Tesla's Hollywood Diner Update: Stainless Steel, Job Listing [Photos + Video]

By Karan Singh
247Tesla/YouTube

Tesla has been building an old-school Diner in West Hollywood, California. The Diner is a throwback to the old age of drive-in diners.

The Hollywood Diner is supposed to be getting Superchargers, a full classic dining experience, and a drive-in movie theatre. But it is not your stylish old film projectors – Tesla is using two 45ft LED screens in the parking lot, bringing the future to its diner. Up to 77 guests will be able to find outdoor seating to watch the movies playing on either screen or can be seated inside their Teslas, and watch while Supercharging.

We’ve been seeing some cool updates related to the drive-in diner recently.

Construction & Stainless Steel

Construction seems to be progressing well on the diner, with the structure being completed. Most interestingly, the entire two-story diner will be getting stainless steel siding for the outside. Perhaps it’ll be the same material that the Cybertruck is made out of? It’ll have a past brought into the future style with the hallmarks of a 50’s diner, but it will also feature cool tech and style that Tesla brings to it.

Most construction for the exterior has now been completed, and work crews have moved on to working on the interior. We’ll likely see it completed by the end of 2024. Tesla broke ground on the 200-seat diner in September 2022.

Another view of the construction at the diner
Another view of the construction at the diner
247Tesla/YouTube

Job Posting

On that same front, Tesla has opened up job postings for a “Diner Experience Specialist”, who will be responsible for “providing an unparalleled and immersive” customer experience for both charging and dining.

That’s a pretty vague job description, but it comes with a salary range of $83,600 to $285,000 USD. It sounds like this will be a management position for the diner, and whoever gets the job will be responsible for both ensuring that Tesla’s vision stays on point with the drive-in theatre, dining, and Supercharging experience, as well as making sure the place functions properly and lives up to its potential.

A rendering of Tesla's upcoming drive-in diner
A rendering of Tesla's upcoming drive-in diner
Not a Tesla App

Tesla Adds Acceleration Boost Option for 2024 Model 3

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla has added the Acceleration Boost option to the Tesla store for owners of the 2024 Model 3 Long Range - specifically owners in Australia and China. Acceleration Boost is an upgrade that provides a significant performance boost, drastically narrowing the performance gap between the Long Range and Performance versions of the same model.

This upgrade will likely become available in Europe, Canada, and the United States in the next few days as Tesla updates its shops globally.

Acceleration Boost

This new Acceleration Boost is retailing for $3,000 AUD, or approximately $2,000 USD. That’s the same price for current owners of older Model 3 or Model Y Long Range vehicles, which all have the option to purchase Acceleration Boost through the shop.

The boost provides improved 0-100km/h (0-60mph) performance, bumping the 2024 Model 3 LR from 4.4s to 3.8s. The 2024 Performance version comes in at a blazing fast 2.9 seconds, so while it isn’t equivalent to just buying a performance variant in the first place, it is still a noticeable and significant upgrade.

Performance variants also come with a different front fascia vent for cooling, performance drive units, sport seats, adaptive suspension, 20-inch wheels, and Track Mode V3. That’s a significant number of additional features in the $10,000 USD price difference between the Long Range and Performance versions.

Should You Buy It?

If you’ve purchased a Long Range model and are itching to go just that little bit faster at every red light, this is the upgrade for you. It previously came with the cost of slightly reducing vehicle range, but the Tesla store doesn’t make a note of reduced range this time around. The 2023 Model 3 and Model Y Long Range models had an efficiency loss of about 5% due to the additional always-available acceleration and cooling. 

You could drive in Chill mode to mostly negate that efficiency loss, but what’s the fun in driving in Chill when you just got Acceleration Boost? Anyhow, the shop listing for the 2024 variant doesn’t include this detail, so it's possible Tesla may have worked some more engineering magic.

Overall, if you’ve got the $3,000 AUD burning a hole in your pocket, some Tesla referral credits sitting around, or just want to go faster, it's definitely an upgrade many users find valuable.

