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Tesla’s ‘slowest’ Model S battles a roaring Kia Stinger GT S in drag race

[Credit: Top Gear/YouTube]

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Elon Musk wanted to change the public’s perception of electric cars when he joined Tesla Motors as a major investor in the company’s early days. While EVs prior to the Tesla Roadster (save for GM’s controversial and ultimately ill-fated EV1) were usually associated with slow, uninspiring vehicles, the Silicon Valley-based startup’s breakout machine was a sleek, quick, sexy car worthy of a place on any bedroom wall.

Fast forward more than a decade later, and Tesla is now an automotive startup capable of challenging some of the world’s most formidable car manufacturers. After the first-generation Roadster, Tesla’s charge was led by the Model S, a family sedan that could seat seven and whose fastest variant shames Italian-bred supercars off the line. Today, the Model S starts with the 75D, named after its 75 kWh battery pack that gives it a 259-mile range.

Being Tesla’s entry-level variant, the 75D is the “slowest” of the entire Model S line. The term “slowest” here refers to how it compares to its other Model S siblings though, as the vehicle is still zippy with a 0-60 mph time of 4.2 seconds, thanks to its electric motors that produce 362 bhp and 486 lb-ft of torque. That said, the Model S 75D is hardly the Tesla of choice when it comes to drag racing, thanks to its rather conservative specs.Β 

Auto publication Top Gear, though, has selected the Model S 75D for this specific reason. In a recent video, the publication opted to race the Model S 75D with a car that pretty much surprised everyone when it was released — the Kia Stinger GT S.

Kia is hardly a name associated with powerful cars, but its first foray into the performance sedan market — the Stinger — was far better than what anyone really expected. Professional reviewers have remarked that the Stinger really has no business being as good as it is, with its roaring 3.3-liter Twin Turbo V6 producing 365 bhp and 376 lb-ft of torque. From a dead stop, the Stinger launches with an impressive 0-60 mph time of 4.7 seconds.

Reviews of the Stinger have been quite impressive. James May of Top Gear and The Grand Tour fame liked the car, and Randy Pobst of Motor Trend was impressed overall. In a way, the Stinger owes a good degree of its capability to surprise to Albert Biermann, a man who Kia poached from German automaker BMW. When he was at BMW, Biermann headed the M division — that M division.

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While the Stinger GT S is a formidable car in its own right, though, Top Gear‘s recent test shows that the vehicle is still not quite enough to beat Tesla’s “slowest” Model S. The Stinger might have more horsepower than the Model S 75D, but the instant torque from the electric car’s dual motors allowed the Tesla to establish an early lead in the race, and it just kept pulling away after. By the end of the quarter-mile, the Model S 75D was far ahead of the Stinger GT S.Β 

Watch the Tesla Model S 75D race the Kia Stinger GT S in the video below.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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