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New survey compares demographic of Tesla Model X vs. Model S buyer

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A new survey that polled nearly 500 Tesla owners, reservation holders, and enthusiasts found several key differences between Model S and Model X owners. This is my largest Tesla-focused study to date and is a follow up to last year’s 22-question owner’s satisfaction survey. The latest study finds both new interesting data and reaffirms Tesla’s high customer satisfaction rating, while also taking a peek at Model 3 demand.

Model X vs. Model S Owners

Differences in satisfaction between Model X and Model S owners show, Model X owners are 20% more likely to have had “non-routine” maintenance done. Despite this occurrence, 95% of Model X owners report that their vehicle “held up extremely well”. Both Model S and X owners alike rate the service department at 89% satisfied.

Overall, Model X owners spent on average 29% more on their vehicles than Model S owners, with the average price of their Model X purchase ringing in at $125,000 compared to $97,000 for Model S buyers. Both Model S and X owners had an average age of 53 years old. Model X owners showed a significant bump in household annual income versus Model S owners, ticking in at an average of $503,000 and $267,000 respectively.

Despite the fact that income levels of both Model S and X owners place them near the top 1% of household incomes in the United States, 94% of current owners claim that this is the most expensive vehicle they have ever purchased.

When asked how much one would pay for a 30% battery upgrade in 3 years, both Model S and X owners said they would pay over $5,900 for a battery upgrade. Assuming an average battery size of 83 kWh, based on the average of a 75 kWh and 90 kWh pack, we can assume a 30% increase in capacity would be somewhere on the level of 25 kWh. This would put the retail price for the upgrade at ~$235 per kWh, which seems reasonable given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s prediction that battery costs could dip as low as $100 per kWh by 2020.

Model 3 Owners

Of Model 3 reservation holders, they expect to spend just over $48,000 on their Model 3. By comparison, preliminary data from crowdsourced database Model3Tracker.info shows that existing Tesla owners will spend 7% more than first time owners and pay an average price of $55,084, based on contributors intended Model 3 configurations. 

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Model 3 reservation holders held an 82.5% satisfaction rate with the reservation process.

The average age of a Model 3 reservation holder polled was 43 years, with an annual household income of $160,000. On average, Model 3 reservation holders indicated that they have been following Tesla for over 5 years.

Overall Results

Overall, 97% of respondents believed that Tesla is on the right track and 92% of owners believed that they will purchase a Tesla in the future. Additionally, 56% of owners plan on purchasing a Tesla Energy or SolarCity product in the next 2-3 years. This helps bring insight to the combined merger between SolarCity and Tesla that was completed in 2016.

To receive the full results of the survey you can message us on Facebook or follow our Facebook page where we will be dropping some additional results. If you would like to be included in future Tesla owners/fans studies, you can enroll yourself here.

 

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Christian Prenzler is currently the VP of Business Development at Teslarati, leading strategic partnerships, content development, email newsletters, and subscription programs. Additionally, Christian thoroughly enjoys investigating pivotal moments in the emerging mobility sector and sharing these stories with Teslarati's readers. He has been closely following and writing on Tesla and disruptive technology for over seven years. You can contact Christian here: christian@teslarati.com

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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks

Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.

Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.

The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.


Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.

The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.

The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.

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There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.

The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.

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Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation

Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.

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The next generation Tesla Roadster’s touchscreen, shown in Tesla’s first official look at the car’s interface. (Credit: Tesla/X)

Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”

The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.

Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.

That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.

The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.

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The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.

Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.

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Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves

Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.

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Concept rendering of Tesla Optimus in mass production

Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”

The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.

Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.

The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.

Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.

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The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.

Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.

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