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
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Texas ranch to showcase the lifelong work that changed the world
Elon Musk is building a product gallery at his Texas ranch spanning his lifelong inventions.
Elon Musk took to X earlier today, noting “Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas.” in response to a resurfaced famous quote from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s wherein he draw parallels of the Tesla CEO to legendary physicist Albert Einstein.
Dimon made the remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland back in January 2025, telling CNBC at the time, “SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, I mean, the guy is our Einstein.” The remark seemingly ended a long-time feud between the two high profile execs.
While details are thin about the exact location of Elon Musk’s Texas ranch and any pending projects that would serve as a gallery and homage to his portfolio of revolutionary product inventions spanning from 1984 to 2025, land acquisition records point to roughly a location of several thousand acres in Bastrop County, east of Austin near the Colorado River and held through an LLC called Horse Ranch LLC that’s managed by Musk’s longtime personal friend and family wealth manager Jared Birchall. Birchall also serves as the CEO of Neuralink.
Tesla’s “ecological paradise” in Giga Texas may be larger than expected
The broader Bastrop County footprint surrounding the ranch has grown significantly. Entities tied to Musk have accumulated approximately 2,000 acres in Bastrop County as of mid-2026, up from 700 acres earlier in the year, with possibly as much as 6,000 acres acquired in total across Bastrop and Travis counties based on deed records.
No completion date for the gallery has been announced and Musk has not confirmed whether it will be open to the public. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX just completed the largest IPO in history raising $75 billion, a milestone that makes this particular moment in Musk’s career a natural inflection point for looking back at what he has built through the years.
Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas https://t.co/xQf5FRy4uz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026
Starting with Blastar, a simple space shooter game Musk coded at 12 years old and sold to a South African magazine for $500. From there the timeline moves through a commercial career that started with Zip2 in 1995, a city guide software company sold to Compaq for roughly $300 million in 1999. That was followed by X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity to become PayPal, acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. SpaceX came in 2002, Tesla in 2003, SolarCity in 2006, the Supercharger network in 2012, Neuralink in 2016, The Boring Company in 2016, OpenAI co-founded in 2015, X acquired in 2022, xAI in 2023, Optimus in 2024, the Cybercab in 2026, and most recently SpaceXAI following the SpaceX and xAI merger. The gallery will also likely include items that blur the line between product and cultural artifact, among them The Boring Company’s Not-a-Flamethrower from 2018, Tesla Short Shorts from 2020, and Burnt Hair perfume released under X in 2022.
Lifestyle
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
California just signed a $270 million EV rebate into law and it starts this summer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 168 into law on Monday, July 13, 2026, creating a $270 million EV rebate program that delivers money directly at the dealership rather than as a tax credit applied months later. The program, called MyFirstEV, is funded equally by California’s state budget and participating automakers, with each contributing $135.5 million to make the math work.
The timing is directly tied to the loss of federal support when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ended, removing the most significant consumer incentive that had driven EV adoption in the U.S. California, which accounts for roughly one-third of all EVs sold nationally, moved to fill that gap with a state-level replacement.
The rebate structure is straightforward. First-time EV buyers can receive $3,500 off any new battery-electric vehicle with an MSRP up to $50,000. Used EVs priced at $25,000 or below qualify for a $1,750 rebate. The credit is applied at the point of sale, which removes the friction of the old federal system where buyers had to wait for tax season to see the benefit. The program goes live later this summer, with the California Air Resources Board expected to release full participation details next month.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
For Tesla buyers, the implications are mixed. The Tesla Model 3 RWD at $42,490 and the Model 3 Long Range at $47,490 both fall under the $50,000 cap and would qualify for the full $3,500 rebate for first-time buyers. The Model Y, which starts at $44,990 after Tesla’s recent price adjustment, also qualifies. The Model X, Model S, and Cybertruck all exceed the cap and receive no benefit. As Teslarati has reported, the program also includes a carve-out exempting California-based automakers like Rivian and Lucid from the price cap entirely, a provision that puts Tesla at a disadvantage since it relocated its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Other qualifying vehicles include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.
Tesla has to fix a big problem with its old headlights, NHTSA says
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
