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Tesla Model S and X owners face discrimination at dealer-run auto show
A number of Tesla owners are calling foul on the organizers of the 2019 Kansas City Auto Show after the event’s organizers, the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Kansas City (ADAKC), showed discrimination against a Model S and Model X by forcing the electric cars out of the event.
The annual exhibition is being held at the Bartle Hall convention center, and since the auto show itself did not fill the entire venue, the ADAKC allocated the south end of the exhibit hall to the Kansas City Auto Museum. The museum reached out to the local auto enthusiast community to look for volunteers who wish to display their vehicles as part of the event. Numerous locals answered the call, bringing their cars over to be part of the show. Among these vehicles were a Tesla Model S and Model X.
Tesla enthusiast James Ransom prepared the two electric cars for the auto show, dropping them off at the exhibition’s location. The next day, he received a call from the event’s organizers informing him that the Teslas are not welcome in the event. Ransom explained the circumstances in a statement to The Drive.
“I was called on Wednesday evening and asked to remove the Teslas. I was told that the cars were not allowed to stay because they were not part of the Dealers Association. Something about a higher-up in the association who said that the Teslas could not be at the show due to the manufacturer not using dealerships for their sales,” Ransom said.
Fellow Tesla owner and prominent Kansas-based auto enthusiast Ken Smiley, whose 1956 Jaguar XK140 and 2016 Porsche GT4 are on display at the show, noted in an email to Teslarati that the ADAKC’s excuse for the removal of the two electric cars was questionable at best. Smiley mentioned in an email that there were several other vehicles on display from manufacturers who were not part of the ADAKC, such as Noble, Pontiac, Ariel, and Lamborghini. All these vehicles were welcomed and allowed to remain.
To address the situation, Ken sent an email to the organizers, calling them out on the discriminatory practice. Below is the Tesla owner’s email in full.
Dear Larry and Natalie,
It has come to my attention that a particular make of automobile is being singled out for unfair discrimination at the KC Auto Show this year and that the owners of these cars were asked to remove them from Bartle Hall. The vehicles in question were two used Tesla automobiles owned by private individuals and put on display as part of the KC Auto Museum’s variety of cars display at the KC Auto Show. As an officer/member in multiple car clubs in Kansas City (Porsche, Jaguar, All British, Tesla) I find this action reprehensible and urge you to immediately reconsider your actions before something like this goes viral and brings negative publicity to the car show.
I understand that with regard to NEW cars that Tesla does not have a dealer network and does not participate in the Automobile Dealer Association of Greater Kansas City. I would understand if your association told Tesla that they could not bring new cars down and could not be represented at the show unless they joined the organization. However, this is NOT what is happening in this instance. These two cars are privately owned used cars brought by their enthusiastic owners to help support the KC Auto Museum display at the auto show. There were owners who brought Pontiacs, a Noble, a couple of Ariel Atoms and Lamborghinis ALL of which are NOT members of the ADAKC. So if you are going to discriminate against non-members, then you need to do it equally and ask that ALL non-member cars leave the show, not simply single out Tesla.
Please let me know whether or not the Teslas are welcome to come back or if the unfair discrimination against these owners and their vehicles is going to continue. Speaking of the owners, the people you are hurting are automotive enthusiasts, not the audience you want to hurt. These individuals took their time to clean up their cars and transport them down to Bartle Hall only to be told a few hours later that they had to take them back out. While I currently have two cars on display at the show (1956 Jaguar XK140 and 2016 Porsche GT4) I am not sure that I will be willing to support a show in the future that unfairly discriminates against a certain model car. I hesitate to think how Marion Battaglia would react if I told him that either my Jag or Porsche was being discriminated against and being asked to leave the show. As I mentioned, this unfair discrimination isn’t hurting Tesla the car company, which the association may have an issue with, but rather hurting individual automotive enthusiasts.
Sincerely,
Ken
The auto enthusiast notes that the ADAKC has not responded to his email yet. Due to the incident and the blatant act of discrimination, Ken notes that numerous car fans and Tesla owners are boycotting the event to show their frustration at the organizers. An ADAKC spokesperson did issue a statement to The Drive, but based on the organization’s stance, it appears that they are putting the blame on the offended Tesla enthusiasts.
“This is a non-story. Ken Smiley is simply bringing this up because he seems to be angry and wants to stir the pot,” the spokesperson said, adding that the two Teslas do not fit the “Classic Car” theme of the exhibition. When pressed by the publication why other modern vehicles from non-ADAKC members, such as Ariel Atoms and Lamborghini Huracans, were allowed to remain, the spokesperson was less certain, stating that they “had to talk to the show’s producer.”
The 2019 Kansas City Auto Show was held from March 6-10, 2019.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Tesla has snagged a deal with IMC Logistics to supply the company with 50 Semi units for its logistics operations.
IMC handles drayage and landside logistics and has over 2,700 asset trucks in its fleet. In its over forty years of service, it has established more than 50 locations across the United States and spans operations from coast to coast.
Jim Gillis of IMC said that the addition of the Tesla Semi will help IMC move toward a “zero-emission service for long-haul lanes.”
The move is one that has become more common over the past few years, as more and more companies doing large-scale logistics have moved to sustainable powertrains, using either Tesla or others.
🚨 IMC Logistics announced that it will add 50 Tesla Semis to its fleet https://t.co/ymh1Ca2IuX
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 5, 2026
Tesla’s Semi program just entered its first truly public phase, as the company handed over its first production units to companies in September, although a pilot program with companies like PepsiCo. and Frito-Lay has been ongoing for years.
IMC announced its intention to purchase 50 Semi units from Tesla in September, and according to VP of Marketing and Public Relations on September 29 to Trucking Drive, the company will take delivery either this week or took delivery late last week.
With surging prices of diesel and high logistics costs, Tesla and the Semi could truly revolutionize how companies manage their fleets. With the advent of Full Self-Driving, the Semi will potentially cut down on driver fatigue and increase productivity, while decreasing the cost of operation per mile by being cheaper to refuel.
Tesla had a dedicated Semi handover event at the Semi factory in Sparks, Nevada, a few weeks back, as it officially introduced its truck to many company fleets that have been waiting to add these sustainable powertrains.
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
Tesla Robotaxi expands hours, Musk explains why it’s been a challenge
