Lifestyle
Tesla Service Valet Disables Mobile Access for One New Owner
I went in for my first Tesla Service the other week after having reported on a few software glitches. Although I had resolved the issues on my own by rebooting the touchscreen, Tesla service still wanted me to bring the car in just for good measure to make sure everything was ok.
The appointment was booked three weeks out due to the lack of loaner availability. They wanted me to bring the car in early in the day, but getting there from where I live during peak traffic would be a nightmare. Hearing this, Tesla quickly suggested their new valet service which would send their driver to come pick up my car from my location during the day of service. Needless to say I took them up on the offer.
Tesla Valet Pick Up
The Tesla valet appeared at my office promptly at the 8:30am scheduled time and provided me with some basic paperwork to review. My main reason for the service was to investigate the reboots, but I figured I’d have them check the suspension too while they’re at it. My Model S felt a bit tight when turning into parking lots and I wasn’t sure if it was normal or something unusual. I asked the valet if he works on the vehicles that he picks up to which he clearly stated that he’s only responsible for the pick-up an deliveries.
We moved forward with the ceremony of him handing me the FOB for the Model S 60 loaner and me handing over the FOB to my precious and that was it. He took off and left me with the loaner. The loaner was “just in case” I needed to run somewhere during the day (I did) and in case they couldn’t get mine back to me before the end of the day.
Tesla Valet Disables Mobile Access
As the Tesla valet drove away with my Model S, I quickly brought up my Tesla iPhone app to check on his progress while he made his way through the heavy Boston traffic and back to the service center. I wondered if he’d obey the speed limits, but I couldn’t connect to the car.
It seems that the first thing the valet did on entering my car was to disable the app access. After I got the car back I confirmed that it was the only thing that had been changed (and not re-enabled either). I thought this behavior was a bit odd. I poked around on the forums and spoke to a few people and it appears that there’s no “standard” practice, but most service centers leave the tracking enabled except when the car is actually being serviced. Evidently some joker owners have honked the horn and flashed the lights and done other silly things while the mechanics are working on their cars — thats not safe or funny.
I wondered how other people thought about this behavior and started a poll on the Tesla Motors Club forums with these results:
As you can see from the results, 88% of owners agree that Tesla should not be changing the mobile access settings except when actually servicing the car.
Tesla Service Repair
I got a 4 page summary of the service that I hadn’t really needed. They basically checked all the issues I reported (seat heaters, screen reboot etc) and confirmed that everything was in good shape. Tesla did a software update from 5.9 build 1.51.94 to build 1.51.96 which is something you can only get from Tesla service center. Most of the line items/fixes read “updated software and rebooted.”
Tesla had a service bulletin related to a clicking steering wheel (not a complaint of mine) that they applied as part of my service. Those service bulletins are not well documented for owners and you only find out about them by word of mouth. It would be great if they published these bulletins for owners somewhere.
Since I didn’t really need anything to be fixed and Tesla made an effort to poke at/update/service a bunch of things, it’s hard to say anything bad about the entire event except for the part where they disabled the mobile app. The entire service was free too so I can’t complain. I haven’t had any issues on my Model S since the service.
Tesla Service Completion
Near the end of the day Tesla service contacted me to let me know they were getting ready to bring my car back. I was ready to leave work and the traffic didn’t seem that bad going to the service center so I offered to go pick up the car myself.
Tesla gave me an official Tesla FOB pocket when I picked up the car – something you can’t buy anywhere. It was a nice touch which I really appreciated. I’ve been using it everyday since receiving it even though I never really thought I needed one.
ALSO SEE: Deluxe FobPocket Review: Tesla Model S Key Fob Cover
Other than the remote app incident the service event was friendly, easy and Tesla lived up to my high expectations of service for a luxury car. Afterall, most luxury car makers don’t even have a remote app that can be complained about!
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.
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.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
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.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
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.
