Connect with us

Lifestyle

Behind the scenes at Tesla’s private Model 3 event in Miami

Photo: Jorge Sierra

Published

on

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.

Advertisement
-

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.

Advertisement
-

EVANNEX carries aftermarket accessories, parts, and gear for Tesla owners. Its blog is updated daily with Tesla news.

Advertisement
Comments

Lifestyle

Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

Advertisement
-

This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

Published

on

By

neuralink-patient-registry-volunteers

A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.

“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.

Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.

Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.

He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.

Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.

Advertisement
-

The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.

Continue Reading