Lifestyle
Tesla owners are having plenty of winter driving fun in the snow [Video]
Don’t try something like this in your Tesla. It’s definitely not advised — but it sure looks like fun. In Moscow, “one could grab an American electric tank (read: a Tesla Model S) and try to embrace the Russian winter… Alan Enileev has recently brought us an adventure that sees a Model S, presumably a P100D, delivering wonderful all-paw donuts in Gagarinsky District, Moscow”, notes AutoEvolution.
You’re probably pondering… how an electric vehicle can do such dramatic donuts (see below) better than most gas-powered cars? It’s reported that, “you might wonder what allows the 2+ ton behemoth [Model S] to spin so violently. And the answer is simple. You see, the instant electric torque joins forces with the single-gear nature of the Tesla — the latter aspect means that, once the wheels lose traction, the electric motors get to spin all the way to heaven, going way past what an internal combustion engine could deliver.”
Above: Russian Model S performing an exquisite winter ballet (Source: alan_enileev)
More insights come from the Now You Know Tesla tipsters, Zac and Jesse, in their new Tesla Model 3. As we previously reported, a slow-motion capture of Model 3’s rear wheels reveal a delicate dance of power limiting and power transfer to the ground, thereby allowing the driver to maintain control of the vehicle at all times. It wasn’t until the Model 3 was placed into Slip Start mode that the vehicle began to show any signs of sliding, when purposely pushed to the limits in an attempt to drift the vehicle.
Above: Zac and Jesse take their RWD Model 3 out for a spin in the middle of a snow storm and do a couple of donuts (Youtube: Now You Know)
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So if Model S and Model 3 owners can make their cars dance during winter with these donuts, what can Tesla’s SUV, the Model X, accomplish in the snow? It turns out there are other ways to enjoy what the Model X has to offer its owners during wintertime. You could pull a semi truck up a hill. If you’re not that daring, you (and your Model X) can celebrate the holidays with friends and family — in style. Sure, the Model S and Model 3 can do donuts, but Tesla’s Model X does this…
Above: Three Tesla Model X SUVs get together for an amazing light show during a beautiful white Christmas (Youtube: michael subasic)
In any event, it turns out that you can have plenty of fun in your Tesla this winter. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed the holidays just as much as these other Tesla owners. Then again, you could battle your Tesla in a tug of war against gas-guzzlers in the snow but we would also advise against it. That said, if you’re up north facing more snow this week, stay safe and (if you’ve got Tesla’s subzero weather package) keep those seat heaters warm!
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Note: Article originally published by evannex.com, by Matt Pressman
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Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
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