Tesla’s salvaged vehicles make for an excellent project for rebuilders, or a chance to have an industry-leading electric car for a discounted price. Some members of the community have even made the act of rebuilding wrecked or damaged Teslas a career, like Rich Rebuilds, who runs a prominent YouTube channel. However, Tesla stopped allowing Supercharging on their salvaged vehicles in February 2020. This move ended fast charging capabilities for the owners of wrecked and refurbished Teslas, but now rebuilders are reporting that the electric vehicle company is taking away more functions.
We received a tip from a Tesla salvager who says the company is now refusing to update ownership records, nor will it activate the smartphone application, which enables some functions for the electric vehicle in question. However, Tesla has a reason for doing this, and it has to do with revenue and passenger safety, which is something the company is under a microscope for from its harshest critics.
But the real reason we are talking about it this week is because there is a valid argument for both points of view, and both should be examined in an open platform. When you decide which side you are on, please e-mail me and let me know your thoughts.
First, let’s look at the side of the salvagers. They have a few main points on why taking away vehicle privileges is wrong. One issue is the fact that salvaged Teslas, if not repaired and resold, will end up sitting in a landfill for basically the remainder of the time.
It is a shame that a car that is capable of repair could end up in a landfill to sit and rot away for the rest of time. Not only is it a waste of space, but its a waste of a perfectly good high-performance vehicle. Not to mention, project cars are a hobby and a career for some. Eliminating the possibility of preparing or working on a Tesla electric vehicle to bring it back to life reduces the industry of bringing the cars back to life.
Next, the revitalization of these salvaged vehicles creates an opportunity for a more affordable Tesla ownership experience for some. Rebuilding vehicles creates profit for the person responsible for bringing the car back to a driveable state. At the same time, the owner can sometimes receive a discounted price on a perfectly drivable vehicle that could have low miles.
The industry of rebuilding crashed, or damaged cars are advantageous for multiple parties financially. The issue is the cars are not always repaired by mechanics properly, which can lead to quality and safety issues down the line. However, this could be another opportunity for Tesla to train salvagers, mechanics, and collision repair technicians across the world. The idea of making repair seminars or courses available for those who plan to revitalize a Tesla vehicle could lead to an influx of people who are familiar with the cars inside and out.
To the flip side, Tesla’s arguments are just as reliable as those of the rebuilders. Tesla has maintained a reputation for having extremely safe vehicles that are capable of saving people from severe injuries when they are involved in scary and violent accidents. When cars are damaged and end up in salvage yards, ending up in the hands of those who are interested in repairing them, they are never really the same. The most severely damaged cars can have chassis and build issues that can never be fixed fully, only masked, and pushed as close to perfect as possible. They’ll never be “factory issue,” and they’ll never drive precisely how they would when they rolled out of a production facility. However, they can be fabricated, rewelded, and adjusted to specifications that are incredibly close to how Tesla intended them to be. But this is a case that would require the individual inspection of each repaired vehicle by a Tesla representative. With 1,000,000 Tesla vehicles manufactured in the company’s history, this would be near impossible, even if .01% of them were salvaged and repaired.
The likelihood of a Tesla rep traveling to the location of a rebuilt vehicle and going through hours of inspection: making sure all parts of the car are correctly installed, properly connected, and aligned safely would not be cost-effective, smart, or worth Tesla’s time. However, it would be necessary. Like I said before, this company has a reputation for building safe cars. When someone in a Tesla gets in an accident, the short sellers and the Elon haters come out of the woodwork looking for answers. Why? So if someone got hurt, or heaven forbid, killed in an accident, they could use it as justification that the cars are not as safe as Tesla advertises, and somehow that means Elon is a fraud.
It is a ridiculous train of thought. I’ll never understand Tesla’s short-sellers celebrating other people’s injuries. Instead of rooting for someone to get hurt, why not root for the company to make safer cars? It would only make other automakers want to match Tesla’s quality, and it wouldn’t be such a horrible thing to have more safe vehicles on the road.
Regardless, Tesla has to account for the fact that if someone gets hurt in a revitalized vehicle that was formerly a salvage, it will be a never-ending storm of media harassment. I can see the misleading headlines now…”Driver killed in Tesla proving cars aren’t so safe after all,” or something to that effect. It is a risk that they simply cannot take, and it is not worth the company’s future.
Additionally, Tesla makes money when they sell new cars, not when people buy wrecked ones and decide to rebuild them. Let’s not forget, this is a car company, and ultimately a business. While Tesla’s mission is to provide people with safe and affordable electric vehicles that benefit our environment and our well-being, they need to make money.
In the end, Tesla’s decision, while financial, is also a safety issue. Sure, Elon would love to see some custom projects. I’d bet he would like to see his cars developed into something different than what Tesla builds in their factories. But I also bet that he wouldn’t want someone to get hurt or killed as a result of negligence while refurbishing a vehicle. Ultimately, it would end up being blood on his hands, and this risk makes it entirely too risky from a business standpoint.
While people are still free to rebuild the cars, they will undoubtedly run into roadblocks—no Supercharging, issues with transferring ownership titles, so on and so forth. Tesla is doing it for money, but it is also doing it for safety. In the big picture, that’s why I think what they are doing is okay, even though I feel for the rebuilders.
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Elon Musk
NASA sends humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – Here’s what’s next
NASA’s Artemis II launched four astronauts toward the Moon on the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Operations and Support Building II at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 6:35pm EDT from Launch Complex 39B. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA launched four astronauts toward the Moon on April 1, 2026, marking the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket at 6:35 p.m. EDT, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon and back.
