Lifestyle
X-Rack Tesla Model X cargo carrier: lightweight aluminum and custom fit for the trunk
Tesla Model X is arguably the gold standard in automotive technology and innovation, but its flashy upswing Falcon Wing door eliminates any possibility of a roof rack and roof-mounted cargo. Activities involving any sort of large luggage or hauling of gear can be a logistical challenge, especially if the excursion involves the use of Model X’s third-row seating, be it for passengers, cargo, or the family pet.
Tesla Model X owner, Nick Deninno, with his family of six, knows that all too well.
As an active New York-based Dad to four young children, the trunk area and folding third-row seats of Nick’s Tesla Model X gets plenty of use. But it has its limitations.
“I found quickly that once you have the 3rd-row seat up, all cargo space is all but lost. For a few years, I left one rear seat down on the third row and filled cargo next to my children that would eventually fall on them,” Nick tells Teslarati.
During the day, this Tesla owner runs a successful engineering and design firm. Putting his expertise in action, Nick devised a way to increase the storage capacity of his Tesla Model X, but without compromising battery range, rear-visibility, or parking in tighter locations, including Supercharging.
He called it X-Rack.
X-Rack Tesla Model X Cargo Carrier
Photo: Teslarati
-
Made in the USA and specifically for the Tesla Model X, the X-Rack incorporates the unique shape of the vehicle’s trunk deck into the cargo carrier’s overall shape. This design enables the rack to be at-the-ready without interfering with rear space when not in use.
X-Rack is manufactured out of lightweight aluminum as opposed to range-robbing steel and engineered to withstand cargo up to 500 lbs (227 kg).
Give Me Range
Teslarati testing the X-Rack on a Tesla Model X P100D in San Francisco
Weighing only 16.5 lbs for the ultra-light X-Lite Cargo Carrier and 21 lbs for the heavier-duty XHD carrier, both versions are extremely lightweight, corrosion-resistant due to the aluminum construction, and has a powder-coated finish.
The X-Rack was designed with efficiency in mind, both to maximum battery range and for ease of use. Unlike other steel racks on the market that are often bulky and cumbersome to use, Teslarati found the X-Rack to be relatively simple in use and can be installed or detached in roughly 90 seconds. Most of the time is spent loosening the bolt and pin that secures X-Rack to Model X’s receiver.
There’s also a sliding receiver tube that stores flush in the rack and enables Model X to return to its factory look when not in use.
Put it Away
X-Rack lightweight aluminum cargo carrier designed specifically for the Tesla Model X (Photo: Teslarati)
“The problem with hitch cargo carriers is that most are very large, heavy, and poor quality. But also you had to find a place to put it once you made it to your destination, or forced to drive around with it attached to the car for the entire trip.” – Nick, on why he decided to create X-Rack
The X-Lite and XHD Cargo Carrier can act as a replacement for Model X’s carpeted trunk floor cover or stow beneath it on a lower tier. The X-Rack can also tilt up and mimic the exact function as the factory trunk deck.
Photo: Teslarati
The frame of the X-Rack cargo carrier is powder-coated in either black or white, while the deck is offered in black or silver.
-
Along with color options, the X-Rack frame has a rear receiver port for additional attachments like a fishing rod carrier, a swing-out bike rack, and other lifestyle accessories. There are also mounting points on the frame for the relocation of the license plate bracket. Nick tells us that a snowboard carrier adapter and X-Rack’s snow accessory mounts are on the way, along with a variety of other solutions for nearly any cargo need.
As avid Tesla drivers, we’re all well aware of the perks offered by driving electric, especially when combined with Tesla’s extensive Supercharger network. Now, with the added convenience and flexibility of cargo transportation offered by X-Rack, that experience can be made even better.
Learn more about the X-Rack, including specifications and pricing.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
-
Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Elon Musk
The real reason Elon Musk wants every car connected to space
Elon Musk says all cars will eventually need Starlink to handle massive AI bandwidth demand.
Elon Musk is making the case that satellite internet, not fiber or cellular towers, will end up wired into every car on the road. In a string of posts on X, the SpaceX CEO wrote that all cars will have Starlink in the future and called satellite connectivity the only way to get super high bandwidth to billions of vehicles.
The posts started with Musk endorsing a Cloudflare forecast that traffic generated by autonomous AI agents will soon dwarf traffic generated by humans browsing the internet, a shift he described as not a close call at all. From there he narrowed the argument to infrastructure, writing that the only system that can support the insanely fast bandwidth growth needed by AI is Starlink, before extending the logic to cars specifically.
AI agentic Internet traffic will obviously VASTLY exceed human usage. Not a close call at all.
Cloudflare’s forecast is accurate. https://t.co/VztgrinN5k pic.twitter.com/Wo4FiRKjPU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s own hardware decisions. On July 20, Tesla confirmed the Cybercab would ship with a Starlink V5 terminal built into its roof, the first time the company had put satellite hardware in a production vehicle. A day later, Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, explained the connection wasn’t there for safety and that Cybercab’s driving stack runs entirely on onboard cameras and compute, while the satellite link exists for navigation, customer service, and fleet management instead. Musk followed with his own post about the feature, saying riders would be able to watch 4K streaming video during rides.
By July 22, Musk had already said Starlink would extend beyond Cybercab to Tesla’s full lineup. Sunday’s posts push that same logic outward again, this time framed as a requirement across the industry rather than a feature specific to Tesla, and tied directly to the bandwidth AI systems are expected to consume.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
-
The AI argument has been building on SpaceX’s side for months. The company has an FCC filing pending for a third generation Starlink constellation, and it has separately proposed Starmind, a constellation of up to a million satellites designed to run AI computation directly in orbit rather than just relay data. Musk has said he expects space to become the cheapest place to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Starlink and Starmind serve different jobs inside that vision, one moving data and the other processing it, but Sunday’s posts treat vehicles as one more category of hardware that will eventually need both.
None of this changes anything for Tesla owners today. Cars already on the road keep running on LTE and Wi-Fi, and Tesla hasn’t outlined a retrofit path for existing vehicles. The July 22 commitment applies to future production, not the fleet already delivered. What Musk added on Sunday is the reasoning: satellite connectivity isn’t a Cybercab novelty, it’s a bet that ground based networks won’t keep up with how much data cars, robots, and AI systems are about to generate.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
-
It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
Tesla Roadster unveiling nears, and it will fly: The Information
Tesla finally got its Nevada Robotaxi Permit but with a few catches hard to miss
