Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3 performance duels Dodge Viper GTS in multiple rolling races
A Tesla Model 3 Performance recently challenged one of America’s most iconic muscle cars, a 2001 Dodge Viper GTS with a fully-built engine. The Dodge Viper holds an esteemed and notorious place among muscle cars, mainly due to its reputation as a racecar for the streets.
Tesla Model 3 owner and car enthusiast DamienG Videos! of YouTube previously tested his 1997 Viper against his all-electric sedan from Silicon Valley. In his previous test, which could be accessed here, the Model 3 proved dominant, walking all over his Viper during multiple rolling races. So impressed was the auto enthusiast (and so strong was the reaction from the Viper community) that he issued an invitation to other Vipers that may be interested in racing his electric car.
It did not take long before a Viper owner took up the offer. This time around, the vehicle was a yellow 2001 Dodge Viper GTS with a fully-built motor. The muscle car has not been tested on a dyno, but the owner of the car noted that the vehicle had at least 500+ whp. This makes the muscle car very impressive, considering that a stock version of the 2001 Dodge Viper GTS features a bold 450 horsepower V-10 engine, which allowed it to hit 60 mph in just 4 seconds flat.
The vehicle’s racecar DNA is also evident in its credentials, as shown by the car’s race-modified siblings: three consecutive European FIA GT-2 championships, two consecutive class championships at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the inaugural American Le Mans championship, as well as a historic overall championship at the 2000 24 Hours of Daytona. The vehicle, which performed very well both on and off track, was well-received by the US auto community, though it also got a reputation for being a dangerous car to drive.
In a way, the Dodge Viper could be considered the very antithesis of the Tesla Model 3 Performance. While the Viper is loud, the Model 3 is stealthy. While the Dodge has a penchant for being a deadly machine in the hands of inexperienced drivers, the Tesla proudly stands as one of the safest vehicles on the road. While these two vehicles do have their differences, the Viper and Model 3 Performance also have similarities. After all, they are both insanely fast cars.
The Model 3 Performance is equipped with dual motors that produce a combined 450 hp and 471 lb-ft of torque. This allows the vehicle to accelerate from 0-60 mph in just 3.2 seconds. The electric car is also equipped with a dedicated Track Mode feature, making it the only vehicle in Tesla’s lineup that is made to be driven in a closed circuit.
Similar to the first test involving a 1997 Dodge Viper, the Model 3 owner opted to do a series of rolling races. This levels the playing field for the Viper somewhat as both cars are already moving at a steady pace before the race even begins. As the Model 3 Performance and the 2001 Dodge Viper GTS went head to head in multiple rolling races, it became evident that the results would be quite similar as before. The Model 3 dominated the Viper GTS, and it was only until both vehicles started at 60 mph that the Detroit-made muscle car was able to overtake the Silicon Valley-made electric car.
The Tesla Model 3 Performance, while essentially being a computer on wheels, has the makings and spirit of a classic American muscle car. It has a lot of torque, it accelerates impressively, and its handling is top-notch. This combination of strengths, together with its capability to get improved through over-the-air updates, has allowed the electric sedan to outrun vehicles like the Dodge Demon and the Ferrari 458 on the 1/8-mile.
Watch the Tesla Model 3 Performance duel a Dodge Viper GTS in the video below.
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.
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.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
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
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.
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.
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.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
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.
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.
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.
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.
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