Lifestyle
Tales from a Tesla Model S with 450,000 miles: Battery life, durability, and more
The quality and durability of Tesla’s vehicles are not just talking points for fans of the all-electric car manufacturer – they’re traits that prove themselves time and again as a benefit of the ownership experience. In a recent example, a 2015 Tesla Model S that’s driven almost 450,000 miles shuttling passengers over long distances was shown to be still running strong and ready for more travel, according to a video overview posted by the founder of the company that owns it, Tesloop.
Tesloop is a connected mobility company for Tesla owners that’s currently developing an open-source mobile app called Carmiq. The company previously operated as a Tesla-only ride share service, offering trips between various cities in southern California and Las Vegas. The long distances involved in Tesloop’s operations put its Tesla fleet to incredible endurance tests, and aside from wear-and-tear seen in most vehicles with similar milage or less, the company’s experience with its 2015 Model S was very positive overall and it still drives well today.
“I think this is the only car that I can confidently say drives better today than it did three years ago and after 450,000 miles. And that’s due to the over-the-air software which has updated the car with Autopilot…The general driving feel of it is still really good…I think it would be very hard to tell this car has this many miles on it if you didn’t know,” Haynd Sonnad, founder of Tesloop, commented in the video.
Nicknamed “eHawk”, Tesloop’s Model S was built in June 2015 and has required a few repairs and major services during its lifetime. Some were paid for by Tesloop as part of its day-to-day business needs, such as tire replacement, and several others were paid for by Tesla under the car’s warranty, such as high voltage battery replacement.
A spreadsheet documenting all of the Model S’s service and maintenance experiences was published alongside its video overview for specific details. As listed, the most notable major events over the vehicle’s life time were the front drive unit replacement at 36,404 miles due to a part failure and two main battery replacements, one at 194,237 miles, the other at 324,044 miles. All three replacements were covered under the car’s 8-year, unlimited-mile warranty.
The first battery pack the Tesla Model S had experienced 1.2 miles of range lost per 10,000 miles while being driven about 17,000 miles per month and was replaced due to a battery chemistry issue. The second pack was losing about 4.7 miles every 10,000 miles driven, and its replacement was due to a defect in the battery assembly. The current battery is a 90 kWh pack and showing a loss of about 2.4 miles of range per 10,000 miles driven; however, about midway through the mileage, the car was transitioned from a long distance shuttle to a daily rental car, so the averages may not be a great reflection on its efficiency. At about 126,000 miles into the new pack, eHawk’s battery degradation is around 9%.
Also worth a mention are the brake pad and rotor replacements made for all the Model S’s wheels at 225,351 miles despite the average tire replacement taking place about every 53,000 miles from the long distances driven during regular use. The total owner cost for repairs after nearly 450,000 miles was listed as under $13,000, and general vehicle repairs came in at under $15,000.
During Tesla’s Autonomy Day investor event, CEO Elon Musk estimated that a new battery pack set to go into production next year would operate for one million miles with minimal maintenance, and the improvements are being driven by the company’s march towards its autonomous Tesla Network robo taxi service. Tesloop’s early adoption of Tesla’s vehicles may have meant the company’s most advanced technology wasn’t immediately available to take advantage of, but considering the results seen at 450,000 miles with an older variation, the quality and durability of Tesla vehicles have already proven themselves worth ownership at any stage of development.
To see Tesloop’s full overview of its 450,000-mile, 2015 Tesla Model S’s condition, watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbD44jXffY
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Elon Musk
NASA sends humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – Here’s what’s next
NASA’s Artemis II launched four astronauts toward the Moon on the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Operations and Support Building II at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 6:35pm EDT from Launch Complex 39B. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA launched four astronauts toward the Moon on April 1, 2026, marking the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket at 6:35 p.m. EDT, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon and back.
The mission does not include a lunar landing. It is a test flight designed to validate the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space with a crew aboard for the first time. If the crew reaches the planned distance of 252,000 miles from Earth, they will set a new record for the farthest any human has ever traveled, surpassing even the Apollo 13 distance record.
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX holds a central role in what comes next. The Starship Human Landing System is under contract to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for Artemis IV, now targeting 2028, after NASA restructured its mission sequence due to delays in Starship’s orbital refueling demonstration. Before any Moon landing happens, SpaceX must prove it can transfer propellant between two Starships in orbit, something no rocket program has done at this scale.
The last time humans left Earth’s orbit was 53 years ago. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 were the final people to walk on the Moon, a record that stands to this day. Elon Musk has long argued that returning is not optional. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the Moon,” Musk said. “That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the Moon.”
The Artemis program involves 60 countries signed onto the Artemis Accords, and this mission sets several firsts beyond distance. Glover becomes the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American astronaut to reach the Moon’s vicinity. According to NASA’s live mission updates, the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed successfully after liftoff and the crew completed a proximity operations demonstration within the first hours of flight.
Artemis II is step one. The Moon landing and the permanent lunar base come later. But after more than five decades, humans are heading back.
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