Tesla's Worst-Kept Secret: A Comprehensive Review of Project Highland

Tesla's Project Highland will see the Model 3 get revamped

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We're nearing the end of the second quarter, and Tesla is pulling out all the stops to clear out the existing inventory of Model 3s. The buzz is intensifying about the anticipated Project Highland, Tesla's substantial redesign of the Model 3, which is speculated to commence production as early as the third quarter.

What was once a hush-hush project has now become a badly-kept secret, with rumors and piecemeal evidence sparking widespread excitement and curiosity. Here's a compilation of everything we know about the impending changes.

Exterior Overhaul: Function Meets Design

Tesla's upcoming Project Highland stands to redefine the exterior aesthetics of the Model 3, pushing the boundaries of design innovation. The most striking changes, as suggested by leaked images, include reimagining the headlights into a sleeker, more streamlined form, enhancing the car's modern appeal.

Interestingly, there are no apparent fog lights in the new design, sparking curiosity about whether they've been integrated into the headlights or entirely phased out. Further, the front bumper sees a notable transformation, with the absence of ultrasonic sensors hinting at Tesla's continued emphasis on vision-based assistance.

Alterations extend to the side mirrors, appearing slightly slimmer, and the conspicuous lack of the "T" logo on the hood aligns with Tesla's move towards reduced branding. Changes continue to the rear with a redesigned bumper and repositioned reverse lights, both indicative of a refreshed look and potential cost efficiencies.

Introducing a new front bumper camera aimed at improving blind spot visibility, along with potentially additional side cameras, demonstrate Tesla's commitment to enhancing driver safety and convenience.

Interior Innovation: Redefining Luxury and Practicality

Revamping the Model 3's interior, Tesla's Project Highland removes the iconic wood dashboard inlay, swapping it for a more modern aesthetic with the possibility of materials such as alcantara fabric, carbon fiber or brushed metal. A noteworthy addition is the supposed installation of ventilated seats — these enhance the comfort quotient, providing temperature adaptability for varying climates.

An upgraded sound system is also on the horizon, aiming to enhance the auditory experience with a more immersive sound. Improved ambient lighting within the cabin is rumored as well, adding a soothing aura to night-time drives.

Driving Revolution: The Advent of Smart Shift

Shifting gears, both literally and figuratively, in a potentially revolutionary move, Tesla may be ditching the traditional gear stalks in favor of on-screen controls for transitioning between park, reverse, and drive modes. If rumors prove accurate, this 'Smart Shift' technology could signify a paradigm shift in vehicular control interfaces, offering a futuristic and user-friendly experience that could redefine the very act of driving.

As all signs point to a fast-approaching launch, Project Highland is shaping up to be a testament to Tesla's unyielding dedication to pioneering advancements. The proposed significant transformations — an aesthetic reinvention, superior technology integrations, a luxurious and pragmatic interior, and a ground-breaking driving interface — underline Tesla's resolve in pushing the envelope of what's possible in electric mobility. As anticipation continues to mount, it's clear that Project Highland isn't just a worst-kept secret; it's a bold glimpse into the exciting future of Tesla's sustainable transport vision.

The Best Tesla Frunk (Trunk) or Treat Ideas & Halloween Decorations

Chrisheninger/Reddit

Every Tesla has a frunk storage, and people use them for everything under the sun. But today, it's not about the sun but rather what’s under the pumpkin moon.

Let’s take a look at some of the best Frunk (or Trunk) or Treat ideas we’ve seen in previous years, and maybe they’ll be just what you need for a little inspiration.

Jaws

One of the easiest things to do is to turn your car into a shark with some nice and spikey teeth. Chrisheninger on Reddit dresses up his Tesla with Shark teeth every year and parks it out front for the trick-or-treaters! Take a look at the hero image above for a preview!

And it's pretty easy to do, too – you just need some white posterboard, tape, and a pair of scissors to get started. Fold the posterboard in half, then cut it into triangles of various sizes. Tape your triangles to the top and bottom of the frunk, and voila! Jaws!

For the bottom side, you can wedge the teeth into the gap between the body and the frunk, so you may not need tape there.

You can also get some clear cellophane tape and cover up the headlights to give them a nice orange or red glow.

Toothless

Jen's Toothless Tesla Dragon

jenstreet

This one is a bit of a bigger project. @jenstreet over on X posted an absolutely spectacular job of turning their Tesla into Toothless, from How to Train Your Dragon!  We’re not going to get into how to do this – instead, Jen posted her own guide on how they did the project. Props to them for the very detailed instructions!

