Lifestyle
Tesla Model S is the car of choice for Hollywood’s Rich and Famous
Celebrities are known for driving some of the rarest and expensive cars on Earth, and many of us dream of just seeing some of the vehicles that Hollywood’s most successful stars drive on a daily basis. However, it may come as a surprise that the car celebrities have purchased the most this year is in many of our driveways because the Tesla Model S was most popular among some of the world’s richest and most famous people.
New data from specialist insurance brand MoneyBeach, with the help of Celebity Cars Blog, has found the Top 10 most popular cars owned by celebrities this year, and the all-electric flagship sedan from Tesla takes the cake. Its all-electric, sustainable powertrain provides the best range rating of any EV on the market and performance specifications to match. Notably, actors and actresses have been seeking the Model S most often this year, the data suggests. Impressively, the Model S’s relatively affordable price tag was more desirable than some of the priciest and most luxurious brands on the market.
Even Bentley, Mercedes-Benz, and Rolls Royce couldn’t find as many celebrity driveways as the Model S, perhaps proving that Tesla is sought after by all class designations, making it an automaker that is “for the people” rather than “for the rich and famous.”
Some of the biggest names in Hollywood have supported Tesla since the production of the 2008 Roadster. Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, two celebrities with very vocal opinions on the importance of adopting climate-saving techniques, have owned Teslas for many years. Ruffalo has even supported other EVs, like the BMW i3, in a statement that aligns with the climate-friendly opinions he has encouraged his fans to adopt. Jennifer Garner, who starred with Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30, also uses the sustainable, high-performance sedan for travel.
Leo DiCaprio and his Model S Performance
Meanwhile, Leo DiCaprio is arguably one of Hollywood’s most vocal proponents for climate activism, and a Model S also sits in the Wolf of Wall Street star’s driveway. Other stars who own the all-electric sedan include Will Smith, Simon Cowell, and Cameron Diaz. Even GMC Hummer spokesperson and NBA Superstar LeBron James had a Tesla tucked away in his Brentwood garage, but it appears to be a Model X.
The list of the Top 10 most popular cars among celebrities is as follows, MoneyBeach says:
1. Tesla Model S
2. Bentley Continental GT
3. Mercedes-Benz G55 (G-Wagon)
4. Rolls-Royce Phantom
5. Land Rover Range Rover Sport
6. Mercedes-Benz S-Class
7. Cadillac Escalade
8. Land Rover Range Rover Evoque
9. Porsche Panamera
10. Audi R8
As a brand, Tesla is not the most popular among celebrities, but it does sit in the Top 5 behind Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Bentley, and Porsche. But the important lesson here is that sustainability is winning.
MoneyBeach spokesperson Mike Rees says that the celebrity impact on consumers is what is most important to recognize from the data. Companies pay millions of dollars to have the world’s biggest names endorse their products, but Tesla doesn’t do that. Many of the automakers listed also do not, but celebrity thirst for the ridiculously expensive is being put to the side, and impact is coming to the forefront.
“Right from when we’re children, our ‘dream’ cars are inspired by celebrities and what they own, so it was really interesting to delve into the data and find out once and for all, what they’re driving the most,” Rees said. “It was also somewhat surprising to see that amongst all the performance cars and classic models, it was the Tesla Model S that came out on top. It seems that this elite class are helping to usher in a cleaner electric future, while some, of course, maintain their fondness of a Ferrari!”
Lifestyle
Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion
Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.
Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”
The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.
The new Automatic Collision Evasion feature worked flawlessly! FSD reengaged itself just as I was about to hit a curb.
Kudos @Tesla_AI team! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Fbp15HhpL2
— Spencer (@scotsrule08) September 28, 2026
The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.
Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.
Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.
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.