Welcome to a FREE preview of our weekly exclusive! Each week our team goes ‘Beyond the News’ and handcrafts a special edition that includes our thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
You can receive this newsletter along with all of our other members-exclusive newsletters, become a premium member for just $3/month. Your support goes a long way for us behind the scenes! Thank you.
—
Overall, I’d say it has been a good week for electric vehicles.
The Porsche Taycan had more than just a moment in the spotlight, really. It kicked up all sorts of discussion about where EVs are headed and brought in some healthy debate about where things should be headed. I believe there’s an old saying that goes, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” which is probably debatable; however, as far as EV awareness goes, even the most skeptical takes on Porsche vs. Tesla vs. the rest arguably does more to spread consumer curiosity than the most expensive and extensive marketing campaigns.
I know the Taycan has been discussed to death at this point, but I do find it interesting what its final debut meant in the big picture. Despite everything that the $TSLAQ crowd tries to drag Tesla through the mud about, here is a luxury sports car maker with a decades-long, hard-earned reputation spending serious time and effort developing an amazing electric car. It’s not a compliance car to meet some sort of regulatory requirement. It’s not just an “option” built to prove the company is eco friendly or whatever term makes people feel warm and fuzzy about their purchase. It was built to be an EV worthy of sharing the stage with its award-winning, legendary, gas-powered brethren.
I think Elon Musk’s subsequent attentions to the Taycan added to the publicity benefits EVs were experiencing as well. Silliness aside, Tesla’s new challenge to take on the Taycan’s Nürburgring record validated what Porsche had achieved and validated Tesla’s success in spreading its message that EVs really are the future of automotive transportation. Tesla fans are no longer just cheering on the brand’s drag race wins over legacy cars. There’s a new “normal” on its way where electric is competing with electric, and the finer details about the cars will matter rather than just the source of power.
The timing of these recent events seems to be well placed in light of, say, Europe’s upcoming regulations regarding CO2 reductions for vehicles. Reading the news about various car makers’ struggles to comply with the rules and the foot dragging that’s been going on, it seems to me like there’s at least some confidence that serious efforts to make good electric cars is underway.
Personally, it took a while to understand the hubbub about EVs because of the poor efforts of car makers in the past. They sounded impractical, held very little value once purchased, and could only be driven until the batteries went bad, essentially. I mean, if it weren’t for writing about Tesla as a reporter, I would have thought any EV built to meet government regulations was going to be crud and held off as long as possible before buying one. Sometimes I wonder if European customers worry about the same thing after so many legacy car makers have come out with lackluster EVs, assuming their budget doesn’t allow for a Tesla.
The Taycan seems to give some hope that “compliance” may be out the window soon. Now that there’s another serious EV out there, everyone else risks looking…lazy? Uninterested in customer satisfaction? Innovatively challenged? With both Tesla and Porsche blowing through stereotypes, other car makers have to shelve their excuses and figure things out.
Then there’s Rivian continuing to make progress towards entering the arena as well. Most recently, the startup announced a $350 million dollar investment from Cox Automotive meant to focus on customer experience. It’s the third big investment for the company that’s working on some serious electric pickup trucks and SUVs. I know we still have yet to see their cars enter production, but the prototypes and show models are pretty impressive already. They’re yet another company putting legacy auto on notice that the compliance days are over.
Ford seems to have gotten the message with its $500 million dollar Rivian investment, so there are sprinkles of hope here and there I suppose. Perhaps Audi’s tiny-range e-tron that was recently announced will produce enough customer results to encourage production of really good EVs with a win-win balance. All customers get great cars, and car makers can find a better price point by reducing the parts that cost the most, i.e., the batteries. Just brainstorming here…
But regardless, considering the Tesla and Porsche banter and Rivian’s news this week, I’d say EVs came out with winning headlines overall. “Power” to the future? Sorry… I’m a sucker for cheesy 80s mantras.
Lifestyle
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.
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.
A public service announcement. https://t.co/NYa1IpKwBX
— Jason Oppenheim (@OppenheimJason) October 4, 2026
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.
