Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 fan-made commercial invokes the elusive ‘soul’ of electric cars
Tesla fan and filmmaker Jono Seneff once drove his father’s Model S 75D, and it gave him an experience unlike any other. Jono knew the specs of the vehicle prior to his drive, such as its 0-60 mph time, its battery capacity, and its range per charge. But once he stepped on the accelerator, he realized that Tesla’s electric cars are more than just fun facts and figures — they are about that special feeling that one experiences when trying out something new for the first time.
These thoughts formed half of the inspiration behind the filmmaker’s latest project — a fan-made commercial for the Tesla Model 3 recently shared on Jono’s YouTube channel. The 90-second commercial, which would not be out of place beside the best entries in Tesla’s Project Loveday contest last year, deals with the theme of feeling, and of experiencing (and re-experiencing) things. Jono provided some details about his fan-made Model 3 commercial to Teslarati through email, where he discussed the inspiration behind his project, as well as some fun Tesla-themed Easter Eggs he included in the ad.
Jono notes that his fan-made Model 3 commercial was inspired by a dream he once had of a deaf organist blasting music in the desert, as well as his personal experiences with a Model S. A Long Range RWD Model 3 was used as the main vehicle in the ad, and it was shot with the help of volunteers from his fellow USC cinema graduate students. Ultimately, the project took a long time to accomplish, with work starting back in April in and around Los Angeles.
Following is an excerpt from the filmmaker’s message describing the project.
“My dad got the Model S 75D about two years ago. Over the holidays I was able to drive it. Everything that I had read about Tesla – the 0-60 stats, the production process, how the batteries work, all of that just fell away as I was pulling away from the stoplight. There is that inevitable stupid grin that creeps onto your face when you accelerate like that for the first time. This all made me think about what a Tesla commercial should really be about. It’s about feeling something. It’s not about knowing facts and figures; it’s about that uncontrollable stupid grin on your face as you silently accelerate out of a turn.
“I ended up trying to combine that feeling with this deaf Beethoven character from my dreams who longed to experience music again. Beethoven famously would put his body against the piano to feel the vibrations of his late compositions. Although Beethoven and my main character weren’t able to hear music again, they were able to feel it. In the end, the unperformed sheet music or the statistical data on Tesla’s website are ultimately unrelated to that feeling that can only be experienced. And trust me — whipping around the desert in the RWD Model 3 was just that. In fact, the final shot of the spec is actually me in the car by myself just gunning it towards the horizon.”
Jono also mentioned that the commercial includes some fun Easter Eggs related to the company’s other products and one of CEO Elon Musk’s favorite literature. Among these is a Powerwall 2 battery (placed cleverly at the latter half of the commercial), as well as references to characters in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series.
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This particular fan-made Tesla Model 3 commercial is notable in the way that it invokes that all-elusive “soul” referenced by car enthusiasts about vehicles they are fond of. Being absent of any engine noise, Tesla’s electric cars have been criticized for having no soul by critics. This particular point was highlighted by Porsche in its teaser for the Taycan (formerly known as the Mission E) earlier this year, when the German veteran automaker noted that their upcoming all-electric sedan and Model S competitor would be an electric car with soul.
“All Porsche models have something in common: They have a soul. A certain feeling you get as a driver as soon as you get behind the wheel. Soon, the Porsche Taycan is coming. And although his heart is powered by a different force – electricity – the soul, once again, is the same.”
As this recent fan-made Model 3 commercial shows, Tesla’s vehicles do have a soul, though it is not found in the form of an angry internal combustion engine roaring to life as the driver presses on the accelerator. Rather, it is an entirely different feeling — one that could only be fully understood and experienced behind the wheel of Tesla’s electric cars.
Watch Jono Seneff’s fan-made Tesla Model 3 commercial in the video below.
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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