A community-driven victory
What is rather remarkable was that Blake Fuller’s first-place win at Pikes Peak’s Exhibition class was a community effort. In a post-race interview, the veteran racer stated that funding was tight due to the pandemic, but thankfully, the Tesla community rallied together to provide him with a car for the event. A couple donated their Model 3 Performance, and the rest of the expenses were raised by about 150 individuals and private businesses who were willing to help out.
As noted by Fuller in the interview, the Model 3’s amazing feat this year would not have been possible without help from the Tesla community. Help from notable individuals such as Zac and Jesse from the Now You Know YouTube channel, who spread the word about the community-driven effort, also provided great momentum for Fuller and the Model 3’s participation at this year’s Pikes Peak Hill Climb.
A comeback from the dead
Unplugged Performance went on a roller coaster ride this week. With the father of Track Mode behind the wheel of its modified Model 3 Ascension-R, the UP team and driver Randy Pobst dominated the Exhibition class on the first day of qualifiers. However, tragedy struck on the second day after the Model 3 hit a big bump on the road at speeds that were too high to recover. The car was practically totaled because of the accident, and all signs pointed to dreams of climbing Pikes Peak in the Model 3 Ascension R being over. But this was not to be the case. With sleepless nights and round-the-clock work, the Unplugged team and numerous Tesla community members pitched in to revive the heavily-damaged Model 3. Despite all the odds, the Unplugged team pulled through, and a race-ready Model 3 was ready for Sunday’s event.
The Model 3 Ascension R blazed through the first section of the mountain seven seconds quicker than its sibling, but over the course of the climb, the vehicle experienced battery heating issues that throttled its output. This unfortunately resulted in the Model 3 Ascension R climbing the majority of Pikes Peak at half power. Despite all these headwinds, Randy Pobst was able to complete the run just 2 seconds behind Fuller. That’s pretty admirable for a car that was totaled just a couple days before, and a car whose performance is severely reduced. In a post-race interview, Pobst noted that there is so much more that the Model 3 Ascension R could do, and he hopes to drive the vehicle up the mountain again. “I’ve never driven such a great car at Pikes Peak,” Pobst said.
The veteran racer is right. In 2019, Pobst took a 2019 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat up Pikes Peak, finishing second place in the Exhibition class. His time with the over 700-hp Hellcat was 11:57.874, over 50 seconds slower than his throttled, repaired Model 3 Ascension R.
A warning to gasoline cars
With the impressive performance of Tesla’s electric cars at Pikes Peak this year, the auto industry’s transition to EVs has never been more evident. After all, if a near-stock Model 3 Performance and a repaired, reassembled Model 3 Ascension R could dominate Pikes Peak’s Exhibition class, then there is very little doubt that high-profile motoring events would likely become more and more populated by all-electric cars in the near future.
Watch Blake Fuller and Randy Pobst’s post-race interviews in the videos below.
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.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.
Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.
Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.
Wasn’t expecting this 🫡
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 9, 2026
This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.
Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.
Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
Why Elon Musk’s target date for buying an Optimus robot is harder than it sounds
Elon Musk drops a Thanksgiving hint about Starship’s biggest test yet
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
