Lifestyle
[Video] TESLARATI 48 Tesla Finishes 2nd in Laguna Seca EV Race Competition
Our 48 Tesla has finished 2nd at Laguna Seca in an EV time trial (TT) competition among 24 Model S and Tesla Roadster in the Production GT group.
The competition was organized by Speed Ventures through the annual REFUEL event at world famous Laguna Seca Raceway. We clocked in a best lap time of 1:53, four seconds shy of Joe Nuxoll, former Tesla Motors employee and Tesla track-record holder, who registered an impressive 1:49 in a Tesla Roadster. Joe is an amazing driver with twenty five years of professional racing experience and we can certainly learn from the techniques, some EV specific, that he uses to maneuver through this difficult track. We will work hard on improving our skills and look forward to the challenge at next year’s event.
Laguna Seca Raceway
The Laguna Seca road course is located in beautiful Monterey County in Northern California and one of the most renown and recognizable tracks in the world. The track itself is challenging and similar to Sonoma Raceway in terms of track difficulty. Similar to Sonoma, Laguna Seca has walls and sand traps, both of which could lead to some bad consequences if you ventured off the track. The corkscrew is perhaps the most famous turn that the track is known for, with very sharp turns and drop in elevation, to a point where you can’t actually see the middle of the turn. You learn to navigate through feeling and use of an oak tree as your marker as you keep your wits through it all.
The Car
This is not the best track for the Tesla Model S. Power limitation due to overheating was rather severe, to a point where it would not even accelerate uphill at full throttle after turn 6. The track is very heavy on braking as well. We have never seen the brakes get so hot on any other track before and will likely consider racing brake fluid next time.
We reached a top speed of 113 mph on the front straightaway, but we feel that we can improve upon that with more experience. The last part of the straightaway before the hairpin turn is downhill and unwinding slightly, so losing control in that section is quite easy and can be disastrous at that speed (remember, walls). Max lateral G was 1.1 throughout various turns. We found that following correct racing lines produces much better lap times and much less stress on the car than on most other tracks, and turning in just a couple of feet sooner makes a difference between a great turn and a bad one.
The issue of steering wheel lock up at 1 lateral G happened again. Thanks to the Tesla Motors staff who were present at the track, we were able to find out that it’s indeed a known issue, although very few people would experience the effect unless driven hard on a race track. We were told that the fix would require steering recalibration which should just be a firmware update, but as imagined, it’s certainly not on Tesla’s priority list.
Tire pressure on our BFGoodrich g-Force Rival tires were 36 psi hot (approx. 29 psi cold). Although looking at the pictures below, it looks scary how compressed they get trough some of the turns.
First lap in the video is of the Time Trial. Subsequent laps are with Speed Ventures Green group and REFUEL.
Charging and Power Consumption
The track was heavy on power consumption, a little higher than usual, probably due to significant elevation changes. Power consumption was 1350 watts/mile. While on most tracks we used 4 rated miles per 1 actual mile driven, on this track it ended up being 5.5 rated miles per 1 actual mile driven. It also explains why power limitation was more severe.
Due to the Tesla user conference participation in the event (TMC Connect ), we had a royal treat with temporary Tesla Superchargers installed at the track. For the first time, we did not have to conserve power nor carefully plan for how many laps could be run. The supercharger was able to replenish the power from track use in about 20-30 minutes. It made us feel very spoiled. Thank you Tesla !
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.
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.
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
