A revolutionary idea so out there it could work
Elon Musk is nothing if not a visionary, and his latest idea certainly feels like a return to form. During Tesla’s Q3 2025 earnings call, Musk dropped the idea of using Teslas all over the world as a cloud computing network. Yup, essentially, Tesla’s turned into a massive distributed computing network when they’re idle. The idea is pretty out there, but it stems from a simple truth.
Modern EVs are packed full of computing power to be able to autonomously drive (hopefully without crashing), receive software updates, and generally provide all the cool stuff car buyers are used to. But all this processing power is essentially wasted when the car is parked. Which is why Musk’s idea to transform this otherwise wasted processing power to contribute to computing networks kind of makes sense. Imagine your car processing complex calculations or training AI models, all while you’re asleep or at work.
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Elon Musk came up with a pretty incredible idea during the Q3 Earnings Call, that no one is really talking about.
His words: “Actually, one of the things I thought, if we've got all these cars that maybe are bored, while they're sort of, if they are bored, we could actually… pic.twitter.com/tlbko8egLd
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) October 28, 2025
How the Tesla computing network could actually function
Technically, the capabilities to pull this off already exist in every Tesla out there, and most other modern EVs as well. Cars with self-driving features possess the computational capabilities to process vast amounts of data from the myriad sensors aboard the vehicle. When parked or plugged in, they’re just supercomputers on wheels with the power turned off.
Musk’s idea is to put these idle electric vehicles, already on the same secure network, to tackle distributed computing tasks. What that means is that individual cars could contribute processing power to handle portions of larger tasks, transmitting data back and forth to the network. Of course, there would need to be finely tuned software that juggles all the available Tesla computing power against the tasks, making sure that Tesla owners get the full processing power of their car back when they do need it.
There could be a massive opportunity parked in your driveway
Of course, the real challenge isn’t the technical side of things. Musk has a history of pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible, with infrastructure (including the cars) that already rivals traditional data centers. The real task would be in convincing vehicle owners to participate in such a program. After all, if your EV is performing complex computational tasks when it’s parked or charging, battery life and range are going to take a hit the next time you drive it.
Tesla would need to assuage concerns about battery degradation, charging costs and data privacy/security to name a few. Still, if even a fraction of the 7.2 million Teslas sold to date took part, we’re talking massive computing power. If this crazy idea does take off, our only hope is that all these Teslas aren’t put to work writing people’s emails.