Tesla Holiday Update Wishlist - Charging & Safety Edition

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

As December approaches, Tesla’s highly anticipated Holiday update draws closer. Each year, this eagerly awaited software release transforms Tesla vehicles with new features and festive flair. If you’re not familiar with Tesla’s holiday updates, take a look at what Tesla has launched in the Holiday update the past few years.

While leaked features like Blind Spot Monitoring While Parked hint at thoughtful improvements, the real magic lies in the unexpected. From potential features such as the Apple Watch app to a smart assistant, the possibilities are endless.

For this chapter in our series, we’re dreaming up ways Tesla could improve the charging experience and even add some additional safety features. So let’s take a look.

Destination State of Charge

Today, navigating to a destination is pretty straightforward on your Tesla. Your vehicle will automatically let you know when and where to charge, as well as for how long. However, you’ll likely arrive at your destination at a low state of charge.

Being able to set your destination state of charge would be an absolute game-changer for ease of road-tripping. After all, the best EV to road trip in is a Tesla due to the Supercharger network. It looks like Tesla may be listening. Last week, Tesla updated their app and hinted at such a feature coming to the Tesla app. A Christmas present, maybe?

Battery Precondition Options

While Tesla automatically preconditions your battery when needed for fast charging, there are various situations where manually preconditioning the battery would be beneficial.

Currently, there is no way to precondition for third-party chargers unless you “navigate” to a nearby Supercharger. If you need to navigate to a Supercharger that’s close by, the short distance between your location and the Supercharger will also not allow enough time to warm up the battery, causing slower charging times.

In Europe, you can navigate to and precondition for Qualified Third Party Chargers, but not for unlabelled ones.

Live Activities

While we already mentioned Live Activities in the Tesla app wishlist, they’d be especially useful while Supercharging. Live Activities are useful for short-term information you want to monitor, especially if it changes often — which makes them perfect for Supercharging, especially if you want to avoid idle fees.

Vehicle-to-Load / Vehicle-to-Home Functionality

The Cybertruck introduced Tesla Power Share, Tesla’s name for Vehicle-to-Home functionality (V2H). V2H allows an EV to supply power directly to a home. By leveraging the vehicle’s battery, V2H can provide backup power during outages and reduce energy costs by using stored energy during peak rates.

Tesla Power Share integrates seamlessly with Tesla Energy products and the Tesla app. We’d love to see this functionality across the entire Tesla lineup. Recently a third party demonstrated that bidirectional charging does work on current Tesla vehicles – namely on a 2022 Model Y.

Adaptive Headlights for North America

While Europe and China have had access to the Adaptive Headlights since earlier this year, North America is still waiting. The good news is that Lars Moravy, VP of Vehicle Engineering, said that these are on their way soon.

Blind Spot Indication with Ambient Lighting

Both the 2024 Highland Model 3 Refresh and the Cybertruck already have ambient lighting features, but they don’t currently offer a practical purpose besides some eye candy. So why not integrate that ambient lighting into the Blindspot Warning system so that the left or right side of the vehicle lights up when there’s a vehicle in your blind spot? Currently, only a simple red dot lights up in the front speaker grill, and the on-screen camera will also appear with a red border when signaling.

Having the ambient lighting change colors when a vehicle is in your blind spot would be a cool use of the technology, especially since the Model Y Juniper Refresh and Models S and X are supposed to get ambient lighting as well.

Tesla’s Holiday update is expected to arrive with update 2024.44.25 in just a few short weeks. We’ll have extensive coverage of its features when it finally arrives, but in the meantime, be sure to check out our other wishlist articles:

Latest Tesla Update

Confirmed by Elon

Take a look at features that Elon Musk has said will be coming soon.

More Tesla News

Tesla Videos

Latest Tesla Update

Confirmed by Elon

Take a look at features that Elon Musk has said will be coming soon.

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