Tesla Needs To Tuck Its Ridiculous Hotdog Into Its Bun Right Now

We’ve discussed the Tesla Diner before (I forgot this thing was first discussed way back in 2023) and even sent our own Griffin out to case the joint and taste the food, but I think we missed what has to be the biggest, most important story about this electric automaker-run diner, which is that the image they use of their $13 hot dog is an absolute nightmarish embarrassment. It looks like the sort of hot dog one might construct if you had zero familiarity with hot dogs, buns, or human food in general, and had a hot dog described to you over a walkie-talkie. Poorly.

I’m not saying that the actual hot dogs served there are this bad – we’ll look at an example of those in a bit – but I am saying that the hot dog they selected to represent all of Tesla Hotdogdom on their menu is an unmitigated hot dog disaster that should never have been released unto the eyes of the hot dog-desiring public.

Let me show you what I mean. This is a screenshot directly from the Tesla Diner website:

Look at that thing! A strangely thin and blistery hot dog, strangely ultra-turgid, laying atop a barely-opened, untoasted, unyielding-looking bun. Look at that ridiculous assembly! How would you even eat that? Push the damn hot dog into the bun, like a human fucking being, Tesla Diner!

Look how much space is under that dog; there’s a whole valley, a valley of emptiness, of nothingness, that longs to be filled with delicious sausage but is instead left void and wanting. This is a ridiculous-looking hot dog.

This is actually the second hot dog picture featured on the menu, after the first one was replaced sometime around when the whole menu itself was drastically shrunk. Here’s what the first one looked like:

It’s a little better, because the carefully-applied relish and mustard hide the stiff hot dog’s strangeness, and perhaps the condimental weight has forced the dog a bit further into the bun. But this one is gone, replaced by this abomination:

The only way I can think of that this photo could be worse is if they did it like this:

As it is, though, it looks less like a hot dog and more like the handlebars on a Big Wheel:

What’s baffling is that there’s no good reason for this hot dog image to be so bad. They could have actually shoved the hot dog into the bun where it belongs instead of precariously perching it atop the bun, like how I imagine a serial killer makes their hot dogs. Even the supplier of Tesla’s hot dogs, Snap-o-Razzo, understands how to construct and photograph a hot dog better. This is from their website:

Look, the dog is actually encased in the bun, some toppings and condiments are applied, and those look like delicious hot dogs, not some clunky attempt at a sculpture that “suggests hotdogism.”

And, of course, it’s worth noting that the legendary Costco hot dog, one that costs $11.50 less than the Tesla Diner-dog, has a decently-appealing photograph on their menu board:

Sure, that Costco dog feels pretty staged, but at least the hot dog is inside the damn bun, and you could actually hold and eat it without the hot dog itself bouncing off and rolling onto the ground like a tiny log, never to be seen again.

Then, of course, there’s also the fact that I think deep down everyone really was hoping for a low-polygon Cyberdog:

Now, you may be thinking, “Jason, you drooling simpleton! What qualifications do you have to judge the quality of anyone’s food photography? Your pictures of food look like puke in bowls!” and yes, you’re not wrong there. So we reached out to a real food stylist and chef, Tiffany Senin, showed her the Tesla Diner hot dog pictures, and here’s what this food photography professional had to say in an informal text conversation:

“Hot dog looks charred to shit…[that] hot dog looks like it was charred into space.

My frustration with hot dogs is that the bun to dog ration is always off. Like more bun to dog, I feel like the only way this would be appetizing at all is if you folded the hot dog in half and doubled up the meat. Like, why so long? And no condiments, either?

Oh, also the bun’s not toasted so that’s a dry-ass bun. A Costco hot dog is more appealing and you don’t need to wait five hours for it.”

I’m sort of surprised she didn’t zero in on the dog just slapped atop, not really inside, the bun, as all of us on staff here noticed immediately, but her points are entirely valid nevertheless.

In the interest of fairness, I should note that video evidence suggests the hot dog isn’t nearly as absurd looking in reality:

So, in reality, it looks more like a normal hot dog, even if it is a bit “mid” as the dude there called “Elon’s glizzy.”

But that just makes this all more baffling; clearly they’re capable of making a non-idiotic-looking hot dog. So why did this ridiculous dork-dog end up as the literal poster child for Tesla Diner hot dogs?

This all feels deeply un-American, and I hope Tesla addresses this problem immediately.