Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 Performance dominates Ford Mustang GT twice in double drag race
The Model 3 Performance is Tesla’s first track-capable vehicle. Designed to dominate high-performance sedans like the BMW M3 around a racecourse, the Model 3 Performance is built to be nimble around corners and lightning-quick when accelerating from a straight line.
What’s quite ironic about the Model 3 Performance is that it is not the quickest among Tesla’s offerings in straight-line races. Granted, the electric car is incredibly quick with a 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds (Tesla has since updated its specs to 3.3 seconds) and a top speed of 155 mph from its dual electric motors that provide a combined 450 hp and 471 lb-ft of torque, but it’s still outgunned by its larger P-branded siblings — the Model S P100D and the Model X P100D — in straight-line acceleration.
Despite not being Tesla’s quickest straight-line car, the Model 3 Performance is nonetheless developing a reputation for being a formidable force on the quarter-mile. With its subtle design cues, the Model 3 Performance is the perfect sleeper vehicle, particularly since the car’s other variants, such as the Mid Range RWD and the Long Range RWD, are a lot tamer with their 0-60 mph times of 5.6 seconds and 5.1 seconds, respectively.
Once such vehicle recently made an appearance in a quarter-mile meet at the Street Nights at New England Dragway, NH. The Model 3 Performance did not seem to have its carbon fiber spoiler and rear badging installed, though its red brake calipers were visible. A video of the Model 3 Performance’s race was uploaded on the Drag Racing and Car Stuff YouTube channel, where it was featured engaging a Ford Mustang GT in a double drag race.
The racing-themed YouTube channel did not list the year model of the Mustang GT that competed against the Model 3 Performance, but design cues from the vehicle suggest that it was a 2016 Mustang GT S550, an all-American front-engined RWD mass of muscle equipped with a 5.0-liter DOHC 32-valve V8 engine that produces 435-hp and 400 lb-ft of torque. In true muscle car tradition, the 2016 Mustang GT came with a manual transmission, which gave drivers full control.
The Model 3 Performance and the Mustang GT battled each other twice, and in both rounds, the electric-powered machine from Silicon Valley dominated the fossil fuel-powered beast from Detroit. The electric car’s instant torque immediately gave it an advantage in the first race, allowing it to complete the run in 11.86 seconds while traveling at 113.16 mph, faster than the Mustang GT’s 13.03 seconds and 110.26 mph pass. The second bout ended with the same results, with the Model 3 Performance hitting the quarter-mile mark in 11.92 seconds at 113.86 mph. The Mustang GT completed the race in 13.18 seconds at 109.27 mph.
What’s rather remarkable is that the Model 3 Performance is bound to get better with time. As of date, the vehicles are only shipping with stock software, and are winning drag races with raw power. In a recent announcement on Twitter, Elon Musk noted that Track Mode, a feature which the CEO fondly describes as an “expert user mode” for the Model 3 Performance, will be rolling out soon. What’s more, Elon Musk also announced that Track Mode would be enabled on all Model 3 Performance cars once the update gets released.
We will enable track mode for all performance cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2018
With Track Mode enabled, and with other, possible future updates (a Ludicrous Mode upgrade, perhaps?), the Model 3 Performance has all the makings of a monster on both drag strips and racecourses.
Watch the Model 3 Performance battle a Ford Mustang GT twice in the video 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.
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