Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla Tales: How a Model 3 led to the perfect proposal

[Credit: Matthew Piccolo via Stacy Felan/Twitter]

Published

8 years ago

on

If there is one thing that Texas-based engineering student Matthew Piccolo and his girlfriend Jessica Kuzma have in common, it is their love for Tesla’s electric cars. For Matthew, he was sure that she was the one. Thus, when it came to ask Jessica the all-important question, he knew he had to come up with something that both of them would appreciate and remember in the years to come.

That would be the Tesla Model 3. Using one of the compact electric car’s Easter Eggs, Matthew decided to propose to Jessica right as she sat in the driver’s seat. The proposal, which happened during a rainy Texas day, was nothing short of perfect.

“Thanks, Elon Musk, for building a car that makes such an awesome wingman for a proposal!” Matthew wrote in a Twitter post featuring the event.

Matthew chatted with Teslarati about his and Jessica’s Tesla tale, and it is something that is incredibly sweet. Both he and Jessica are college students, and thus, they cannot afford one of Tesla’s luxury electric cars for now. Being close to graduating from his engineering degree, Matthew plans to help his now-fiance go through medical school. After that, they plan on buying their dream cars — a Tesla Model X and a Model 3.

Matthew wanted his proposal to incorporate his and Jessica’s “thing,” and he also wanted it to be creative and fun. His dad, for one, took great lengths when he proposed to his mother, buying cracker jacks for her every week and hiding the engagement ring as the prize inside the final pack. After brainstorming about his proposal, Matthew found something perfect on Turo — a white Tesla Model 3, which just happens to have a sketchpad Easter Egg.

Advertisement

“I just knew that’s how I would do it,” he said.

 

Matthew and Jessica saw their first Model 3 in the wild a few months ago outside her apartment complex, and both pretty much fell in love with the vehicle. According to Matthew, seeing the Model 3 in person after hearing about it for so long was “something else.” After finding the electric car on Turo, Matthew began to drop some hints to his fiance-to-be. He first told her that he had bought a Model 3, an idea that Jessica warmed up to eventually. According to Matthew, she eventually thought that “Model 3” was a code for “engagement ring.”

“She thought whenever I said ‘Model 3,’ that was code for ‘engagement ring.’ Little did she know I actually bought a Model 3, but only for a day. That’s how I got the surprise that I wanted out of the proposal,” he said.

Matthew chose July 4 as the date for his proposal. He and Jessica drove around the rental white Model 3, and according to Matthew, “she and I loved it,” despite the rainy weather. When Jessica saw the message on the white Model 3’s sketchpad Easter Egg, she knew her answer. As could be seen in the couple’s Twitter posts, she said yes, and it was the sweetest of proposals, done in a rainy Texas afternoon and besides a vehicle that both hopes to own one day.

Advertisement

Matthew states that it would be great to have a Tesla Model X carry them away during their wedding, similar to a Tesla-themed wedding we covered earlier this year. The engineering student also states that he and Jessica love the idea of using a different-colored Model 3 for a baby announcement in the future. At that point in their lives, Matthew hopes that they would already have their very own Model 3. Tesla’s electric cars, after all, make great wedding vehicles, as could be seen in this Model X fleet “performing” in unison for a bride and groom in China. 

Related Topics:

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

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.

Published

17 minutes ago

on

July 22, 2026

By

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.

Advertisement

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

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Published

2 days ago

on

July 20, 2026

By

tesla diner

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story

The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.

Published

6 days ago

on

July 15, 2026

By

The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.

Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot

Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.

The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.

Continue Reading