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Tesla sends Model 3 “token of appreciation” gift to early reservations holders

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Tesla has begun sending gifts to early Model 3 reservation holders that waited in line to place their orders at Tesla stores the day of the March 31 unveiling.

Tesla would ultimately see 180,000 Model 3 reservations in 24 hours of Model 3 Mania. CEO Elon Musk quickly took to Twitter to thank all that lined up in stores by offering them a token of appreciation gift.

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Seth Barrial sent us the following photos of the “token of appreciation” he received in the mail this past weekend. The gift is a copy of early hand sketches of the Tesla Model 3 along with a note from Elon Musk.

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Token of appreciation gift sent to early Model 3 reservations holders via Seth Barrial who placed his order at Tesla Fashion Valley in San Diego

Incidentally, this is the same sketch that Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen was seen passing out to attendees at the official Model 3 unveiling event.

Regarded as quite possibly the most important car to Tesla’s future and part of the company’s Secret Master Plan, Model 3 fans across the world lined up in droves hours before the official store opening hours, some even going as far as camping out overnight with the hopes of becoming the first to place a $1,000 reservation deposit.

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Reservations numbers for the Model 3 continue to increase with the latest figure pegged at close to 400,000 units. Musk has advised interested parties to order their Tesla Model 3 soon if they want 2018 delivery.

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Tesla leaves a single loophole to purchase Full Self-Driving outright

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has left a single loophole to purchase Full Self-Driving outright. On Sunday, the option officially disappeared from the Online Design Studio in the United States, as Tesla transitioned to a Subscription-only purchasing plan for the FSD suite.

However, there is still one way to get the Full Self-Driving suite in an outright manner, which would not require the vehicle owner to pay monthly for the driver assistance program — but you have to buy a Model S or Model X.

Months ago, Tesla launched a special “Luxe Package” for the Model S and Model X, which included Full Self-Driving for the life of the vehicle, as well as free Supercharging at over 75,000 locations, as well as free Premium Connectivity, and a Four-Year Premium Service package, which includes wheel and tire protection, windshiel protection, and recommended maintenance.

It would also be available through the purchase of a Cyberbeast, the top trim of the Cybertruck lineup.

This small loophole would allow owners to avoid the monthly payment, but there have been some changes in the fine print of the program, as Tesla has added that it will not be transferable to subsequent vehicle owners or to another vehicle.

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This goes for the FSD and the Supercharging offers that come with the Luxe Package.

For now, Tesla still has the Full Self-Driving subscription priced at $99 per month. However, that price is expected to increase over the course of some time, especially as its capabilities improve. Tesla seems to be nearing Unsupervised FSD based on Musk’s estimates for the Cybercab program.

There is the potential that Tesla offers both Unsupervised and Supervised FSD for varying prices, but this is not confirmed.

In other countries, Tesla has pushed back the deadline to purchase the suite outright, as in Australia, it has been adjusted to March 31.

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Tesla Sweden’s port deal sparks political clash in Trelleborg

The extension of Tesla’s lease has drawn criticism from the local Social Democratic opposition.

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Andrzej Otrębski, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla Sweden’s lease agreement at the Port of Trelleborg has triggered a political dispute, with local leaders divided over whether the municipally owned port should continue renting space to the electric vehicle maker amidst its ongoing conflict with the IF Metall union.

Tesla Sweden’s recently extended contract with the Port of Trelleborg has triggered calls for greater political oversight of future agreements.

Tesla has used the Port of Trelleborg to import vehicles into Sweden amid a blockade by the Transport Workers’ Union, as noted in a report from Dagens Arbete (DA). By routing cars via trucks on passenger ferries, the company has maintained deliveries despite the labor dispute. Vehicles have also been stored and prepared in facilities leased from the municipal port company.

The extension of Tesla’s lease has drawn criticism from the local Social Democratic opposition. Initially, the Port of Trelleborg hinted that it would not enter into new agreements with Tesla, but it eventually opted to renew its existing contract with the EV maker anyway.

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Lennart Höckert, an opposition councilor, described the port’s decision as a “betrayal of the Swedish model,” arguing that a municipally owned entity should not appear to side with one party in an active labor dispute.

“If you want to protect the Swedish model, you shouldn’t get involved in a conflict and help one of the parties. When you as a company do this, it means that you are actually taking a position and making things worse in an already ongoing conflict,” Höckert said. 

He added that the party now wants politicians to review and approve future rental agreements involving municipal properties at the port.

The proposal has been sharply criticized by Mathias Andersson of the Sweden Democrats, who chairs the municipal board. In comments to local media, Andersson described the Social Democrats’ approach as “Kim Jong Un-style,” arguing that political leaders should not micromanage a company governed by its own board.

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“I believe that the port should be run like any other business,” Andersson said. He also noted that operational decisions fall under the authority of the Port of Trelleborg’s board instead of elected officials.

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Elon Musk’s X sees outage on Monday as users report issues

Monday’s outage follows a similar issue that befell the social media platform in mid-January.

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Credit: Linda Yaccarino/X

X experienced an outage on Monday morning, with tens of thousands of users reporting that the platform failed to load across both desktop and mobile. The disruption began around 8:02 a.m. ET, as per Downdetector data, and quickly escalated in the U.S. and U.K.

Monday’s outage follows a similar issue that befell the social media platform in mid-January.

Shortly after 8 a.m. ET, Downdetector showed a sharp rise in incident reports. At one point, U.S. complaints exceeded 40,000, while U.K. reports climbed past 6,000. Earlier in the outage, filings had already crossed 11,000 in the U.S. and 3,300 in the U.K., as noted in a TechRadar report. X users in other locations, such as the Philippines and Costa Rica, also reported similar issues.

Users attempting to access X were met with a “something went wrong” message. Feeds did not refresh, posts failed to appear, and both the social media platform’s app and web versions appeared affected by the issue. The outage struck during peak weekday usage, amplifying its visibility across regions worldwide.

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X has not issued an official explanation for the latest outage or confirmed what caused the service disruption. The scale of complaints drew comparisons to the platform’s major outage in November 2025, which resulted in users being met with “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages, as well as Cloudflare-related error notices.

The incident also comes just weeks after X experienced a similar downtime in mid-January. That outage seemed more notable, however, with more than 100,000 users reporting issues with the social media platform on Downdetector.

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