Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 performance put to the test on Laguna Seca raceway
The Tesla Model 3 got pushed to its limits at the world famous Laguna Seca Raceway recently, depicting what could very well be the electric car’s first real-world high-performance test.
Model 3 owner Matt Crowley decided to take his electric car to the Laguna Seca Raceway after his track car, a Porsche Cayman GT4, ended up in the shop for repairs before his scheduled run.
As noted by Crowley in his video description, his Model 3 was almost completely stock, with the electric car getting improved handling by way of 1.5-inch ‘moderate’ dual rate performance springs from Tesla aftermarket tuner Unplugged Performance.
In a post on the Tesla Motors Club, Crowley admitted that he expected the Model 3 to run full power for about two laps before the electric car’s software limits its performance. Much to Crowley’s surprise, however, the Model 3 ran nine laps (his entire session) without slowing down.
“The first session of the day had NO battery power limitations! Nine laps without slowing down! Yes!”
The fact that the Model 3 was able to handle nine laps on a racetrack without the car’s software limiting its performance is noteworthy. The Model S’ track performance, after all, has been limited greatly by the car’s software, as noted by professional race car driver Robb Holland when he took the full-sized electric sedan around the 12.9-mile Nurburgring.
Teslarati’s “48” Model S race car at Laguna Seca
During the nine laps that he ran on the Laguna Seca Raceway, Crowley noted that he used up 135 miles worth of range on his Model 3. His best lap was a conservative 1:57.50, which, according to rankings on FastestLaps.com, places it within the same range as a Porsche 911 Carrera (1:54.22) and Jeremy Clarkson’s Honda NSX (1:57.00), which the veteran auto host drove on Top Gear Season 7 Episode 6.
While the Model 3 managed to last Crowley’s entire Laguna Seca session without the car limiting its power, the vehicle’s brakes were compromised during the track session. According to Crowley, the car’s brake pads were completely used up by the time he was on his fourth lap. Determined to test his car’s capabilities, however, the Tesla enthusiast opted to continue pushing his Model 3, using the car’s regenerative braking to compensate for the vehicle’s lack of brake pads.
Overall, Crowley believes that if he had a better set of brakes, or if he had better driving skills, he could have easily managed to set a better lap time for his Model 3. The Tesla enthusiast asserted, however, that the car was perfectly balanced and its handling was superb during the entire track session.
As we noted in a previous report, Tesla appears to be steadily hitting its stride with the production of the Model 3, delivering an estimated 4,360 units from January to February, making it the best-selling electric car in the United States in the year so far. Tesla seems to be preparing for the rollout of the dual-motor Model 3 as well, with an AWD variant of the mass market compact electric car spotted in the wild last week.
Watch Crowley’s Laguna Seca run on his Tesla Model 3 below.
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 Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
