News
Tesla Model S Plaid totaled by Service Center employee, leaving owner without answers
Update 9/9/22 12:32 P.M. EST: Jeff contacted me personally and told me Tesla has officially shipped a Model S Plaid identical to his now-totaled vehicle. “I just got a call from Tesla, a clone of my Model S Plaid is on the truck heading for Texas as I text you today.”
A $155,000 Tesla Model S Plaid was totaled several days after the owner dropped the vehicle off for a Service appointment. Now, the owner is attempting to find answers.
After dropping his Model S Plaid with only a few thousand miles off at the Plano, Texas Tesla Service Center on Wednesday, August 24, owner Jeff said he received a call on Tuesday, August 30, from an employee. “We have some bad news,” Jeff heard over the phone. “Your car was totaled.”
“I thought it was a joke,” Jeff told Teslarati in an interview. “I found out very soon it was not a joke.”
After arriving at the Service Center the next day, on Wednesday, August 31, Jeff found his black Model S Plaid in the parking lot. The rear passenger door smashed in, and visibility into the vehicle was limited due to many airbags in the car being deployed. The vehicle had been t-boned by another car traveling just two blocks from the Service Center, located at 5800 Democracy Drive in Plano. The repair had already been completed and an employee was driving the vehicle around to ensure it was completed properly.
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- Credit: Teslarati
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- Credit: Teslarati
However, the driver of the Model S Plaid, a 31-year-old employee of the Plano Service Center, failed to yield the right of way at a stop sign and was hit by another car. The Model S Plaid was totaled in the accident.
Initially, Jeff was interested in receiving a new car, of course, and there happened to be an exact match of what his Plaid Model S once was at another showroom in the State. He was offered that vehicle on Wednesday, but by Thursday, that had changed. Tesla said they would likely go through insurance, meaning it would take nearly three weeks to get Jeff his vehicle.
The Legalities of the Situation
Teslarati spoke to insurance experts and liability attorneys, who told us the situation in which the vehicle was totaled and determining liability is what truly matters. The fact that this is a customer’s car and an employee crashed it is irrelevant until liability is determined.
We obtained the police report through the City of Plano, which revealed the employee at the Tesla Service Center was at fault. Jeff also told us that when he spoke to the employee driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, they admitted that the accident was his fault.
The report states that the driver of the Model S was officially charged with Failure to Yield the Right of Way at a Stop Sign. The investigating officer describes the accident in the report:
“UNIT 1 WAS STOPPED AT A STOP SIGN IN LANE 2 E/B DEMOCRACY DRIVE FOR PARKWOOD BLVD. UNIT 1 THEN PROCEEDED THROUGH THE INTERSECTION. UNIT 2 WAS N/B PARKWOOD BLVD IN THE RIGHT LANE. DUE TO UNIT 1 FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT OF WAY AT A STOP SIGN TO UNIT 2, THE FRONT END OF UNIT 2 STRUCK THE RIGHT BACK QUARTER OF UNIT 1.”
Illustration of the accident: Unit 1 is the Tesla Model S, while Unit 2 is the Audi A5. Unit 1 is the vehicle at fault, City of Plano officials told Teslarati. (Credit: Teslarati)
The report, obtained by Teslarati, shows there was a second occupant in the Tesla at the time of the crash. The driver is 33. The passenger is 31. Additionally, the Audi A5 that collided with the Tesla was being driven by a 62-year-old who was taken to Plano Presbyterian Hospital.
What’s Next
Tesla has been tight-lipped to Jeff, saying they would be in touch with him regarding the accident within the next three weeks. Tesla may have been attempting to determine liability as its employee who was driving the vehicle may not necessarily be responsible for the accident, especially considering he was t-boned while navigating through an intersection. However, the report filed by the investigating officer determined that the driver of the Tesla was at fault, and the fact that the employee also expressed to Jeff that the accident was his fault would eliminate Tesla’s need to determine this.
Jeff said Tesla has not offered a loaner or a formal replacement vehicle currently, which makes his situation much more complicated. Teslarati reported last month that Tesla had abolished its policy of offering loaners and Uber credits for some service appointments. However, Jeff’s vehicle is totaled, he is without a replacement, and the accident did not happen while he was driving the car, or even in possession of the Model S Plaid.
As of Tuesday, September 6, Tesla has yet to contact Jeff regarding the accident or any information on a replacement vehicle.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
Elon Musk says Grok Bot can manage your finances through linked bank and investment accounts.
Grok Bot now wants access to your wallet, with SpaceXAI rolling out a new Finance integration for its agent platform that lets users link bank, credit card and investment accounts thereby letting their Bots help manage spending, investments and more. Elon Musk amplified the announcement on X with a short endorsement, “Grok Bot can manage your finances.”
The feature builds on two earlier steps. In early September, Grok gained the ability to answer questions about spending, savings, investments and cash flow using accounts connected through Plaid, starting with users in the U.S. Before that, on August 28, SpaceXAI let Grok Bot buy things online through Link, with users approving every spend request and the Bot receiving a single use card for each payment.
Musk has already shown how far he wants users to push it. In late August, when Tesla investor account Teslaconomics said he was weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, Musk replied, “Try it out. If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole.” That promise goes beyond SpaceXAI’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap the company’s liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. SpaceXAI’s own documentation recommends requiring approval for purchases and financial transfers.
For Tesla owners, the update lands five days after Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles, letting drivers hand off errands by voice while FSD (Supervised) handles the road. Bot access inside the car is currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, though Connectors are open to anyone signed into Grok. With Finance linked, a driver could ask for a spending summary or a check on upcoming bills during the commute.
Grok’s role in the car has grown quickly since Tesla’s Summer Update let it control cabin features by voice. We have been using Grok Bot in our own Tesla for several weeks, and here’s how our latest test went.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.
SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.
The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.
The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.
Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.
The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.
News
SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout
SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.
SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.
Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.
Watch Falcon 9 launch the USSF-385 mission from pad 4E in California https://t.co/CAdbx85Ydy
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 26, 2026
USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.
The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.
Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.
The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
