Lifestyle
Tesla ridesharing video shows how Model 3 wins over potential electric car customers
Tesla is a unique carmaker in the way that it does not advertise like traditional auto companies. Over the years, Tesla’s brand got stronger mostly through word-of-mouth. Now that the company is already producing its first attempt at a mass-market car, its advertisement strategies are still pretty much the same. Save for a couple of promotional videos shared online from time to time, Tesla’s primary means of promoting its brand is still its customer base.
This was recently depicted in a video shared by YouTube tech reviewer Andy Slye. The YouTuber, who took delivery of his Long Range RWD Model 3 earlier this year, admits that he is not really a “car guy.” What he does know inside and out, though, is tech. And when it comes to tech, Syle has noted that his Tesla Model 3 is one of the best cars on the road today. One of the YouTuber’s recent uploads featured him picking up Uber and Lyft riders on his electric car. During the drive, he would show his passengers some of the Model 3’s features and capabilities. As could be seen in Syle’s video, sometimes, it only takes some firsthand experience to encourage someone to purchase a Tesla.
Immediately notable in Syle’s video were the reactions incited by the Model 3 from its passengers. Components of the vehicle, such as its 15″ touchscreen, its tinted glass roof, as well as its minimalistic interior, immediately became a point of conversation. The car’s smooth ride and drive, as well as its power and acceleration, notably impressed the car’s riders, while Autopilot’s capabilities proved compelling as well. By the end of their rides, practically all of Syle’s passengers were won over by the Model 3, and some even noted that they would likely get one for themselves.
Ultimately, the tech YouTuber’s recently uploaded clip is a glimpse into how Tesla’s electric cars win over potential customers. Tesla has one of the most dedicated communities of owners out there, to the point where owners volunteered to pitch in at the end of the third quarter to help the company deliver as many vehicles as it can before September ended. As could be seen in social media, Tesla owners give test rides to their friends and family frequently, and the result is usually another electric car being purchased from the company.
https://twitter.com/Andrew31889/status/1047713117134708741
https://twitter.com/megangale/status/1048403696613085184
In a way, it is the Tesla experience that really has a tendency to win over potential customers. The stigma of electric cars being “soulless” or “boring” has been around for a long time, and the skepticism about the capabilities of premium electric cars are still abounding. That said, test drives are usually enough to convince even veteran “car guys” that Tesla’s electric cars are every bit as capable and powerful (perhaps even more) than the best high-performance vehicles in the market. Such an experience was shared recently by a longtime BMW owner, who was won over by the Tesla Model 3 Performance after test driving the vehicle.
The company addressed the power of experiencing Tesla’s electric cars firsthand during the Q2 2018 earnings call. While discussing the ongoing rollout of the Model 3, Tesla global head of sales Robin Ren noted that sometimes, even customers who have no idea what the Model 3 is end up ordering the vehicle after a test drive.
“I think that’s something that we found super exciting, because these are the people who actually had no idea about Model 3 and they heard about Model 3 is available to order, many of them requested test drives. And since early July, we have over 60,000 test drive requests in the U.S. alone and these people come into our stores, do the test drive, and they become super excited, and they decide to order the car,” he said.
Watch the Model 3 impress its Uber and Lyft riders in the video below.
Lifestyle
Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion
Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.
Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”
The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.
The new Automatic Collision Evasion feature worked flawlessly! FSD reengaged itself just as I was about to hit a curb.
Kudos @Tesla_AI team! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Fbp15HhpL2
— Spencer (@scotsrule08) September 28, 2026
The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.
Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.
Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Elon Musk
Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production
Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.
Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.
Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.
Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.
Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.