This is an absolutely spectacular way to showcase your creativity! You can read their guide here.

Model X Vampire Bat

A Vampire Bat Model X

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If you’re a creative Model X owner, you can turn your Model X into a vampire bat! All it takes is a few pieces of cardboard for the teeth, like with the Jaws decoration above. While in the example below, the enterprising user placed more teeth on the gullwing doors of the Model X, we recommend draping a few black sheets from the gullwing doors to complete the look, especially if you tear them up at the ends a bit.

Combine this with a well-thought-out Tesla Lightshow (more on this later), and you’ve got a seriously cool-looking vampiric Model X in your driveway.

Lightning McQueen

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Here’s a great and simple one if you have a red Tesla — Lightning McQueen. It can be as simple as buying a Lightning McQueen sunshade for less than $20 (Amazon link) and sticking it in your car. You can also go to the other extreme, like S.E. Robinson Jr., and get custom decals for your Tesla. Although there hasn’t been a new Cars movie since 2017, these movies are still insanely popular with young kids.

SERobinsonJr

Other Ideas

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You can always use the frunk in other unique ways too – there’s quite a bit of space in there. Put in a decorative gravestone or ghost or cover it up in decorative spider webbing. You can do pretty much whatever your heart desires with the frunk. You can even put in some battery-powered lighting and fog generator and give it an ominous glow.

If you’ve got an older Model S or Model X with a nosecone, there are some unique ideas you can use that for too – including short teeth with googly eyes on the hood. Less scary, but definitely still fun!

Boombox

Using the Boombox feature on your Tesla, combined with keeping it turned on through Camp Mode, will allow you to play all the creepy Halloween music you want to get the atmosphere just right. Maybe throw in a fog generator somewhere, and you’ll have one of the best Halloween attractions on the block!

p1ngz

Lightshow

You can use Tesla’s Lightshow functionality to take it a step further and sync the music and lights of your car – and if you’ve got a Model X – the gullwing doors too! That’ll really complete the entire Halloween ensemble.

Sadly, there is one catch with this one – you’ll need to keep re-enabling the Lightshow manually from inside the vehicle. Tesla has not yet released functionality for Lightshows to be played remotely from the Tesla app.

I wonder what we’re going to see for this year’s Frunk or Treat? Personally, I have a few things planned for this year, and this is also the first year we’ll see Cybertrucks participating. We’re excited to see what people do with the Cybertruck’s huge and automated frunk and unique shape.

Given the Cybertruck’s frunk also has 120V power in it, there are even more unique and interesting things one can do.

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Tesla’s Cybercab / Robotaxi - Price, FSD Hardware, Release Date, Screen Size and More

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October 10th was Tesla’s spectacular ‘We, Robot’ robotaxi event, and now we know a lot more about Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi – officially named the Cybercab – than ever before.

So, grab your Tesla-stamped BBQ burgers and put on your 12 gallon hat, we’re going to take a look at everything we know about Tesla’s Cybercab.

Exterior

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The Cybercab showed up to ‘We, Robot’ with both a front and rear lightbar, similar to the Cybertruck. However, unlike the truck – it’s not stainless steel. Instead, the prototypes that were at the robotaxi event arrived with aluminum body panels painted silver.

While the exterior finish won’t be as tough-as-nails as the Cybertruck, the Cybercab is designed to be cheaply mass-produced, so this decision makes sense. While there was early talk about using a stainless steel “exoskeleton,” it appears Tesla decided that aluminum and steel body panels would be easier and/or cheaper to manufacture.

While many initial concepts thought the Cybercab may only include three wheels, it does indeed have four wheels like a normal car.

And of those four, only the front two did the steering – so no rear-wheel steering here. Speaking of the wheels, they were mostly covered up with a disc-shaped plate, making them extremely aerodynamic. Tesla also painted the sidewalls of the tires silver, leaving them looking super slim in comparison to the size of the wheel.

Looking at the whole vehicle, the Cybercab doesn’t have Tesla’s iconic glass roof – but a simpler metal roof. The windows are not frameless either – they are framed (metal around the glass opening), which makes them easier to maintain and produce. All these changes are clearly aimed at reducing the overall cost of the vehicle, fitting its robotic taxi role.

