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Top 10 Tesla Cybertruck hidden features you may have missed

(Credit: The Fast Lane Truck/YouTube)

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The Tesla Cybertruck is loaded to the teeth with technology that the vehicle is practically a mystery box of hidden features. Couple this with the fact that the vehicle’s unveiling did not really go as planned, as well as CEO Elon Musk pretty much rushing through the truck’s presentation following the pickup’s Armor Glass demo, and many of the Cybertruck’s noatbly cool features remained unsaid.

Fortunately, some of these hidden features have been spotted by the Tesla community, thanks to photographs and videos of the vehicle taken during the unveiling event, as well as images that were released by the electric car maker in the Cybertruck’s press kit. With this in mind, following are the Tesla Cybertruck’s Top 10 hidden features that may have been missed during last week’s unveiling event. Let’s dig in.

Center Fold-Down Front Seat Cup Holders and Storage Area

(Credit: Shmee150/YouTube)

The Tesla Cybertruck is equipped with three seats on the front, though the middle acts more like a smaller jump seat. As could be seen in test ride videos of the vehicle, this middle seat actually folds down to become a large center armrest. Interestingly, this center armrest doubles as a storage compartment. It also has three cup holders that are fitted right at the middle seat’s back headrest, along with a spare change holder (aka “junk cubby”) for random knick knacks.

Interior Lighting Strip for Rear Seats

(Credit: Tesla)

Despite its unapologetically futuristic, brutalistic exterior, the interior of the Tesla Cybertruck is actually quite welcoming. Upon entering the vehicle, passengers are greeted by a cavernous interior and a massive glass roof that would surely be a treat for those who love camping in their vehicle. The rear seats are also fitted with an interior lighting strip on the sides, providing illumination for the truck’s passengers at the back. The lights are white too, giving an additional futuristic, Tron-like flair for the Cybertruck’s exterior.

Sun Visor is Flush Against the A-Pillar

(Credit: JerryRigEverything/YouTube)

Among the clever features of the Cybertruck is its sun visor, which flushes against the A-Pillar. This would be particularly useful considering that the pickup has a massive windshield that may very well dwarf the Model X’s already-expansive windshield in sheer size.

Rear Armrest, Pass-Through for Extra-Long Cargo

(Credit: Tesla)

The Tesla Cybertruck has a large center armrest in the rear that looks to double as support for extra-long cargo. The all-electric pickup is already equipped with a 6.5-foot bed, which is pretty substantial, but for those who wish to haul even lengthier cargo, the center armrest can fold down and act as a pass-through for items that exceed 6.5 feet. 

Scroll Wheels on the Steering Wheel

(Credit: Teslarati)

The Tesla Cybertruck is fitted with a steering yoke that looks very similar to the one used by the company in its next-generation Roadster prototype. This would likely be changed into a regular steering wheel when the vehicle enters production, but based on test rides of the pickup, it appears that the Cybertruck will utilize Model 3-esque steering wheel controls, complete with the sedan’s scroll wheels.

Autopilot Camera in Fender

(Credit: Teslarati)

Similar to Tesla’s other prototypes like the next-generation Roadster or the Semi during its unveiling, the Cybertruck is not equipped with traditional side mirrors. Instead, the vehicle would likely use a pair of Autopilot cameras in its front fender. Considering existing regulations in regions such as the United States, there is a pretty good chance that the Cybertruck will be equipped with traditional side mirrors when it enters production.

L-Track Rails and T-Slots

(Credit: The Verge/YouTube)

The Cybertruck is fitted with L-track rails and T-slots that allow users to place anchor points anywhere in the vehicle’s expansive 6.5-foot bed. This is key to transporting items that may otherwise move about on the pickup’s bed during transport if they are not tied down. With these components in place, Tesla Cybertruck owners would be able carry even fragile items on the rear in a secure manner.

Flush Tonneau Truck Bed Cover Activation Buttons

(Credit: Teslarati)

The Tesla Cybertruck utilizes a motorized tonneau bed cover that can be engaged and disengaged by a flush button on the vehicle’s rear. These buttons, which are notably large and easy to reach, are found on both sides of the vehicle.

Hidden storage underneath vault bed

(Credit: Tesla)

The Tesla Cybertruck is full of storage areas, one of which is found on the bottom of the vehicle’s 6.5-foot bed itself. Based on images provided by Tesla, this space appears to be large enough to store medium-sized items such as toolboxes and sleeping bags, for those extended outdoor trips.

Hidden storage in sail pillar

(Credit: Tesla)

For those who wish to use the Cybertuck for work, the futuristic pickup truck is fitted with a hidden storage compartment in its sail pillar. Images of the space shown during a slide at the Cybertruck’s unveiling suggest that the storage areas in the vehicle’s sail may be enough to fit some tools or similarly-sized items.

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.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab

Musk says Tesla and SpaceX will build and run Terafab, with TSMC limited to renting.

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SpaceX Terafab rendering

Elon Musk has drawn a firm line around who will be in charge of Terafab, the giant chip factory Tesla and SpaceX are planning in Texas.

Musk replied to a post on X arguing that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would most likely end up owning and operating the plant. “No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,” Musk wrote. “Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.”

In plain terms, a sublease means TSMC could rent a section of the complex to make chips, similar to a tenant renting one floor of an office tower. The building, the equipment decisions and the daily operation would stay with Tesla and SpaceX.

