Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla Semi truck pair spotted in “Convoy Mode” on CA highway

[Credit: Sergey MoldovanAmerican/YouTube]

Published

on

While Tesla’s pair of Semi trucks are usually spotted showcasing their tire-shredding acceleration and their impressive speed, a video taken of the two electric long-haulers in a CA freeway shows how the vehicles look when they are just cruising relaxedly on the road, almost as if they are in what Elon Musk dubbed during the truck’s unveiling as “Convoy Mode.”

The video was uploaded last week by YouTube user Sergey MoldovanAmerican, who stated that he spotted the Semi pair driving on a CA highway. The nearly 1-minute sighting featured the two electric Semis up close, giving a pretty good idea of the massive size of the electric trucks. The driver of the long-range, silver Semi seemed very relaxed, drinking and even candidly waving at the camera as the YouTuber’s vehicle passed his truck.

The 300-mile range, matte black Tesla Semi was just ahead of the silver Semi. From what could be seen in the video, the black Semi was pulling the same container it was hauling when it was spotted at a Supercharger earlier in March. The sighting was location-tagged at Danville, CA, which is 30 mins away from the Fremont factory via I-680 S.

The formation of the two electric trucks are reminiscent of what Elon Musk described as the Tesla Semi’s capability to drive in “Convoy Mode.” This particular feature enables a fleet of Semis to semi-autonomously draft in close proximity with each other, reducing energy usage from wind resistance.

“The convoy technology, the tracking technology, this is something that we are confident we can today do ten times safer than a human driver. I want to be clear, this is something we can do now,” Musk said during the unveiling.

Sightings of the Tesla Semi over the past month have become more frequent, with Tesla fans spotting the electric long-hauler on various locations across the country. Not long after the Tesla Semi pair were spotted on the Rocklin Supercharger, the long-range, silver version of the truck was sighted at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, MO. Later during the same day, the long-range Semi was sighted parked at a Supercharger in St. Charles, which is about 24 miles away from Anheuser-Busch’s facility.

Advertisement
-

A week after the MO sighting, the same Tesla Semi was spotted at the Dallas, TX Service Center, showing up a day later on a private demo event for PepsiCo employees at Reunion Tower. As we noted in a previous report, one of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit’s members, Ryan O’Donnell, was able to attend the private event. While in the demo, Ryan was able to speak with a PepsiCo employee, who noted that the company’s 100 orders of the Tesla Semi were just a “drop in the bucket” for PepsiCo’s overall plans.

Just recently, we also reported on FedEx placing reservations for 20 Tesla Semis, which the courier delivery service will deploy for FedEx Freight, the company’s less-than-truckload (LTL) service.

Overall, the Tesla Semi could very well disrupt the trucking industry the same way that the Model S disrupted the luxury sedan market. Equipped with four Model 3-derived electric motors, the Tesla Semi is capable of hauling 80,000 pounds of cargo, classifying it as a Class 8 vehicle. The instant torque provided by its multiple motors also enables it to go from 0-60 mph in just 20 seconds with a full load. Without any cargo, the Semi can hit 60 mph in as little as 5 seconds, which is close to muscle car territory.

Watch the Tesla Semi pair’s relaxed drive in the video below.

Advertisement
-

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

Lifestyle

Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

Advertisement
-

This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

Published

on

By

neuralink-patient-registry-volunteers

A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.

“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.

Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.

Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.

He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.

Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.

Advertisement
-

The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.

Continue Reading