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Tesla owner posts stern service complaint after Model Y fire incident

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A Tesla owner, whose Model Y reportedly caught fire during a drive, has posted a stern complaint against the company’s service team. As per the Model Y driver, Tesla’s service department has been extremely difficult to deal with, making the incident even more frustrating than it already is.

In comments to the media, Bishal Malla noted that he was out running errands in his Model Y earlier this month when he felt the vehicle shaking. Upon inspection, he found smoke coming from the bottom of his car. The vehicle was later engulfed in flames. No one was injured in the incident, though the Model Y was burnt up and reportedly declared a total loss by Malla’s insurance provider.

As expected, Malla reportedly contacted Tesla’s customer service to get some answers about the incident. And while insurance will cover the vehicle, he would like to hear from Tesla about what exactly happened to his Model Y. Unfortunately, even talking to Tesla was reportedly difficult.

In comments posted on Reddit, Malla noted that he could only talk to customer service unless it was roadside assistance, but even this was not useful as roadside assistance couldn’t do anything about his case. Malla claimed that one Tesla agent even advised him to take his damaged Model Y to a recommended service center, which was quite ridiculous considering that the vehicle was already burnt up and considered a loss.

“I’ve tried them more than 10 times, but those folks at roadside assistance customer service can’t do anything. One agent I talked to had the audacity to tell me to take my fully burned Tesla to the Tesla recommended servicing center. My car was fully salvaged and a total loss. How in the world am I going to do that?” the Tesla owner wrote.

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The incident has caught the attention of social media users, with some noting that it highlights the need for Tesla to develop and roll out a better service system for its vehicles. The incident, after all, should have been addressed quickly considering that a Model Y ended up burning as a result.

Data from Tesla should also provide some answers about the incident as well. Or at the very least, Tesla should have a system in place that gets owners in touch with a trained team of agents who are really ready to help during times of trouble.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads-up.

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

Jim Cramer chimes in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

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Credit: The Street

Investor and host of Mad Money on MSNBC , Jim Cramer, has chimed in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package and whether it should be rewarded to the frontman or not.

Cramer has drawn a lot of attention regarding his sentiments on Tesla, as investors have routinely given him a pretty hard time over what he’s said about the company.

For the past few years, we have covered his comments on Tesla when he has something to say, mostly because his opinion on the stock seems to change pretty frequently; at a minimum, he has something different to say about it every few months.

However, Cramer knows Musk’s value to Tesla, and said on Thursday that he believes the CEO deserves his pay package:

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

Cramer’s comments come just one day after Tesla’s Q3 2025 Earnings Call, where Musk took several opportunities to call out the importance of the pay package and how it could impact the company’s future — with or without him.

Musk said at one point that he would not feel comfortable continuing to develop the company’s massive fleet of Optimus bots without having appropriate control of the company from a voting perspective.

He said he does not want so much power that if he “were to lose his mind,” he could not be removed. However, he does feel he needs to be protected from “activist shareholders,” or “corporate terrorists” like proxy groups Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis:

“My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future? …It’s just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? That’s what it comes down to in a nutshell. I don’t feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.”

At the end of the call, Musk said:

“Like I said, I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no freaking clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists.”

Cramer is one of many who realize Musk’s importance to Tesla, and how the company would likely lack the guidance and prowess it does without his planning and drive. However, Tesla shareholders will have the ultimate say on November 6 when they vote on Musk’s compensation plan.

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Tesla is stumped on how to engineer this Optimus part, but they’re close

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has been stumped on how to engineer one crucial part of the Optimus bot, but CEO Elon Musk says the company is “on the cusp” of achieving something great with the project.

During the Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company is moving closer to a major breakthrough with the Optimus project, and said they are “on the cusp of something really tremendous.”

However, it seems there is one specific portion of the robot that has truly stumped engineers at the company: the hand, fingers, and forearm.

Musk went into great detail about how incredibly complex and amazing the human hand is, highlighting its dexterity and capability, as its ability to perform a wide variety of tasks is especially impressive:

“I don’t want to downplay the difficulty, but it’s an incredibly difficult thing, especially to create a hand that is as dexterous and capable as the human hand, which is incredible. The human hand is an incredible thing. The more you study the human hand, the more incredible you realize it is, and why you need four fingers and a thumb, why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom, why the various muscles are of different strengths, and fingers are of different lengths. It turns out that those are all there for a reason.”

It’s been pretty apparent that Tesla has made massive strides in the Optimus project, especially considering it has been able to walk down hills, learn things like Kung Fu, and even perform service tasks like serving food and drinks.

However, a recent look at a Gen 2.5 version of Optimus posted by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, showed that Tesla was likely using mannequin hands until it developed something that was both useful and aesthetically pleasing:

Musk continued on the call last night that the Tesla team was confronted with an “incredibly difficult” challenge from an engineering perspective, and the hands and actuators for that specific part were tough to figure out:

“Making the hand and forearm, because most of the actuators, just like the human hand, the muscles that control your hand are actually primarily in your forearm. The Optimus hand and forearm is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge. I’d say it’s more difficult than the rest of the robot from an electromechanical standpoint. The forearm and hand are more difficult than the entire rest of the robot. But really, in order to have a useful generalized robot, you do need an incredible hand.”

The CEO continued that developing a useful and effective robot was “crucial to the future of the company,” and that he works with Optimus’s design team each Friday night.

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Elon Musk sets definitive Tesla Cybercab production date and puts a rumor to rest

“The single biggest expansion in production will be the Cybercab, which starts production in Q2 next year.” -Elon Musk

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Credit: Teslarati

Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally set a definitive date for Tesla Cybercab production and, at the same time, put a substantial rumor regarding the vehicle that has been circulating within the community to rest.

Tesla’s Cybercab was unveiled last October as the company’s two-seater, affordable option that would ultimately be the car used for autonomous travel. It was initially slated for production in late 2025 or early 2026.

Tesla is ramping up its hiring for the Cybercab production team

However, Tesla has finally said it will start production of the Cybercab in Q2 2026, a more concrete date for the company, as it has moved the entire project forward in recent weeks by testing it at the Fremont Test Track and conducting crash safety assessments.

Musk said on the Q3 2025 Earnings Call:

“The single biggest expansion in production will be the Cybercab, which starts production in Q2 next year. That’s really a vehicle that’s optimized for full autonomy. It, in fact, does not have a steering wheel or pedals and is really an enduring optimization on minimizing cost per mile for fully considered cost per mile of operation.”

In that quote, Musk also put a rumor that has been circulating within the community to rest. Some started to speculate whether Cybercab would be sold with a steering wheel and pedals, as many of the elements of the car seemed to hint toward not being exclusively autonomous, including side mirrors being equipped, among other things.

It has been interesting to see some consider whether Tesla would sell the vehicle with the elements that would enable human control, especially as there have been a handful of images of the vehicle on company property with a steering wheel spotted.

However, Musk doubled down on the autonomous nature of the Cybercab with this confirmation during the earnings call, something that many investors likely wanted to hear because it was, in a way, a vote of confidence for the company’s path to autonomy.

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