Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla Model S proves not to be ‘Shaq-friendly’

Credit: NBA on TNT on YouTube | Tesla

Published

on

The Tesla Model S is one of the most impressive vehicles to ever drive on the road. It is the electric automaker’s flagship vehicle, and it has proven for eight years that it is as fast as it is environmentally-friendly. However, the lightning-fast sedan has its downfalls, and one of them is the fact that it cannot comfortably fit 7-foot 1-inch tall Shaquille O’Neal. But then again, what vehicle can?

In a Tik Tok posted by Anthony C. Hall, the Model S proved to be a tight fit for the former NBA Superstar. After attempting to climb into the Model S, Shaq showed that the spacious sedan was still not friendly enough to the massive frame that the four-time NBA Champion has dealt with for the majority of his life.

Shaq appeared to have the passenger’s seat shifted as far back as it could go. Shaq struggled to get inside of the car, tucking his head under the top of the door frame and awkwardly shifting his body inside of the vehicle while wiggling his size 22 shoes into the cabin. It was apparent that the Model S is not the most “Shaq-friendly” vehicle, even though he owned a P85 variant a few years ago. After finally finessing his way into the car, he gave Tesla CEO Elon Musk a word of advice.

“Elon, you wanna make a big boy Tesla?”

Shaq was known for his athletic ability while playing in the NBA for 1992 to 2011. Now, the Louisiana State University alumnus spends his evenings breaking down professional basketball games with longtime friend Charles Barkley and others on TNT’s Inside the NBA.

While Shaq did own a Tesla Model S in the past, another car would probably be more suitable for the superstar. With the Model X available, Shaq may still have to wait for Tesla’s Cybertruck to release in late 2021 to find a vehicle large enough to accommodate his massive size.

Advertisement
-

Shaq has been a supporter of electric vehicles for several years. Even though he had a P85 Model S in his driveway at one point, O’Neal also was present at Amazon’s re:MARS event in June 2019, where Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe showed the longtime Lakers Center in an R1T pickup. The all-electric truck from Rivian seemed to fit Shaq reasonably well thanks to increased cargo space, and a massive frame, much like O’Neal has.

The Cybertruck will likely be the vehicle that Shaq would turn to for “a big boy Tesla,” due to its sheer size and brute strength. While the fleet of currently available Tesla cars will accommodate the normally-sized humans out there, Shaq will need something a little bigger, and the Cybertruck is the perfect fit.

@tony_bluechips44Watch Shaq try to squeeze into my ##teslamodels ##fyp ##foryou ##foryoupage ##comedy♬ original sound – tony_bluechips44

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration

Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.

Published

on

By

tesla cybercab with no manual controls showing a movie with two employees inside

Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.

Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.

Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.

Advertisement
-

The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

Advertisement
-

This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

Continue Reading