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Tesla Model X easily tows Chevy Silverado 1500 from Supercharger in ‘De-ICE-ing’ feat

(Photo: Patrick Lawson/YouTube)

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There is no denying that Tesla’s electric cars are bound to be polarizing for a long time to come. Operating independent of gasoline, the vehicles are practically a stand against the fossil fuel industry. Being sleek, powerful and quick, the cars also go against the notion that electric cars are boring and slow. Unfortunately, as Teslas become more commonplace with the ramp of the Model 3, the vehicles appear to be attracting more resistance from the anti-EV community as well.

Last month, several members of the Tesla community went online to share their experiences with a practice colloquially known as “ICE-ing,” which involves gasoline and diesel powered vehicles blocking access to a Supercharger. While some of these incidents might be the result of an honest mistake, some ICE-ing incidents are undoubtedly intentional. Noted TSLA short Mark Spiegel, for example, has proudly shown off his Porsche Boxster S blocking a Supercharger stall earlier this year. Tesla owners u/Leicina and u/BarcodeOfficial from the r/TeslaMotors subreddit uploaded photos of stations being intentionally blocked by pickup truck drivers as well. As noted by the Tesla owners, some of the truck drivers were even verbally harassing EV owners.

Amidst these annoying (and disturbing to a point) incidents, one thing that these pickup truck drivers could easily forget is that Tesla’s electric cars are actually loaded with a lot of power, and they have the weight to back it up. Being equipped with electric motors, Tesla’s vehicles have a lot of torque, and thanks to their massive battery packs, they are also very heavy. The Tesla Model X, for example, was at its lightest at 5,072 pounds, and that was when the company was still selling the 60D variant. Thus, in theory, a Tesla should be able to tow an offending vehicle out of a Supercharger station if needed, or as a last resort in the event of an emergency.

Such a theory was recently put to the test by Tesla Model X 90D owner Patrick Lawson. In a video posted on his Tesla Trip YouTube channel, Patrick opted to see if his all-electric SUV would be able to tow a full-sized pickup truck out of a Supercharger. Fortunately for the Model X owner, his sister recently acquired a 2014 Chevrolet 1500 Silverado, and she was more than willing to see if her 5,104-lb pickup could be towed by the electric vehicle. Patrick opted to conduct the experiment at an empty Supercharger in Loveland, CO, and to make the scenario even more challenging; he opted to engage the truck’s emergency brake, simulating a situation where a driver intentionally leaves a vehicle parked for an extended period of time.

In the video, Patrick could be seen hooking up his Model X to the Chevy Silverado 1500, then slowly driving away, pickup truck in tow. From what could be seen in the experiment, the entire ‘De-ICE-ing” process was effortless for the all-electric SUV, with Patrick noting in a conversation with Teslarati that he had to “show constraint” as he “gently pressed on the Model X’s accelerator” to ensure that both vehicles don’t get damaged. The Model X did not have to engage Slip Start before it towed the Silverado as well, and no warnings were present on the vehicle while it was pulling the full-sized pickup. Ultimately, Patrick noted that entire “De-ICE-ing” process only took around five minutes.

With the ramp of the Model 3, Tesla’s electric cars are becoming more prevalent. Unfortunately, acts like ICE-ing Superchargers would likely continue as well. And it’s not just ICE-ing either. Some Tesla owners, among them racecar driver Leilani Münter, have noted on Twitter that she had been “coal-rolled” multiple times while driving in her Tesla. In a tweet, Elon Musk described these situations as “bizarre.”

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Inasmuch as ICE-ing, or coal-rolling for that matter, is an annoyance that could escalate into something more dangerous, there is very little that the anti-EV crowd can do to stop the spread of electric cars. Countries across the globe such as China, which are large markets for the auto industry, are shifting to electric vehicles, and so are regions like Europe. Thanks to cars like the Model 3, electric vehicles are becoming more and more attainable as well. Coupled with a grid that is shifting towards cleaner energy, it would only be a matter of time before the auto industry shifts completely to electric.

Watch Patrick Lawson’s video of his Tesla Model X “de-ICE-ing” a Supercharger 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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Tesla wins over Netflix’s Selling Sunset star, who’s now ditching his Bentley

Selling Sunset’s Jason Oppenheim swapped his Bentley for a Tesla and promised ten for employees.

