Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla owners rally in powerful statement against human trafficking

Credit: @TeslaTN | Twitter

Published

on

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

Those words were said by Tesla CEO Elon Musk when speaking about the struggles that his companies faced in dire times of adversity. They were also spoken by Eliza Bleu, a victim of human trafficking who was lucky enough to be rescued after 9 years. Bleu was at the Longest Tesla Parade on Saturday, where an estimated 340 Tesla owners rallied in Atlanta, Georgia, to combat human trafficking in a massive parade of electric vehicles.

The Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, in conjunction with Tesla Owner’s Club Atlanta, coordinated the largest parade of all-electric vehicles from the Silicon Valley-based automaker in an attempt to raise awareness about the issues of human trafficking. The parade took place on Saturday, December 12, and a total of 340 Tesla cars checked in to the event, making it the largest parade of Teslas ever. The previous record was set in 2017 in Beijing, China, where 145 Teslas lined up in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record.

Advertisement
-

While the Miles Through Time Automotive Museum provides an in-depth timeline of automotive history and development within their facility, their mission was to raise money for Operation Underground Railroad, commonly known as O.U.R. According to its website, the organization intends to rescue children from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and has saved thousands of people in 28 countries and 26 U.S. states.

The Longest Tesla Parade, as it was labeled by the Miles Through Time Museum, was coordinated by Sean Mathis, the founder of the museum. “Days before discovering the Guinness record, Atlanta had just had sting that resulting in the rescue of 30+ kids from human trafficking,” Mathis told Teslarati. “My wife apparently followed Tim Ballard on social media who is the founder of O.U.R. and suggested we turn the world record attempt into a fundraiser to help save kids from human trafficking and O.U.R. was going to be the perfect nonprofit that is already set up to help make a difference.”

The total route of the parade stood at 15.2 miles, mostly down Highway 400 in Atlanta. The parade required some assistance from local Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols, who assisted in shutting down Highway 400 to help iron out the traveling process of the parade.

Advertisement
-

By the time the parade had wrapped up, 340 Teslas had checked in. Sean and his wife, Torie, did indicate in a YouTube video after the fact that 340 would not be the official number; it would likely be less. “At some point, the parade was broken, but it isn’t a big deal. We only needed 146 to actually officially take the record,” Sean said in a video. The official number, which will need to be confirmed by Guinness World Records to take the world record status officially, will be validated shortly.

It is estimated that 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year, from Mexico and the Phillippines most often, according to bedbible.com. More than half of these cases involved children under the age of 18. Additionally, 40.3 million people are estimated to be victims of human trafficking globally.

The message was simple: raise awareness for human trafficking, and it worked. A total of $8,197 was raised at the event, Johanna Crider of CleanTechnica, who donated and attended the parade, said. Although the parade has concluded, there is still time to donate. $7,209.20 of the $10,000 goal has been raised so far, and 17 days remain in the online fundraiser. To donate, we’ve included the link here.

Advertisement
-

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

Lifestyle

Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

Published

on

By

Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.

Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.

Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.

This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?

Advertisement
-

If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.

What do you think? Leave me a comment.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade

Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.

The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”

The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.

Advertisement
-

It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.

The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.

For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking

Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.

Published

on

By

Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley
Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley

Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.

Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.

This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.

Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.

Advertisement
-

Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.

Continue Reading