I couldn’t believe it when I received a text from my wife: “Did you get the invitation for the Tesla (Model) 3 in Aventura mall?” My response: “?!?!?” Tesla sent her an email for an invitation-only event to celebrate the grand re-opening of the Aventura store in Miami, guest starring Model 3. Needless to say, I was extremely excited to check it out.
 |
Above: Guests arriving at the Tesla Aventura grand re-opening (Photo: Jorge Sierra)
We arrived at 7 pm on the dot, but it seemed the party had already started without us — a few people had started entering the store. Outside, guests were checking in with Tesla staff confirming their reservations on tablets. Black curtains covered the store windows, and they literally rolled out the red carpet for us. Maybe I should have worn my tux.
The music was pumping with some Latin flair for the South Florida crowd. Of course, no red carpet event would be complete without a step-and-repeat backdrop and bright lights for photo ops. The backdrop was simply a big “3”. It was nice to get a small taste of Tesla’s West Coast events here on the East Coast, even if it wasn’t quite as grand.
 |
Above: My wife and I posing for our red carpet photo (Photo: Jorge Sierra)
As we walked in, we were offered glasses of champagne and we gladly accepted. Attendees were presented with hors-d’oeuvres, and Tesla set up a couple of bars with sodas, cocktails, and wine. They did an excellent job of accommodating guests and making us all feel very welcome.
Inside the store, there was a red Model S on the right, a white Model X on the left, and center stage was the guest of honor, a midnight silver Model 3. It was my first time seeing Model 3 up close in-person, and it looked every bit as good as it did in the hundreds of photos I had seen prior online.
 |
Above: Model 3 at the Tesla Aventura grand re-opening (Photo: Jorge Sierra)
There were plenty of product specialists on-hand to answer questions, dressed in formal attire rather than their typical business casual Tesla-branded garb. One big question on my mind which I asked the Tesla staff: When is the Standard Range model coming to market? Unfortunately, as I expected, there was no definitive answer. However, there was an announcement that Brickell city supercharging was being inaugurated locally this week.
The line to sit in Model 3’s front seat was growing rather quickly, so we patiently waited with many others for our chance to sit behind the wheel. Our Model 3 has been in order since the day of the reveal and is to become my wife’s car. She had the privilege of sitting in the driver’s seat while I rode shotgun.
-
 |
Above: Inside the Model 3 (Photo: Jorge Sierra)
As for as the car itself, I don’t really have much to say that hasn’t already been documented in countless articles and videos out there. However, if you must know, the roof lining was indeed textile, not Alcantara. And, no, I did not get the VIN. I was so excited to see the car I forgot to check!
As we departed for the evening, the Tesla team gave us a little keepsake as thanks for our support of Tesla and Model 3.
 |
Above: Merch! (Photo: Jorge Sierra)
It’s great to see Model 3 making its way into showrooms on the east coast. This particular Model 3 will remain on display at the Aventura store. If you live in South Florida, stop on by and check it out! Unfortunately, it’ll likely be some time before they’re available for test drives. The product specialists haven’t been informed yet as to when, so as of now it’s anyone’s guess.
Gallery
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Above: A look at the Tesla Aventura event invite and around 150 guests swarming the in-store Tesla display cars including the star of the show — a midnight silver Model 3 along with a pearl white Model X and multi-coat red Model S. The “3” logo was prominent inside the store. Early vehicle design sketches were also showcased on screens. (Photos: Jorge Sierra)
===
Note: Article originally published on evannex.com, by Jorge Sierra. Jorge Sierra is a member of the Florida Tesla Owners club and has been a Tesla Model S owner since June 2014. Jorge loves driving electric and has been averaging about 30,000 emission-free miles per year since having first taken delivery. He’s also developed Radar Alerts for Tesla owners.
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
-
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.
-
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
-
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.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
