Stories by Sarah Lee-Jones

[caption id="attachment_72795" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Falcon 9 liftoff of USSF-259 from Vandenberg. Credit: SpaceX / X[/caption] SpaceX just got USSF-259 off the pad after Tuesday’s scrub, sending a Falcon 9 skyward from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2100391523338588268 The company confirmed liftoff on X a...

[caption id="attachment_72638" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Tesla Model Y family. Credit: Tesla[/caption] Tesla quietly revised the Model Y L owner’s manual figures for overall height and ground clearance, trimming the published numbers by 3 to 4 millimeters from the April edition, according to an exclusive follow-up from @Tslachan. https://twitter.com/Tslachan/status/2099831708228968570 In the April version cited by @Tslachan, overall...

[caption id="attachment_72766" align="aligncenter" width="993"] Forecasted Supercharger stall availability in Google Maps. Credit: Tesla Charging / X[/caption] Forecasted Supercharger stall counts just followed Google Maps into the car dashboard, after Tesla Charging said the prediction feature is now also available over Android Auto. https://twitter.com/TeslaCharging/status/2100287856208134572 The September 16, 2026 post replies to Tesla Charging’s June 25 rollout...

[caption id="attachment_72754" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Tesla FSD Supervised testing in Spain. Credit: Tesla Europe / X[/caption] Two years of Full Self-Driving Supervised testing across Spain just picked up a concrete mileage total from Tesla Europe, Middle East and Africa, which said the program has now covered 460,000 kilometres. https://twitter.com/teslaeurope/status/2100188661794881815 FSD Supervised is still SAE Level 2...

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation Friday into whether about 1,000 Tesla Cybercabs were properly certified under federal motor vehicle safety standards, Reuters reported, a day after Tesla began commercial Cybercab rides in Austin. According to Reuters, NHTSA is examining the process and technical data Tesla used to claim compliance with...

[caption id="attachment_72457" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Tesla FSD Supervised in Slovenia. Credit: Tesla Europe / X[/caption] Slovenia’s Infrastructure and Energy Minister Jernej Vrtovec tested Tesla Full Self-Driving Supervised at Tesla Center Ljubljana, then posted that the system can handle steering, intersections, lane changes, and other maneuvers while the driver stays in control. Tesla Europe amplified an English...

[caption id="attachment_71752" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] SpaceX and Tesla Terafab concept. Credit: SpaceX / Tesla[/caption] Elon Musk told the All-In Summit that SpaceX and Tesla’s Terafab bet is not optional: the companies either build the in-house chip plant or fail to scale. Speaking with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell during the Los Angeles session, he said the Terafab...

[caption id="attachment_72734" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Tesla FSD Supervised. Credit: Tesla / X[/caption] Tesla on September 15, 2026, spotlighted John Foppe, a driver born without arms who has been using Teslas for more than seven years and now relies on Full Self-Driving Supervised for everyday mobility and long family trips. In an official video post, Tesla wrote...

[caption id="attachment_71417" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] SpaceX Starfall demo hardware concept. Credit: SpaceX[/caption] SpaceX’s new Starfall business of returning manufactured products and research payloads from orbit has signed its first known customer, Luxembourg-based mission integrator Space Cargo, CEO Nicolas Gaume told Reuters on September 15, 2026. Space Cargo plans to fly in 2028 on what Gaume described...

Elon Musk told the All-In Summit that major AI competitors should stop grading their own homework and instead put each other’s models through shared security test harnesses as soon as possible. Speaking with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell in Los Angeles, he framed adversarial peer review as the on-stage follow-through to his weekend line that “Dario...

[caption id="attachment_72693" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Vegas Loop vehicles in the tunnels. Credit: The Boring Company / X[/caption] The Boring Company said on September 14, 2026, that the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the expansion to urgent hiring for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. In a post...

Tesla's updated Model Y owner’s manual now lists text messaging among the in-car jobs Grok can handle when the Assistant personality is selected, documenting voice SMS before the feature has finished rolling out to customer cars. Under Assistant mode, the manual says Grok supports phone calls, text messaging, media search and play, Controls panel search,...

Tesla has registered Tesla Motors Vietnam Limited Liability Company in Ho Chi Minh City with charter capital of about 77.7 billion dong (roughly $3 million), according to a Vietnamese business registration filing reviewed by Reuters and reported on September 14, 2026, putting a formal local sales entity on the books in one of Southeast Asia’s...

Zurich Australian Insurance Limited said on September 14, 2026, that Full Self-Driving Supervised is now a rating factor on its InsureMyTesla policies, making Zurich the first Australian insurer to price eligible Tesla coverage around the supervised self-driving stack and only the second insurer globally to do so. In a company media release, Zurich said Tesla...

[caption id="attachment_72658" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] 2026 Tesla Model 3. Credit: Tesla[/caption] Tesla North America said on September 13, 2026, that the 2026 Model 3 earned a 5-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), plus 5 stars in every individual category the agency scores. https://twitter.com/tesla_na/status/2099256341370187969 In a post on X, @tesla_na wrote that...