Kman has been producing videos about Tesla since 2013, when he took delivery of a 60 kWh Model S. His latest opus is a four-part collection of handy tips and tricks for Tesla drivers.
Kman includes a raft of recommendations for increasing range. Most of these will be familiar to any energy-conscious driver, but the analytically-minded Kman has tested the techniques, and offers a pretty precise assessment of exactly how much juice each suggestion will save.
Obviously, it’s good to keep the total vehicle weight down – consider taking that bowling ball out of the trunk if you don’t use it much. However, Kman has found that the additional weight of passengers and cargo affects range far less than other things, such as tire pressure.
Like most cars, Model S has a sticker on the door jamb listing the recommended tire pressure. However, Kman has found that using the recommended pressure increases his energy consumption (and feels “squishy”), so he uses 50 psi on the rear and 48 on the front, instead of Tesla’s recommended 45.
We all know that Tesla’s Range Mode increases range. Kman explains exactly how it works, and what the trade-offs are (mostly stuff you can do without).
Slow down! Everyone knows that vehicles (electric or fossil) are more efficient at slower speeds. Kman has calculated that the optimum speed for Model S is 24 mph. If you could somehow manage to drive around at a constant 24 mph, you should get as much as 550 miles of range.
Auto racing fans know that drafting – the practice of following closely behind another vehicle to cut down wind resistance – saves energy. Tesla’s adaptive cruise control makes this easy – just set the desired distance from the vehicle ahead of you. Kman claims he has seen a 40% increase in range drafting a semi truck.
Climate control is another well-known energy hog, but in an EV, heating uses much more power than cooling (gas cars use waste heat from the engine for cabin heating). If you can get by with the Tesla’s seat heaters, you’ll save some range, as using them is much more efficient than heating the whole cabin.
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Above: Tesla CEO Elon Musk talks shop with Kman (Facebook: KmanAuto)
There seems to be a bit of controversy when it comes to ride height. Theoretically the lowest suspension setting saves range on the highway, but some Tesla drivers claim that it increases tire wear, and that medium ride height is best. Your mileage may vary.
Model X is rated to tow a trailer of up to 5,000 pounds, but it will cost you in terms of range. Figure on at least a 50% reduction in range when towing. Kman points out that the aerodynamics of a trailer are much more important than weight. Officially, Model S can’t tow at all, but Kman claims it can tow up to 2,000 pounds (sounds like something that could void the warranty if anything goes wrong – be careful).
Next, Kman debunks the common belief that charging to 100% reduces battery life. In fact, the big no-no is charging to 100% and then leaving the car sitting around in high temperatures. But topping up is fine if you’re going to be driving right away, and it’s the easiest and most obvious way to maximize your range.
No matter how careful you are, you’re going to run out of energy eventually, so it’s best to be prepared for various charging scenarios, especially when taking road trips. It’s handy to have a collection of charging adapters in the car, including a CHAdeMO adapter and a couple of adapters for different types of 240-volt receptacles (even if you have to spend some time searching for them, as Kman does). And keep a heavy-duty extension cord in the car in case you ever need to plug into a regular outlet somewhere on the road.
Another handy accessory is a ChargePoint account, which gives access to thousands of public chargers. Theoretically you can initiate charging just with the smartphone app, but that won’t work if there’s a dodgy internet connection, so order the free card and keep it in your vehicle (there are various other regional charging networks, some of which require their own cards).
Tesla Tips: Part 1
Tesla Tips: Part 2
Tesla Tips: Part 3
Tesla Tips: Part 4
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Note: Article originally published on evannex.com, by Charles Morris
Source: KmanAuto
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.
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.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
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.
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.
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.
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.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Tesla Cybercab Event: what to expect from Austin
