Lifestyle
Will we see Tesla Motors in Formula E racing?
Formula E has come a long way in a short 18 months, and we can’t help but wonder, what if Tesla Motors got involved in racing?
Call us optimistic, but we see a lot Tesla Motors could bring to the world of electric vehicle (EV) racing.
Tesla and racing are words in a sentence usually found on dedicated forums. Tesla makes no mention of racing, which leaves many wondering why not. Having said this, what would a Tesla race team look like anyway. Would it be a fully fledged race dedicated team, or would they prepare cars and send them off to privateers? And with the news of Formula E finally coming to the U.S. making its Long Beach race debut free, why not have a few Teslas racing along the track? Considering Lightning Motorcycle built its reputation in four years of serious racing, and is now taking order for the most outrageous superbike ever, the electric LS-218, the time is right for various EV racing series.
Is Tesla the Lamborghini of EVs?
Is Tesla Motors the Lamborghini of electric vehicles, or will it go the Maserati route? Ferruccio Lamborghini never intended for his cars to be raced, and up until a few years ago, privateers would bring them to the race tracks. Now that VW owns the brand, Lamborghini trophy races are happening. On the other hand, Maserati was born out of racing, and we don’t see the same happening with Tesla. Still, will Tesla ever race its cars? It shouldn’t surprise us. One way or another, every car maker has to sharpen its claws with racing, the problem is when to do it for maximum exposure and benefit.
MUST SEE: [Video] Tesla Racing Series
We covered a few stories about fellow Model S drivers who bring their cars to the tracks. EV engineers routinely go from one company to another and it’s no surprise to see an ex-Tesla engineer working for a competing carmaker.
However, Tesla Motors should not get involved with racing at this stage of their development. The technology lifestyle company wouldn’t have sufficient financial funds to weather racing for a few seasons. And even if they did, who would they race against? It’s not like the Model S and the Roadster have a lot of competition, on the street or on race tracks.
An EV race series
We hope to see Nissan, BMW, Tesla, GM and a few others strip their electric road cars of the daily un-necessities of three or four seats, stereo and infotainment systems, as well as other heavy security systems. They could prepare a few race batches, make them race ready and leave a few privateers to take them out racing. Imagine an FIA sanctioned electric car race. It would be a fantastic way to show these cars are not only ready for daily use, but has already challenged the internal combustion engine.
ALSO SEE: The day Saleen turned its attention to the Model S
For those who feel range is an issue, Formula E is already working on the current limitation. Race drivers will have two cars for the 55 minute race and inductive charging will begin to appear shortly. However, don’t get your hopes too high that swapping batteries will help Tesla. It would be the opposite. As Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E told me, the FIA has such strenuous security constraints, that battery swapping was rejected in favor for inductive charging.
In the meantime, we feel hillclimbs are a given for EVs current short range. Any electric car can handle most hillclimbs and give their gasoline counterparts a run for their money, virtually. Surely Pikes Peak would greatly benefit from seeing EVs we all recognize.
Going back to Tesla, the company doesn’t need any advertising when we cover everything it does, but wouldn’t it gain an extra validation notch from racing? While it might be too early for Tesla Motors to officially race, the company will have to at some point. Racing would be yet another definitive way for Tesla Motors to show the potential for EVs.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey got way more specific
Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Elon Musk
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.
Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.
One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.
As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.
If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.
Tesla Diner is turning 1 on July 21st, so we’re throwing a party
Come swing by for a day full of fun:
– Cybercab on display
– Birthday menu
– @Tesla_Optimus
– Face painting for kids & adults
– Photo booth
– Servers on roller skates delivering your order
– Light show
– Skypad DJ… pic.twitter.com/TD8pOjihYs— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) July 18, 2026

