Lifestyle
Tesla Model 3, S become first EVs to complete One Lap of America rally event
A Tesla Model 3 Performance and Model S P100D became the first all-electric vehicles to compete in the Tire Rack One Lap America road rally event, completing 18 track races at 9 locations for a total of about 3,500 miles over seven days. Thanks to Tesla’s vast Supercharger Network, the built-in performance features of their cars, and some great planning, both teams finished successfully and even took home a few wins. This year’s event took place from May 3rd through the 11th, marking its 36th year running.
Driving the Model 3 Performance was Team Panel Gap Racing (PGR) with Andrew Dekoning and Chad Martin behind the wheel. Andrew previously took part in the 2006 One Lap driving a Mazda RX-7, and as a veteran of the event and Tesla enthusiast, he knew there were advantages the Model 3 had that would make it competitive against other gas-powered vehicles.
“We had a few things that made us think this year was the year for a Tesla. #1 is that no one has ever completed the One Lap in an electric car, and we thought with the introduction of the Model 3 that it was possible,” he told us while the team was on the road. “With a performance model and Track Mode, it would actually be a pretty good car. This event is part road rally, part transit, and part on-track competition – the best cars excel at all three.”

The Tire Rack One Lap of America road rally event’s history dates back to the Cannonball Run, a not-quite-legal American highway race from New York City to Redondo Beach, California. It was created by Brock Yates, former senior editor of Car and Driver Magazine, to prove the point that competent, well-trained drivers could safely compete on highways while having a good time reminiscent of barnstorm piloting days. After a few revisions, One Lap was eventually organized into the format it has today. Drivers travel to nine places located in several different states to compete at 18 timed track events including time trials, skid pads, and drag races.
To meet their battery power needs, Team PGR used 27 Superchargers and 22 plug-ins either at the track or hotels they stayed at for a total of 1,500 kWh used to complete the event. Along with the availability of Superchargers and other power sources, the Model 3’s Track Mode gave the team a competitive edge.
“Without Track Mode we likely wouldn’t have made the attempt,” Andrew explained. “We had faith from the development story with Randy Pobst that they had the feature dialed in fairly well…Track Mode (and AWD) allow you to turn with the accelerator which is a fun new challenge and very fast when done right.”
Only minimal aftermarket swaps were made to Team PGR’s midsize sedan before taking on the One Lap challenge to keep the car within “Stock” class requirements. They upgraded the Model 3’s front brake pads and rotors with Racing Brake parts, used racing brake fluid, and opted for Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. Aftermarket rear brake pads weren’t available, however, and the stock versions used on the car melted during one of the time trials.

One other hiccup reported was the loss of cruise control, Autopilot, the speed limit display, and automatic wipers about two-thirds of the way into the trip, but those issues only impacted convenience. Tesla’s support service indicated a software bug may have caused the losses, and the issue was fixed after completion of the One Lap with a system reboot.
The tweaks and detailed planning paid off in the end for Andrew and Chad. Team PGR finished first in the Alternative Fuel category, 2nd in the Stock Touring class, and 17th in the One Lap overall out of 77 vehicles competing.
As Tesla enthusiasts, there was more than winning with an all-electric car that motivated Team PGR’s decision to join One Lap this year, namely in sharing everything that comes with the Tesla ownership experience.
“We wanted to show a whole new set of people (enthusiasts) that this was possible, and that the car was very good. At least half the field didn’t know that Superchargers were as prevalent as they are, so they didn’t know how we’d make it. They didn’t know about Track Mode, how well the car works to control the power, cornering, braking, etc. That said, there were a number of people who were very excited/interested to see how we did, who know the performance potential of the car, and [were] rooting for us,” Andrew explained.
#teamPGR photo – with our awesome #Tesla #racecar. #Tirerack #GRM #OLOA2019 pic.twitter.com/yW1Urk1oXK
— teamPGR (@team_pgr) May 12, 2019
The Tesla Model S driving team named Hyliion joined the event as a last-minute entrant after their gas-powered vehicle options became unavailable for the One Lap. The father and son team of Thomas and Brian Healy have their own alternative fuel creds aside from racing their 2017 P100D via Hyliion, their semi truck manufacturing company that’s developing a diesel-electric hybrid Class 8 long hauler. The Model S performed well for the team, although the lack of Track Mode’s thermal protections required adjustments to their driving techniques to compensate during timed trials.
Much like Team PGR, the Hyliion drivers were able to take advantage of Tesla’s extensive Supercharger network to participate successfully in the One Lap and they finished 34th overall.
“The most surprising thing was the abundance of Superchargers that are out there in order to keep the car charged. We weren’t sure going into the event how manageable it was going to be, getting from one track to the next, and being able to do it in the allotted time… Tesla’s done a great job of getting these Superchargers located around the US, where finding a destination to stop at and charge up for 45 minutes is a really feasible thing,” the team told CNET’s Roadshow in comments about the event.

As for Andrew and Chad, they plan to participate in future One Lap events with other Tesla vehicles and also expect more of the all-electric cars to meet them on the tracks.
“Because we are newer to running this car on track, and the car is new overall, we believe it has a lot more potential! We are already scheming about how to improve the car and how to find someone with one of the first [Next Generation] Roadsters when it is released so we can ‘borrow’ it for the One Lap…I think by completing the events we will go a ways toward changing some minds toward electric cars in the performance driving community and it will not surprise me if there’s 5 Model 3’s here next year,” Andrew concluded enthusiastically.
For more about TeamPGR, watch their video below with some updates and highlights from the One Lap of America 2019.
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.
Lifestyle
Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip
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.