The comment shuts down speculation that started last week. On October 2, tech journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC was exploring ways to help run Terafab’s factories. Musk responded the next day that it was “just discussions, but something may come of it,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That left room for a scenario where the world’s largest contract chipmaker took the wheel. Musk’s latest post closes that door.

Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner

Some background helps explain why this matters. Tesla designs its own AI chips today but pays outside companies like TSMC and Samsung to manufacture them. Musk unveiled Terafab in March as a joint project between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, arguing that existing suppliers cannot expand fast enough to meet his companies’ future demand. The goal is to produce enough chips each year to supply one terawatt of computing power, roughly 50 times what the entire global AI chip industry produces now.

Those chips are meant for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, the Cybercab and Full Self-Driving computers, along with chips for SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. Owning the factory means Musk’s companies would not have to compete with every other chip customer for time on someone else’s production lines.

Intel is still part of the picture. The company signed on in April to help design, build and package chips for the project, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg this week that Intel will keep working on Terafab despite the TSMC chatter.

The project moved from concept to construction planning over the summer. In August, SpaceX confirmed the Grimes County site about an hour from Houston, sent the county a $10 million payment under its tax abatement deal and said civil work would begin shortly. The first phase carries a $16.8 billion price tag, and total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion.

TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has said a new fab typically takes two to three years to build and another one to two years to reach full output. Tesla and SpaceX have never run one, which is why TSMC’s expertise drew so much attention. Musk’s answer suggests he would rather learn that process in house than hand control of a project this central to Tesla’s robotics and autonomy plans to an outside company.

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Elon Musk

Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK

Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at Thursday’s White House summit.

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elon musk and donald trump in front of a tesla cybertruck at the white house

Elon Musk is set to receive the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers.

President Donald Trump will present Musk with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s Science: A New Golden Age Summit, Fox News Digital first reported on Wednesday. Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su will receive the same medal, while Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. A White House official later confirmed the list to Reuters.

“The Trump administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told Fox News.

It will be the first time Trump has presented either medal in his two terms. Congress created the National Medal of Science in 1959, and the National Science Foundation, which administers it, says 529 scientists and engineers have received it since. A presidential committee reviews nominees, but the president makes the final call.

Thursday’s group of medalists run or founded companies, and three of them sit at the center of the Super Intelligence hardware race that Musk competes in. Huang’s Nvidia supplies the GB300 chips filling SpaceX’s Colossus 2 cluster, while Su’s AMD is Nvidia’s biggest rival in data center GPUs.

Worth noting that Trump’s uncle, MIT physicist John G. Trump, received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan for his work on ionizing radiation and its uses in medicine and industry.

The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future

For Musk, the medal is the latest sign of how far his relationship with Trump has come since their 2025 split over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and his exit from DOGE. Last week, he sat at Trump’s left during a White House lunch where AI executives signed a voluntary safety accord, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named him to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare. Musk has also adopted the administration’s new vocabulary, saying on Sunday that SpaceXAI will be renamed SpaceXSI after Trump ordered federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence.”

Musk has collected science honors before, including the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019.

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Lifestyle

Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life

Tesla shares dashcam footage of FSD Supervised stopping mid intersection to avoid a T-bone crash.

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Credit: @BLKMDL3/X

Tesla is putting another Full Self-Driving save in front of its 24.8 million followers on X.

On Tuesday morning, Tesla’s main account shared a dashcam clip with the caption “FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash.” The footage came from an owner posting as TheNewGrid, who described what happened at a stop sign: “I looked at the car coming to the stop sign figured they would stop, my car went, then came to a stop mid intersection as they flew by. Had I been manually driving this would have resulted in a crash.”

The sequence is the notable part. FSD had already started crossing when the other driver ran the stop sign. Instead of pressing on, the car braked hard in the middle of the intersection and let the crossing vehicle pass in front of it. By the owner’s own account, they had made the same assumption the software initially made, that the other car would stop, and would not have corrected in time.

The clip is the latest in a run of safety posts Tesla has amplified over the past several days. On Saturday, the company shared a video from Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who sold his Bentley for a Model Y and said he was buying Teslas with FSD for 10 of his employees. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, followed up by writing that Tesla self-driving “reacts to other people cutting into your path with super-human response times.” On Monday, a Cybertruck owner posted footage of FSD moving across three lanes from a red light to clear a path for an ambulance approaching from behind.

This recent clip also lands a few weeks after Tesla began shipping Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD v14.3.9, a feature that can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when a frontal collision is imminent or the driver appears distracted. Elluswamy said in September that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” are coming with v15, the release Tesla has tied to round the clock Robotaxi operation.

The safety messaging matters beyond social media. Tesla has said FSD Supervised was 4.1 times less likely to crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on European roads, and it has been putting those figures in front of regulators. Eight EU countries have now approved FSD Supervised, with Croatia the most recent, but the EU’s bloc-wide vote originally set for October 6 has been pushed to December at the earliest.

FSD Supervised is still a Level 2 system, and the driver remains responsible at all times. Even heavy users find reasons to step in. Teslarati’s Joey Klender, who uses FSD for about 76 percent of his driving, laid out five recurring issues on Tuesday that still prompt him to intervene. Clips like this one show the other column of that ledger: moments where the software caught a mistake a human was about to make.

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