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.
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.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.
Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.
Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.
Wasn’t expecting this 🫡
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 9, 2026
This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.
Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.
Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.
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