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The one oddball in terms of price-to-function ratio is the butterfly doors. Cybercab’s butterfly doors are super impressive – and strike a pose just as iconically as the Model X. We’re interested to see what Tesla has planned for these automatic doors – as they may be difficult to maintain and service in colder climates given snow and ice build-up.

Interior

On the interior, the Cybercab comfortably seats two adults with large, padded seats. In these prototype vehicles, the seats are not ventilated, but they are heated. The seats themselves were fairly simple in comparison to Tesla’s other seat designs, even when compared to the simpler Mexican Model 3 with its fabric seats.

Tesla has made the overall interior design very simplistic and easy to clean. They showed off a new automatic vacuum and scrubbing unit that was cleaning the robotaxi’s seats and screens – so these seats are likely intended to take some punishment. And the screen will likely need to be cleaned often. There were no other major controls in the vehicle to clean – no steering wheel, no pedals.

However, the interior is classic Tesla—super spartan, stylish, and clean, with an extremely large 20.5” center display intended to display trip progress and entertainment. In comparison, the Cybertruck currently has the largest display in any Tesla, with an 18.5” screen. The Model 3 and Model Y use a 15” screen. Unsurprisingly, it looked like both video games and movies and TV shows would be available in the Cybercab.

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Two drink holders are also located just in front and below the center armrest. Just under the drink holders (towards the passengers) are the buttons to open and close the doors. The doors normally close automatically when the passenger(s) buckle up, but they can also be closed manually.

As expected, the controls for the windows are on the doors, so nothing too special there. Tesla has only shown the white interior so far, with black trim throughout the interior, including the carpet floor and plastic headliner. We’re hoping that Tesla also introduces a black interior – even with how resilient Tesla’s whites are – a black interior is likely to better last through the day-to-day punishment a taxi goes through.

FSD Hardware/AI

At the event, Elon Musk confirmed that Cybercab would be shipping with an “upsized” Hardware 5/AI 5. It looks like AI5 has mostly the same camera layout as AI4—with two (+1 fake) cameras at the top of the windshield. The car also features a front bumper camera, the usual two B-pillar cameras, and one rear-facing camera.

Currently, the only vehicle with the same camera setup is the Cybertruck. We’ve heard rumors that the upcoming Model Y Juniper Refresh, as well as future Model S and Model X vehicles, will also have a front bumper camera.

Storage

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The Cybercab's rear end has a fairly large amount of storage—the rear hatch opens upwards and reveals a sizeable cavity. From some rough estimates, it will be possible to comfortably throw 3-4 large suitcases back there, along with a few other items.

Internally, there’s less space, but as there is no center storage console, there is a large amount of legroom. If you potentially needed extra space, you could put a backpack on the floor of the Cybercab between your feet, and still have plenty of space to stretch.

Release Date

Elon acknowledged he’s been overly optimistic about timelines and relented that production for Cybercab should begin no later than 2027. However, he did mention 2026 as a likely start date.

Now that the Cybercab has been unveiled, we’ll likely start seeing design and build prototypes on the roads in Texas and California – where Tesla plans to start Unsupervised FSD – sometime in late 2026. More vehicles will show up in 2027.

Price

In a somewhat surprising move, Tesla announced that they’ll also sell the Cybercab to anyone who wants to buy it, whether it’s for personal use or to operate their own fleet of autonomous taxis. Tesla announced that they plan to sell the Cybercab for under $30,000 USD. Given the lack of steering wheel and pedals, we’re not sure whether the US Federal EV Rebate or the Canadian iZEV rebates would be applicable to these Cybercabs, but we’ll see how that pans out in the future. Both of these rebate programs are set to expire before the Cybercab hits the road.

Cybercab Hubs – Cleaning & Charging

Elon also confirmed that the Cybercab has inductive charging – a first for a fleet-scale EV. It seems that Cybercabs will likely belong to “hubs” where they can be charged and get cleaned. Whether these hubs are Tesla-owned facilities or consumer-owned is yet to be determined.

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Tesla also showed off a very short clip of the Cybercab getting cleaned with robotic arms. The cost and complexity of this are likely to drive a model where Tesla provides the facilities for charging and cleaning while owners simply let their vehicles be charged or cleaned as required.

We’re excited to hear more details about how exactly Tesla intends to build out these potential hubs and more details about the upcoming Cybercab. Now that the event has passed, we should start to see a steady flow of new information as Elon or other Tesla executives share new details.

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