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Jason Oppenheim, the luxury real estate broker best known as the star of Netflix’s Selling Sunset, has parked his Bentley for good and moved into a Tesla Model Y, and he says Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is the reason.

Oppenheim, who founded The Oppenheim Group, the Los Angeles brokerage at the center of the show, posted a video to X on Saturday evening that he called “the most important video I’ve ever posted.” In it, he rides from Newport Beach to his firm’s Los Angeles office, a trip he put at roughly an hour and 15 minutes, while FSD handles the drive and parks the car without him touching the wheel or the accelerator. He said he handed the Bentley to his father because he no longer has any use for it.

Tesla shared the clip from its main account on X about two hours later, pulling out the quote that has since spread well beyond the Tesla community:

“[FSD Supervised] is life-changing. I was on the phone with my brother last night, and I made him buy one. He literally bought one while we were talking. I’m buying 10 of my employees a Tesla with FSD. It’s 8x safer than the average driver. There’s nothing more important than the safety of you and your loved ones.”

Oppenheim was candid about why the safety pitch landed with him. He admitted in the video that he is a distracted driver who answers emails and texts behind the wheel, and framed the employee purchases as a way to keep his team off their phones while driving. Elon Musk posted “Tesla FSD feels like magic” less than half an hour after the video went live.

The endorsement lands at a convenient moment for Tesla. The company delivered 486,532 vehicles in Q3, beating Wall Street’s estimates and marking its best quarter ever without the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.

Tesla FSD has been subscription only in the U.S. since February at $99 per month, and Tesla said in its Q2 update that active subscriptions hit 1.48 million, up 56 percent year over year, with more than 55 percent of new North American deliveries leaving with FSD attached. That attach rate is the figure Ron Baron cited last month when he told CNBC “the time to buy the stock is now.” At current pricing, Oppenheim’s 10 employee cars alone would add $990 a month, or about $11,880 a year, in FSD revenue.

Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy said in July that FSD had logged more than 12 billion miles while going roughly twice as far between collisions as manual driving. FSD also remains a supervised system, so Oppenheim and his employees are still required to watch the road, even as Tesla rolls out v14.3.10 with Automatic Collision Evasion, which can steer or brake on its own to avoid a frontal crash.

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Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming

Elon Musk says SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI, marking its second rebrand in under three months.

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Elon Musk wants to rename his artificial intelligence company again, less than three months after its last rebrand.

In a string of posts on X early Sunday morning, Musk wrote “No more AI,” followed by “SI” and “It’s better.” He then added, “SpaceX is a super intelligence company.” When a user asked whether SpaceXAI could become SpaceXSI, Musk replied, “Yes, we will make that change.”

The posts extend a terminology push that began at the White House last week. On September 29, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” on government websites, policy documents and press releases. The same day, Musk sat beside Trump as the heads of the largest AI companies signed a voluntary safety accord, as Teslarati reported. Speaking to reporters afterward, Musk caught himself mid sentence: “I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”

Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner

SpaceXSI would be the third name for the business since February. SpaceX acquired xAI on February 2 in a deal that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion. In May, Musk said xAI would be dissolved as a separate company, and on July 6 the division adopted the SpaceXAI name and a new logo that placed the xAI letters inside the SpaceX identity.

Musk gave no timeline. He did not say whether SpaceXSI would be a legal name change or a branding update, whether the @SpaceXAI handle on X would change, or how the shift would apply to products like Grok. The company had not issued a formal announcement as of Sunday morning.

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The change would reach well beyond a chatbot. SpaceXAI now houses Grok, the X platform, the Colossus training clusters in Memphis and the coding tool Cursor, which SpaceX acquired in August. It also runs the orbital compute effort SpaceX is building around Nvidia hardware, which Musk said during the company’s first earnings call would be exclusive to Nvidia.

It’s unclear if rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia have plans to also rename their companies or products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has continued to say “AI” in public, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has gone partway, describing data centers as “super intelligence factories.”

The rename would also line up SpaceX’s AI branding with the federal government’s language as Musk takes on a new advisory role at the Pentagon, where he is helping lead the Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.

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Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing

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(Credit: Starlink | X)

Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.

Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.

Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.

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The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.

A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.

Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.

Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.

Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.

The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.

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

Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.

The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.

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