In September 2019, Elon Musk unveiled the Plaid Mode Model S. Tesla’s flagship sedan had received a “revamp,” or even a “rejuvenation” if you will. The Tri-Motor setup with a slightly wider body, front lip spoiler, rear diffuser, spoiler, and large front air intake was poised to become Tesla’s fastest and most aerodynamically superior vehicle to date.
The car hit the track at the Nürburgring in Germany, speeding around the “Green Hell” at speeds that are rumored to be a track record. However, we as Tesla fanatics never got a verified track time, and maybe, in a way, it is better that we didn’t. Elon knows something we don’t, and perhaps that the best is yet to come.
Here we are, around eight months after the Plaid’s initial announcement, and Elon drops another bomb on us: The Plaid Cybertruck. Of course, it is what he’ll drive around in, as he announced to the world on Twitter that the fastest and most polarizing truck will be his daily driver.
But to the average consumer who is looking for speed, efficiency, sustainability, and a unique look, the Plaid Cybertruck could be the perfect option. In my personal opinion, it is the ideal option.
I have several reasons for this: For car enthusiasts who love a good bit of speed, the Plaid Cybertruck will be the solution. It’s already got the Tri-Motor setup with a 0-60 MPH of 2.9 seconds, but the additional aerodynamics package that could come along with extra power from a bigger battery pack will give drivers even more of a punch when the accelerator hits the floorboards. Could the Plaid Cybertruck offer 2.5 seconds, or even less, from 0-60? Could this new truck be faster than some of the quickest performance vehicles in the world? It seems incredibly likely.
Next, the Tri-Motor variant of the Cybertruck already offers 14,000 pounds of towing capacity. Could the Plaid Cybertruck provide more? This would be more incentive for those owners who may be using their Cybertruck for utility, including construction. With a bigger battery pack and more horsepower, it could possibly offer 15,000 or 16,000 pounds of towing capability. While the Cybertruck is considered a large pickup, its Tri-Motor configuration is already capable of 14,000 pounds, 800 pounds more than the 2020 Ford F-150, which offers a class-leading 13,200 pounds of towing capacity.
Finally, the unique aesthetics of the Cybertruck are something that cannot be matched. We use the word polarizing a lot, and for a good reason: there is nothing like the Cybertruck on the market. Not only on the outside but the inside, too. The truck’s recycled dash, expansive and bright dash screen, interior LED bars, all are features no other vehicle can match. It truly is polarizing, unique, and individualized in every sense of the word.
The question is: How will legacy automakers compete with the Plaid Cybertruck?
We see companies everyday adapting Tesla’s minimalistic interior style. Cars that once were equipped with enough bells, whistles, and knobs for everyone in the car to play with have opted for simpler designs because the Tesla look simply makes sense and allows for more effortless operation. With that tidbit of information, we know Tesla has an impact on other automakers.
One thing other manufacturers can’t compete with is the speed and performance of Teslas because their vehicles are not powered by batteries. Most of us know that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) offer instant torque, which is why Teslas are notorious for knocking off some of the fastest cars on a drag strip.
The problem for legacy is some of their customers have left them for Tesla. Why? The design. The speed. The engineering. The innovation.
More people will leave their leases and bought out F-150s and Raptors. GMC Sierras, Toyota Tundras and Tacomas for Cybertrucks. And the reasons are all there.
While legacy automakers are stuck with the same general designs for their vehicles year in and year out, Tesla’s cars and SUVs continuously change. While the design stays the same somewhat, the cars are updated through the internet on what is becoming a weekly basis. The cars continuously improve, and you cannot do that with a legacy vehicle. To have the newest technology, you have to have the latest car, and that is not an affordable strategy for many of us.
There are, of course, going to be a few owners who have driven vehicles built by legacy automakers for their whole lives, and they will not stray away from that. And that is perfectly fine. After all, competition is what drives the economy, right?
However, legacy automakers will be forced to adapt to Tesla’s business model in order to compete with the Elon Musk-led company. Many pickup owners will seek speed, engineering, and towing capacity so they can have the most powerful and fastest truck on the market. The Plaid Cybertruck will offer that, and other trucks will not. Plain and simple.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Elon Musk
Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production
Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.
Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.
Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.
Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.
Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.
Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
Tesla’s surprise Roadster video hints the 2017 design is gone
Tesla Full Self-Driving release in the EU gets delayed