The mission does not include a lunar landing. It is a test flight designed to validate the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space with a crew aboard for the first time. If the crew reaches the planned distance of 252,000 miles from Earth, they will set a new record for the farthest any human has ever traveled, surpassing even the Apollo 13 distance record.
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX holds a central role in what comes next. The Starship Human Landing System is under contract to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for Artemis IV, now targeting 2028, after NASA restructured its mission sequence due to delays in Starship’s orbital refueling demonstration. Before any Moon landing happens, SpaceX must prove it can transfer propellant between two Starships in orbit, something no rocket program has done at this scale.
The last time humans left Earth’s orbit was 53 years ago. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 were the final people to walk on the Moon, a record that stands to this day. Elon Musk has long argued that returning is not optional. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the Moon,” Musk said. “That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the Moon.”
The Artemis program involves 60 countries signed onto the Artemis Accords, and this mission sets several firsts beyond distance. Glover becomes the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American astronaut to reach the Moon’s vicinity. According to NASA’s live mission updates, the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed successfully after liftoff and the crew completed a proximity operations demonstration within the first hours of flight.
Artemis II is step one. The Moon landing and the permanent lunar base come later. But after more than five decades, humans are heading back.
Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
Tesla’s Optimus robot left the Hollywood Diner within months of opening. Now Musk is planning its return with a bigger role and a major Gen 3 upgrade underway.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus robot was one of the most talked-about features when the Tesla Diner opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on July 21, 2025. Dubbed “Poptimus” by Tesla fans, the Gen 2 robot stood upstairs at the retro-futuristic, drive-in theater and Tesla Supercharging station, scooping popcorn into bags and handing them to guests with a wave.
The diner itself had been years in the making. Elon Musk first floated the idea in 2018 with a tweet about building an “old-school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant” at a Hollywood Supercharger. What eventually opened was a unique two-story neon-lit space, with 80 EV charging stalls, and Optimus serving as a live demonstration of where Tesla’s ambitions were headed.
If our retro-futuristic diner turns out well, which I think it will, @Tesla will establish these in major cities around the world, as well as at Supercharger sites on long distance routes.
An island of good food, good vibes & entertainment, all while Supercharging! https://t.co/zmbv6GfqKf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2025
But Optimus did not stay long, and was gone by December 2025.
Now, the robot is set to return with a more demanding job. Musk has ambitions for Optimus to take on a food runner role in 2026, delivering meals directly to cars at the Supercharger stalls. While the latest Gen 3 Optimus is likely to initially take on its previous popcorn-serving role, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Optimus to see a quick promotion. With improved hand dexterity that features 50 total actuators and 22 degrees of freedom per hand, and significantly more powerful processing through Tesla’s latest AI5 chip that includes Grok-powered voice interaction, Musk described Optimus at the Abundance Summit on March 12, 2026, as “by far the most advanced robot in the world, Nothing’s even close.”
Back to work
See you at Tesla Diner tomorrow pic.twitter.com/H3tTajrUbu
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) March 30, 2026
That confidence is backed by a major manufacturing shift. At the Q4 2025 earnings call in January, Musk announced Tesla would discontinue the Model S and Model X and convert those Fremont production lines to build Optimus. “It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end,” he said, calling for a pivot that reflects where the Tesla’s future lies.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company clears final Nashville hurdle: Music City loop is full speed ahead
The Boring Company has cleared its final Nashville hurdles, putting the Music City Loop on track for 2026.
The Boring Company has cleared one of its most significant regulatory milestones yet, securing a key easement from the Music City Center in Nashville just days ago, the latest in a series of approvals that have pushed the Music City Loop project firmly into construction reality.
On March 24, 2026, the Convention Center Authority voted to grant The Boring Company access to an easement along the west side of the Music City Center property, allowing tunneling beneath the privately owned venue. The move follows a unanimous 7-0 vote by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority on February 18, and a joint state and federal approval from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on February 25. Together, these green lights have cleared the path for a roughly 10-mile underground tunnel connecting downtown Nashville to Nashville International Airport, with potential extensions into midtown along West End Avenue.
Music City Loop could highlight The Boring Company’s real disruption
Nashville was selected by The Boring Company largely because of its rapid population growth and the strain that growth has placed on surface infrastructure. Traffic has become a persistent problem for residents, convention visitors, and airport travelers alike. The Music City Loop promises an approximately 8-minute underground transit time between downtown and the Nashville International Airport (BNA), removing thousands of vehicles from surface roads daily while operating as a fully electric, zero-emissions system at no cost to taxpayers.
The project fits squarely within a broader vision Musk has championed for years. In responding to a breakdown of the Loop’s construction costs, Musk posted on X: “Tunnels are so underrated.” The comment reflected a longstanding belief that underground transit represents one of the most cost-effective and scalable infrastructure solutions available. The Boring Company has claimed it can build 13 miles of twin tunnels in Nashville for between $240 million and $300 million total, a fraction of what comparable projects cost elsewhere in the country.
Image Credit: The Boring Company/Twitter
The Las Vegas Loop, The Boring Company’s first operational system, has served as a proof of concept. During the CONEXPO trade show in March 2026, the Vegas Loop transported approximately 82,000 passengers over five days at the Las Vegas Convention Center, demonstrating the system’s capacity during large-scale events. Nashville draws millions of convention visitors and tourists each year, and local business leaders have pointed to that same capacity as a major draw for supporting the project.
The Music City Loop was first announced in July 2025. Construction began within hours of the February 25 state approval, with The Boring Company’s Prufrock tunneling machine already in the ground the same evening. The first operational segment is targeted for late 2026, with the full route expected to be complete by 2029. The project represents one of the largest privately funded infrastructure efforts currently underway in the United States.
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