Lifestyle
Tesla Roadster celebrates 10-year production anniversary
The original Tesla Roadster is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, with the Elon Musk-led firm declaring the official start of the car’s production on March 17, 2008. Back then, everything was different for Tesla, but some of the problems it was facing were quite similar to those the company is facing now.
Ten years ago, Tesla, then a small electric car startup, was struggling to meet the demand for its first and only offering — a high-performance electric car dubbed the Roadster. The car proved popular enough that Tesla had a list of reservations for the vehicles. During that time, Tesla’s target was producing one Roadster per week; and even then, there were delays in the production of the vehicle.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk would later state that the Roadster “broke down all the time and really didn’t work.” Despite this, however, the original Roadster was pivotal in shifting the public’s perception of electric cars. No longer were electric vehicles glorified golf carts that run out of charge after a few miles. The Roadster was fast, sleek, and it had decent range — a combination that Tesla would ultimately adopt for the rest of its lineup.
In a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, filmmaker Chris Paine, who directed the 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car and its sequel, the 2011 follow-up titled Revenge of the Electric Car, was one of those who placed reservations for the original Tesla Roadster. According to the director, he was not even sure if he would ever get the car or get a refund for his reservation, considering Tesla’s startup status.
Paine described a meeting with then-Tesla chairman Elon Musk, where they visited the Roadster’s assembly plant at Menlo Park. The building had a number of Roadsters in it, but Tesla could not ship because they had issues. Paine had a camera crew with him, and in front of the camera, Musk approached Roadster No.23 and asked about the car’s problem. A Tesla employee told Musk that the vehicle’s drivetrain was acting up. Paine then realized that the white No.23 Roadster was his own reservation. Musk, for his part, found the situation quite humorous.
“This is your car? This is actually your car? OK! Well, you’ve heard the explanation now. So I guess hopefully it’ll have a powertrain tomorrow. It’s a nice car. I was just thinking; actually, it’s a nice choice of colors,” Musk said.
Paine eventually got his Roadster, albeit at a later than expected date. Despite Musk’s statement that the car “broke down all the time,” the filmmaker told the publication that the electric car actually turned out to be reliable. Ten years down the road, Roadster No.23 is still around, and still as fast and fun as before. Paine also noted that today, his car has turned into a novelty, even when he visits a Tesla Service Center.
“You drive the car in for service, and all the technicians come out and look at it — ‘Hey, that’s a Roadster!’ Yes, it is a weird feeling,” Paine said.
Golden Gate Electric Vehicle Association president Dan Miller also holds a special place for his original thunder gray Tesla Roadster, which he purchased back in 2011. He currently owns a Model S, but states that the first-generation Roadster is a true high-performance electric vehicle that he can actually drive like a real sports car.
“The Roadster is really driving, and the S does everything for you, especially with Autopilot. If you really want to drive, you drive the Roadster.”
Current Model X owner Tom Saxton also has fond memories of his Roadster. According to Saxton, the Roadster was not a very practical vehicle. It was small, and its luggage space was tiny. Despite this, however, Saxton noted that he just gets reactions from people when he drives the Roadster — something that he does not experience with his Model X.
“It is a very impractical car — it only holds two people and a very small amount of luggage — but it’s a lot of fun. The X is a lot more comfortable and sophisticated, but I don’t get people cheering and waving when they see me in the X,” Saxton said.
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- Credit: Casey_S
The Roadster is and will always be the car that started it all for Tesla. Now a 10-year veteran in the electric car industry, Tesla is trying to meet a far more ambitious goal than its one vehicle per week target back in 2008, with the company trying to manufacture 5,000 Model 3 per week by the end of Q2 2018. Considering its humble beginnings, Tesla’s progress in the automotive world is truly impressive.
If any, the original Tesla Roadster will likely live on longer than most automobiles. After all, just last month, Elon Musk’s space firm, SpaceX, launched the Falcon Heavy on its maiden voyage, carrying a unique payload — Musk’s own Tesla Roadster — into space. The car is now orbiting the solar system as we speak.
The Roadster is also set to have a successor too, with Elon Musk announcing late last year that the next-generation Roadster is now under development. The next-gen Roadster is everything the original was, and more, boasting a 0-60 mph time of 1.9 seconds and a top speed of more than 250 mph, as well as 620 miles of range.
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?
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.
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.
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 Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wasn’t expecting this 🫡
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 9, 2026
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.
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.
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