Master maker Simone Giertz and her friends transformed her Tesla Model 3 into an electric pickup truck. Their fake TV commercial is above; build video below. TRUCKLA: Available nowhere. Now.

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Tesla cars have a "sentry mode" feature that amounts to dashcams pointed hither and yon: useful for video-recording accidents, road ragers, and vandals.

Entire right side of car keyed and dented. Merica

The vandals' self-satisfied grinning really makes it. According to Reddit's crack team of investigators, it was at this location in old Town Sacramento and they were driving a Silver or Grey Dodge Ram pickup. Read the rest

Teslas are incredibly data-hungry, storing massive troves of data about their owners, including videos of crashes, location history, contacts and calendar entries from paired phones, photos of the driver and passengers taken with interior cameras, and other data; this data is stored without encryption, and it is not always clear when Teslas are gathering data, and the only way to comprehensively switch off data-gathering also de-activates over-the-air software updates for the cars, which have historically shipped with limited or buggy features that needed the over-the-air updates to fix them. Read the rest

In Illinois today, a law firm announced they are filing a lawsuit against Tesla to hold the electric car maker accountable for a teen who died in an accident involving a car they say had a defective battery pack. Read the rest

I regret to inform you that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk is back on his inappropriate for a CEO tweets again. Read the rest

Teslas now have built-in "whoopie cushions" thanks to a new firmware update. The vehicles can now make farting noises on demand or by use of a turn signal with what they're cheekily calling, "Emissions Testing Mode." Jalopnik reports there are seven flatulence sounds to choose from -- "Not a Fart, Short Shorts Rapper, Falcon Heavy, Ludicrous Fart, Neurastink, Boring Fart, and what seems to be a fart randomizer."

There are two other bizarre Easter eggs in this update: Romance Mode and Pole Position. The former provides a virtual fireplace and the latter is a retro-modern version of the old school racing video game.

Hopped in my @Tesla this morning and was delighted to find “romance mode” and a drop-down list of juicy, on demand fart noises, that can be triggered with a wheel click or turn signal.

The best keeps getting better.

Thanks @elonmusk and team! pic.twitter.com/L6HGX8w2cs

— Kevin Pereira (@Attack) December 19, 2018

Jalopnik: Tesla Introduces 'Romance Mode' and On-Demand Fart Noises Because Tesla Is About Making the World Better

(Geekologie)

screenshot via RM Videos/YouTube Read the rest

There's been quite a bit of bad ink surrounding Tesla electric vehicles this year: delays in production, growing rumors about subpar customer service, former employees blowing the whistle on dangerous, indifferent working conditions in Tesla assembly plants and logistical woes to name a few. According to The Washington Post, Tesla owners in China can add in-car state surveillance to the list.

Apparently, the Chinese government has demanded that Tesla vehicles purchased in China send a steady stream of information concerning the vehicle's whereabouts and who knows what else to the Chinese government, in real-time. It's some greasy, invasive bullshit that comes at a time when China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has been cracking down on dissent, privacy and freedoms in the country.

At the very least, Tesla isn't alone: other makers of electric vehicles are being forced to make their customers' information available to the Chinese government as well.

From The Washington Post:

More than 200 manufacturers, including Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Mitsubishi and U.S.-listed electric vehicle start-up NIO, transmit position information and dozens of other data points to government-backed monitoring centers, The Associated Press has found. Generally, it happens without car owners’ knowledge.

The automakers say they are merely complying with local laws, which apply only to alternative energy vehicles. Chinese officials say the data is used for analytics to improve public safety, facilitate industrial development and infrastructure planning, and to prevent fraud in subsidy programs.

But other countries that are major markets for electronic vehicles — the United States, Japan, across Europe — do not collect this kind of real-time data.

The value of Elon Musk's Tesla Motors dropped about $1.1 billion after the close today. When will he, and the adults around him, learn?

Welp. Friday at Tesla and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should be interesting. Have fun with that, Board of Directors and SEC officers. On Thursday afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that Elon Musk is at it again with the crazy tweets. Read the rest

That sure was an expensive 420 joke. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed to pay $20 million and step down from his role as chairman of the board of the company he founded for three years, in a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The worst humiliation Elon Musk will have to face won't be the $20 million fine or the loss of his role as chairman. Elon Musk now has to have a boss. Read the rest

“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole.” — Elon Musk, September 4, 2018, to Buzzfeed News. Read the rest

The first paragraphs in this Wall Street Journal story about the Tesla CEO's ego problems are absolutely b🔥o🔥n🔥k🔥e🔥r🔥s.

During a tour this spring at Tesla Inc.’s electric-car factory in Fremont, Calif., Elon Musk asked why the assembly line had stopped. Managers said automatic safety sensors halted the line whenever people got in the way.

Mr. Musk became angry, according to people familiar with what happened. His high-profile gamble on mass-producing electric cars had lagged behind since production began, and here was one more frustration. The billionaire entrepreneur began head-butting the front end of a car on the assembly line.

“I don’t see how this could hurt me,” he said of vehicles on the slow-speed line. “I want the cars to just keep moving.”

When a senior engineering manager involved with the system explained that it was a safety measure, Mr. Musk told him, “Get out!” Tesla said the manager was fired for other reasons.

Goaded by a tweet from writer Drew Olanoff, Tesla CEO Elon Musk again insinuated that the cave diver who mocked him during the Thailand cave rescue operation is a pedophile. Read the rest

Hoo boy. Read the rest

Tesla's Fremont, California factory is said to be running normally again, after a fire broke out Thursday around 5:20PM. No flamethrowers involved. Read the rest

An employee who was fired from Tesla's battery factory in Nevada has filed a whopper of a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In it, the former employee accuses Elon Musk's company of spying on employees' cellphones, and failing to act after discovering that a Mexican drug cartel may be dealing meth at the 'Gigafactory'. Read the rest

After a week of blockbuster security revelations from Defcon it's important to take a step back and address the ongoing battle by companies to seize a veto over who can reveal defects in their products. Read the rest

Elon Musk, an avowed utopian anarchist, is one of the top fifty donors to the Republican Protect the House PAC, having funneled $38,900 to support the group's mission of protecting Republican Congressional seats. Read the rest