Lifestyle
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla’s Halloween teaser hides a covered vehicle and an Optimus hand rising from the ground.
Tesla has started teasing a Halloween software update for its vehicles, with a short clip on X that reads, “Halloween is coming.” The clip opens on a glowing pumpkin before pulling back to the car’s center touchscreen, where the usual parked visualization has been replaced by a graveyard scene, and the vehicle draped with a white sheet so it reads as a cartoon ghost.
Halloween is coming pic.twitter.com/lM3ASUeOqX
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 1, 2026
The second detail is a robotic hand clawing its way out of the dirt like a zombie, which looks to be the hand of Tesla’s latest Optimus V3 humanoid robot. While Tesla still has not formally shown Optimus Gen 3 walking around in service, renders pulled from Tesla’s Android app last month gave the clearest look yet, including far more refined hands that Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom. The hand has been the hardest part of the program. Musk has called it the majority of the robot’s engineering difficulty, and Tesla’s patents describe a design driven by tendons with the actuators moved into the forearm.
Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents
Optimus also has a Halloween track record. Last October the robot handed out candy in Times Square, and a costumed “zombie” Optimus shuffled around the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Halloween night.
On the software side, Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update expanded Santa Mode with a Santa sleigh, snowmen, snow effects, and a festive lock chime, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched if we saw something similar but themed for a Halloween Mode.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s newest feature lets you floor it out of a Supercharger while plugged in
Tesla’s new Emergency Drive Away feature lets owners flee a Supercharger while still plugged in.
Tesla has given drivers a way to escape while a vehicle is plugged-in at a Supercharger, in the event of an emergency. The company’s charging team announced a new feature on X called Emergency Drive Away, which lets a driver shift into Drive and pull away while the charging cable is still connected to the car.
Until now, a Tesla would not leave Park with a charge cable plugged in. Drivers had to release the latch from the touchscreen, the Tesla app, or the button on the charge handle, then wait for the port to let go. Emergency Drive Away removes that lockout, but Tesla is clear that it comes at a cost. “Use of this feature will damage your vehicle and the Supercharger,” the company wrote, adding that the function is meant for emergencies only and that deliberate misuse will lead to “additional penalties.” Tesla did not say what those penalties are.
Emergency Drive Away lets you shift into Drive while still plugged into a Supercharger pic.twitter.com/40GSzyP4lG
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) October 1, 2026
The in-car prompt is just as direct, with the warning reading: “Driving with the cable connected will cause damage to your vehicle and the Supercharger. Short camera recordings will be shared with Tesla.” That footage gives Tesla a way to separate a real emergency from someone who simply did not want to wait for the latch.
The feature requires software update 2026.38.3, and Tesla said in replies to owners that it works at every Supercharger in the United States without new stall hardware. Model S and Model X vehicles built before 2021 are not supported, and the company says the feature applies to U.S. Superchargers “for now,” leaving Canada and other markets out at launch.
Tesla Supercharger argument leads to tragic shooting incident
Tesla did not tie the announcement to any specific event, but it arrives two months after a gunman opened fire at an In-N-Out in Twin Falls, Idaho, on August 1, targeting three people in two Teslas at the neighboring Supercharger. One of them, a 66 year old man from Salt Lake City, was killed. Superchargers have been the scene of violence before, including a fatal shooting at a station near Denver in 2023.
In the weeks after Twin Falls, owners pushed Tesla for a native way to escape a stall, and many pointed back to EVject, the aftermarket breakaway connector Tesla sued in 2024 over claims it lacked overtemperature protection. The two companies later reached an agreement that led EVject to recall its earlier connectors in favor of a version with thermal sensors.
Our mission has always been about providing peace of mind and eliminating sitting duck scenarios.
We patented the built-in breakaway charger tip on Feb 15, 2023. Awarded Jan 30, 2024. Then shared the designs with @TeslaCharging
Thank you @Tesla for rolling out a solution. This… https://t.co/djOzswLw9N
— EVject (@EVject) October 2, 2026
Tesla wins over Netflix’s Selling Sunset star, who’s now ditching his Bentley
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
