Lifestyle
Tesla assists in Pikes Peak Model 3 race car 48-hr rebuild following crash
During the first day of Pikes Peak’s qualifiers, legendary racecar driver Randy Pobst and his Tesla Model 3 Ascension-R from EV tuning house Unplugged Performance dominated their class. The team was heading towards Sunday’s race at the top of their game, and there was little that could topple the modified Model 3’s momentum. Unless something unexpected and catastrophic took place, of course.
Unfortunately for the Unplugged team and Randy, something unexpected and catastrophic really did happen. During the Model 3’s first run on the second day of qualifiers, the modified Tesla hit a bad bump at speeds that the professional racer was unable to recover from. The Model 3 went off-course, hitting a wall and ending up in the dirt. Fortunately, Randy was uninjured during the accident. An in-car video of the crash even showed the veteran racer seemingly trying to get the car to respond, to no avail.
As noted by Unplugged Performance CEO Ben Schaffer, the damage to the Model 3 was extensive. Pretty much everything that could break in the car broke, from its motors to its suspension to its frame. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, it appeared that the team’s dream of raising the Tesla flag at the summit of Pikes Peak on Sunday has been crushed. After all, the Model 3 Ascension-R, described by Randy as one of the best vehicles he has ever driven up the treacherous mountain, was totaled.
But sometimes, it takes more than a totaled racecar to keep the human spirit down. In what could only be described as a decision that was equal parts impressive and insane, the Unplugged team decided to try and repair the Model 3. The officials of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb required that the team use the same vehicle that was involved in the crash, so the idea of using a fresh Model 3 Performance was quickly scrapped. What followed was an astounding effort that involved numerous Tesla community members, employees of the electric car maker, and EuroCar, an authorized Tesla body shop, all working together to do the seemingly impossible — resurrect a totaled racecar in 48 hours.
With but a couple of days before the actual Pikes Peak Hill Climb on Sunday, the Unplugged team and Tesla community members worked around the clock to revive the damaged Model 3 Ascension-R. The team bought another Model 3 Performance that could be stripped for fresh parts, which was promptly delivered by the head of Tesla Service in Colorado. Parts were ordered and shipped as quickly as possible. Three Tesla engineers even came over to ensure that the whole repair process went smoothly. The team worked tirelessly, transferring parts, repairing damaged sections, and tuning the revived Model 3 racer to make the vehicle worthy of taking on Pikes Peak in time for Sunday’s hill climb event.
“We will never quit. Performance is more than lap times, it is a will to persevere over all obstacles. A totaled car won’t be the ending of this story for Randy or for us. I told Randy we will move mountains and we did. Today we assembled an army of support, we bought a new car, and we are working 24hr shifts to use the new car to move parts over to the race car. Whatever it takes we will overcome. See you at the top with Randy waving the Tesla flag,” the Unplugged CEO noted.
It was a tall order considering the degree of damage on the Tesla Model 3 Ascension-R. But as the team worked tirelessly while being sustained partly by food sent over by other Tesla owners, something remarkable happened. Part by part, the damaged Model 3 started looking like a racecar again. With each repaired section, with each new part fitted onto the damaged vehicle, the Model 3 racer showed signs that perhaps, just perhaps, the dream of participating and thriving in one of motorsports’ most dangerous events in a consumer-grade electric sedan was not dead yet.
It was an inhuman push that needed a near-miraculous set of circumstances to succeed, but the Model 3 Ascension-R was reborn for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb by the start of the weekend. With the racer reborn, Randy and the Unplugged team now have another chance at taking on the extremely challenging, extremely dangerous Pikes Peak course. In a video on his YouTube channel, Randy Pobst has noted that life is “magnified” in racing, as it deals with exhilarating victories, heartbreaking losses, and inspiring comebacks. Pikes Peak has witnessed all of this over the years, and the Tesla community could only hope that on Sunday, Randy could finish the hill climb in impressive fashion and wave the Tesla flag at the top of the course.

Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
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.
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.
