Dispatches
Field reports, future leaks, and things we probably shouldn't have published.
Seven Stoplight Faces: A Field Study
You sit at enough red lights in a Tesla and you start to notice something. People in the next lane look over. Every time. Without fail. And they make a face.
Read dispatch → 2026The Flicker
You don't decide to be interested in Tesla. It just kind of happens to you, like catching a cold or suddenly noticing a song you've heard a hundred times. There's a before and an after, and the distance between them is about half a second.
Read dispatch → 2026How Silence Got Loud
The first time I turned off the music on the highway, I thought something was broken. I actually pulled over. Got out, looked at the tires, looked under the car. Everything was fine. What was happening was nothing.
Read dispatch → 2026He Sent a Car Around the Sun and Somehow That's the Third Weirdest Thing He Did That Year
There is a cherry red Tesla Roadster currently orbiting the sun. Right now. While you read this. With a mannequin in a spacesuit behind the wheel and Bowie on the stereo.
Read dispatch → 2026The Summon
It was a Tuesday. This matters because nothing interesting is supposed to happen on a Tuesday at Target. The dad let go of the kid's hand, pulled out his phone, tapped something — and the car started moving. No driver. No one inside.
Read dispatch → 2026The Blockbuster Problem
There's a Shell station on the corner of Riverside and 4th that I used to go to every Sunday. I drove past it last Tuesday and realized I hadn't been inside in seven months.
Read dispatch → 2026What Customer Service Would Look Like If Tesla Believed In It
I love this car. I want to be very clear about that up front because everything that follows is going to sound like I don't. My Model 3 is the best car I've ever owned. It is also attached to the worst customer service experience I've ever had.
Read dispatch → 2026Why "In Progress" Became the Most Honest Phrase in the Car Industry
My toaster is done. It arrived done. It will be done until it dies. Nobody has ever woken up to discover their toaster learned a new trick overnight. Then I bought a car that gets software updates.
Read dispatch → Outside of TimeA Brief and Incomplete History of People Being Angry at the Future
Anger at the future has a perfect record — it has never, not once, in the entire history of human civilization, successfully prevented the future from showing up.
Read dispatch → 2029Why the Truck That Looks Like Homework Actually Won
In November 2019, Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck and the windows broke on stage. Franz threw a metal ball at what was supposed to be armored glass. The glass cracked. Elon stood there looking like a man who had just learned something about his own product.
Read dispatch → 2031Why Keying Teslas Stopped
People used to key Teslas. On purpose. In parking lots. In broad daylight sometimes. They'd walk up to a car they didn't own, pull out a key or a coin, and drag it across the paint.
Read dispatch → 2033The First Year Nobody Bought a New Gas Car
The number was zero. Not approximately zero, not "basically zero" or "functionally zero." Zero. New gas car sales in the United States for calendar year 2033: zero units. And nobody noticed for three months.
Read dispatch →