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Tesla Model 3 dominates as qualifying leader in historic Pikes Peak run

(Credit: Unplugged Performance)

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The Unplugged Performance team and veteran racer Randy Pobst had planned to adopt a pretty conservative strategy for their modified Tesla Model 3 Performance’s first Pikes Peak run. The vehicle, after all, just had its suspension settings adjusted, and both team and driver wanted to validate how well the changes performed on the course. For the Model 3’s first run up Pikes Peak, the plan was to lift off on the straights to conserve battery for the second run, which would be flat out.

Needless to say, this plan did not end up being followed. At all.

Randy Pobst and Unplugged’s Model 3 Performance Ascension-R launched off into the Pikes Peak course for their first climb, and soon, it became evident to the racing veteran that the car was already almost perfectly dialed in. It was then that Pobst decided to forgo the initial plan and just attack the course at full power. With the veteran racer unleashed, the Model 3 completed the run in 4:15, finishing first place in the Exhibition class. Two other Teslas, a heavily modded widebody Model 3 driven by Joshua Allan and a Model 3 Performance driven by Blake Fuller, finished second and third

Randy Pobst takes on Pikes Peak in the Tesla Model 3 Performance. (Credit: Unplugged Performance)

As noted by Unplugged Performance CEO Ben Schaffer, he and his team were astounded to see Randy’s 4:15 time for his first run. The team had been targeting a time of 4:30 considering their planned strategy, but ultimately, what mattered was that the veteran racecar driver had tons of fun in his first climb of the day. Pobst did suggest some tweaks to the Model 3’s settings after, asking the Unplugged team to add a bit more compression and rebound tuning. But when those changes were done, the father of Track Mode was off for his second hill climb attempt.

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Randy Pobst pushed the Model 3 Performance as hard as he could on his second run, and the results, as could be seen in the video below, were simply astounding. With the veteran racer behind the wheel and Unplugged’s parts performing as designed, the Model 3 Performance Ascension-R was able to complete the Pikes Peak run in a stunning 4:12. In second place was Blake Fuller’s Model 3 Performance, which completed the climb in 4:39. Unfortunately, the widebody Model 3 driven by Joshua Fuller retired after it went off track.

Randy Pobst takes on Pikes Peak in the Tesla Model 3 Performance. (Credit: Unplugged Performance)

What was particularly astounding about Randy Pobst’s 4:12 Pikes Peak Hill Climb run was the fact that the Model 3’s time was only a few seconds off from the record set by the fastest Open Wheel car in the event, which completed the climb in 4:07. The category in hosts some of the craziest purpose-built Pikes Peak machines in the industry, so it was quite surprising to see the Model 3, which only had Unplugged Performance’s Ascension-R modifications, performing in the level of Open Wheel vehicles. In fact, had the Model 3 been competing in the Open Wheel category, it would have finished the day in 3rd place. That’s a pretty insane thought.

“What surprised us the most today (besides capturing 1st place in qualifying) was how we compared to the other group running our section of the mountain. We ran with the Open Wheel cars and that group has some huge power and very lightweight cars. The fastest Open Wheel car was Clint Vahsholtz who ran a 4:07. If we were racing in the Open Wheel division, we would have qualified 3rd place which is pretty insane given how extreme those purpose-built cars are for this event,” Ben Schaffer said.

After dominating the Exhibition class in the event’s first day, Randy Pobst noted that the Tesla Model 3 is arguably the best car he has driven at Pikes Peak to date. This is no small statement, seeing as the legendary driver had climbed the challenging, dangerous course multiple times in the past behind the wheel of the industry’s most aggressive vehicles. “It was quite an honor to hear that from such a legendary driver that we respect so dearly,” the Unplugged CEO said.

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Watch Randy Pobst’s stunning Pikes Peak run in the Tesla Model 3 in the video below.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning

Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.

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Credit: Linda Yaccarino/X

Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.

Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.

Downdetector reports

Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.

As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.

Credit: Downdetector

Previous disruptions

Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.

In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.

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Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards

The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.

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Credit: Tesla Malaysia/X

Tesla emerged as one of the standout winners in the 2025 S&P Global Mobility Automotive Loyalty Awards, capturing top honors for customer retention and market conquest.

The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.

Tesla claims loyalty crown

According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla secured its 2025 “Overall Loyalty to Make” award following a late-year shift in consumer buying patterns. This marked the fourth consecutive year Tesla has received the honor. S&P Global Mobility’s annual analysis reviewed 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025, as noted in a press release.

In addition to overall loyalty, Tesla also earned the “Highest Conquest Percentage” award for the sixth consecutive year, highlighting the company’s continued ability to attract customers away from competing brands. This achievement is particularly notable given Tesla’s relatively small vehicle lineup, which is largely dominated by just two models: the Model 3 and Model Y.

Ethnic market strength and conquest

Tesla also captured top honors for “Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make,” a category that highlighted especially strong retention among Asian and Hispanic households. According to the analysis, Tesla achieved loyalty rates of 63.6% among Asian households and 61.9% among Hispanic households. These figures exceeded national averages.

S&P Global Mobility executives noted that loyalty margins across categories were exceptionally narrow in 2025, underscoring the significance of Tesla’s wins in an increasingly competitive market. Joe LaFeir, President of Mobility Business Solutions at S&P Global Mobility, shared his perspective on this year’s results.

“For 30 years, this analysis has provided a fact-based measure of brand health, and this year’s results are particularly telling. The data shows the market is not rewarding just one type of strategy. Instead, we see sustained, high-level performance from manufacturers with broad portfolios. In the current market, retaining customers remains a critical performance indicator for the industry,” LaFeir said.

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Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is heading to jury trial

The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft will face a jury trial this spring after a federal judge rejected their efforts to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit, which accuses the artificial intelligence startup of abandoning its original nonprofit mission. The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.

As noted in a report from Bloomberg News, a federal judge in Oakland, California, ruled that OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft failed to show that Musk’s claims should be dismissed. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that while the evidence remains unclear, Musk has maintained that OpenAI “had a specific charitable purpose and that he attached two fundamental terms to it: that OpenAI be open source and that it would remain a nonprofit — purposes consistent with OpenAI’s charter and mission.”

Judge Gonzalez Rogers also rejected an argument by OpenAI suggesting that Musk’s use of an intermediary to donate $38 million in seed money to the company stripped him of legal standing. “Holding otherwise would significantly reduce the enforcement of a large swath of charitable trusts, contrary to the modern trend,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote.

The judge also declined to dismiss Musk’s fraud allegations, citing internal OpenAI communications from 2017 involving co-founder Greg Brockman. In an email cited by the judge, fellow OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis informed Musk that Brockman would “like to continue with the non-profit structure.”

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Just two months later, however, Brockman wrote in a private note that he “cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t want to say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.”

Marc Toberoff, a member of Musk’s legal team, said Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling confirms that “there is substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Mr. Musk about its charitable mission that they never honored in favor of their personal self-enrichment.”

OpenAI, for its part, maintained that Musk’s legal efforts are baseless. In a statement, the AI startup said it is looking forward to the upcoming trial. “Mr. Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever,” OpenAI stated.

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