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Tesla displays its rarest vehicles in new Petersen exhibit

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

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Tesla is set to display some of the rarest and historic vehicles it developed in a new exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. After announcing a new “Inside Tesla” exhibit that highlights the company’s groundbreaking trek into electric vehicles, the Museum has finally released details on which of the automaker’s cars would be on display for fans and foes alike to gasp over.

On display at the Petersen Museum will be some of Tesla’s most unique vehicles, hailing from the roots of the company all the way to some of the most high-performance powertrains it has ever brought to testing or to the market. The exhibit features a unique display of company accolades, early projects, and continuing teases of vehicles Tesla has tried to bring to market in the past few years, but has not.

Original Tesla Roadster

While many Tesla fans and enthusiasts have likely seen the Original Tesla Roadster, it would not be a proper Tesla history exhibit without this vehicle. A symbolic car that basically encapsulates the company’s darkest days, a far cry from today, where the automaker is financially secure, the Roadster would either sink or swim Tesla. Fortunately, it was the raft Musk and other early executives needed.

tesla roadster

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

Other Tesla Roadsters on Display

Amongst the other Roadsters on display at the Museum will be the 2005 prototype of the Roadster, which hails back to Tesla’s earliest projects and ventures into electric vehicles. More recently, the 2020 ‘Next-Gen’ Roadster will also be on display. Despite this exciting development, the presence of this vehicle, in particular, might sting a few Petersen visitors when the exhibit opens.

Despite being dated as a 2020 vehicle since its unveiling, Tesla has failed to start manufacturing (or even plan for it) on the new Roadster, with many awaiting some development update. The $250,000 vehicle is expected to hover as well.

Tesla’s 1,000,000th Vehicle

Tesla’s 1,000,000th vehicle, a Multi-Coat Red Model Y, will also be displayed at the Museum’s Tesla exhibit. Built in March 2020, the 1,000,000th Model Y was a symbolic piece of history for Tesla as it had struggled and fought to become profitable for several years.

After launching the Model Y in 2020 in the U.S., it was only fitting the Model Y would be the millionth vehicle Tesla built. Surprisingly, the company only started building hundreds of thousands of cars a few quarters after this, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to rage on.

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tesla model y

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

Model S Plaid Nürburgring

The Model S Plaid that ripped around Germany’s Nürburgring will also be on display at the Petersen Exhibit. This vehicle needs no introduction, it was one of the most exciting times as a journalist covering Tesla and electric vehicles that didn’t have major implications for the company’s future. It was just fun seeing how fast this car could go on one of the most challenging tracks on Earth.

nurburgring model s

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

Tesla Cyberquad for Adults

Another Tesla project that was super exciting but has not received any updates since 2019 is the Cyberquad for Adults. After the Kids’ version was axed from shelves recently because an adult tried to ride it with a child, ruining the fun for everyone, the Adult version of the Quad is all some of us can keep hope for.

The Cyberquad was an addition to the 2019 Cybertruck unveiling event itself and was a potential addition with the purchase of the truck. However, just like the Cybertruck, the Cyberquad has not been released or built for the general public yet.

cyberquad

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

Tesla Cybertruck Prototype

The 2019 version of the Cybertruck won’t be the one that ultimately is delivered to customers when it is finally built next year, but it has a rich story. Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in Hawthorne, California, in November 2019, which was a weird event. Nothing went according to plan, as the unbreakable Cybertruck windows broke, the design of the truck is ultimately not what Tesla will deliver to customers, and basically, everything from pricing to powertrains has changed.

cybertruck

Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

Model 3 and Model X OG Prototypes

These original Model 3 and Model X designs are not far off from what is still delivered today. These vehicles are both important to Tesla’s story for their own reasons, and as an essential part of the company’s history, it is nice to see them on display for Tesla fans.

The Inside Tesla exhibit is open to the public and tickets can be purchased at Petersen.org/Tesla. It will start on November 20 and will be available on the first floor in the Mullin Family Grand Salon and Phillip Sarofim Porte Cochere.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below, or be sure to email me at joey@teslarati.com or on Twitter @KlenderJoey.

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

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Lifestyle

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

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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