Lifestyle
Top 5 Reasons Why My Child’s Next Car will be an EV
The trusty old family Acura MDX living in the ICE age
Part of my justification for purchasing a Tesla Model S was because my daily driver an Acura MDX SUV was at 190,000 miles and was soon to become the starter car for my daughter that was about to turn of driving age. As an electric vehicle (EV) convert who’s logged nearly 50,000 miles of emissions free driving, and watching my child experience the tribulations with driving a gasoline powered internal combustion engine (ICE) car, I’ve come up with my top 5 reasons why my child’s next car will be an EV.
5. ICE cars emit poisonous gases
As EV drivers we inevitably morph into these sensitive creatures revolted by the sheer visualization of exhaust fumes spewing from ICE cars, which is still more common place than not. It’s not a character trait that you consciously make an effort to adopt, but rather you’re so far removed from any exposure to emissions when driving electric, that you often lose sight of the fact that there’s even such a thing as poisonous gas spewing freely into the atmosphere. Therefore your Spidey senses are on high alert when you do come across it.
Kids on the other hand are seeing the world of cars for the first time. They pay very little attention to anything other than their mission to get from point A to point B. How to fill the car with gas, what things, whether inanimate or not, to look out for, etc. all come as an afterthought.
This week my daughter scared the heck out of me when she went out to the garage to warm up the car before heading to school. I was in the process of putting some things away in the house so I didn’t come into the garage until 5-10 minutes later, but when I finally did, I could hardly breathe. My daughter was sitting in the big SUV while the engine was running and with all the garage doors closed. I immediately opened all the doors to ventilate the space and counted my blessings. Thankfully she was fine but it sure made for a frightening experience.
When I spoke to her about it, she said, “But Dad, you have your car running in the garage all the time without the doors open.” It’s true, I do. I fiddle with with my car for blog posts or just for fun, I clean it with the music running, and generally don’t worry about emissions. She’s been watching me this entire time and figured she could do the same. Needless to say, we had a long chat about the dangers of poisonous fumes that gets emitted as a byproduct of gasoline burning engines.
4. ICE cars burn fossil fuels which can be dangerous to handle
The big SUV gets a measly 20 mpg and with my daughter’s commute to school and after school activities, she’s hitting the gas stations quite a bit.
Here in the wonderful state of Massachusetts you have to pump your own gas at most gas stations. My daughter hadn’t experienced pumping gas before and had no idea where gas goes or where the process of filling flammable liquid into the vehicle even begins. That may sound strange to some, but the fact of the matter is, she hasn’t seen me use a gas station in over 18 months, and literally had no point of reference for the procedure.
I showed her the process of squeezing a trigger on a pump that would allow the flow of gasoline into the car’s gas tank. And like any teenager these days when encountered with a 20 second lapse of inactivity, she pulled out her cell phone to see what’s going on in her digital life. That concerned me.
I know there’s little chance that a cell phone may spark an explosion, but it’s still not recommended to be using electronics while you’re surrounded by highly flammable liquids. I went on to explain that gas fumes can ignite through sparks and that electronics could be a catalyst to it. And of course, like any good Dad, I had to warn her that she could blow herself up. She reluctantly put the phone away.
As we finished filling up the gas tank and began hanging the nozzle back on the pump, a trail of gas dripped across the car and to the ground. I told her that this stuff was not only bad for the environment, bad for the car’s paint, but also that it’s carcinogenic and bad for your health. At that point I think she started to understand that ownership of an ICE car could be dangerous, even when not started.
3. ICE cars require regular maintenance
Since my daughter will be driving the car very regularly and logging a good amount of miles on it, she will need to maintain a regular service interval. The Acura has a service indicator that lights up when it’s time for service.
The “A” service light indicates that an oil change is needed while the “B” service light represents the need for an oil change plus a tire rotation. There are additional indicators to alert you of more major services such as belt changes, fluid flushes and transmission plus brake maintenance.
An engine-less Model S “frunk”
My daughter was not thrilled by the mention of the type of services needed, likely because it was going to be a real inconvenience to maintain it, but also because there will be costs associated with each type of service. Once again this was new to her since we never experienced such a thing in the Model S.
2. ICE cars are expensive to drive
In addition to having to pay for costly services, filling up the Acura costs $55. Since that’s about a week’s worth of after school part-time pay, I’ll be paying for gas that’s needed to get her to school, sports practice and her other commitments. However I made it clear that trips to the mall were going to be on her dime.
Although gas prices have dropped recently and electricity is still crazy expensive in my area, driving an EV is still 1/3 to 1/5 the cost of an ICE car for the same distance travelled. And that doesn’t take into account the extra service and maintenance costs associated with owning a gas car. Our trusty old Acura SUV is safe and reliable but at 20MPG it isn’t all that efficient.
1. ICE cars need to be turned on and off
After 18 months of living with the Tesla Model S, the entire family has gotten used to pulling into a parking spot and walking away while the car takes care of shutting itself down and locking up. I’m sure every Model S owner can relate.
While my daughter hasn’t been driving my Model S, she’s been watching and learning from my behaviors since day one. I never use a key, I never lock and unlock the door, and probably the most obvious difference is that I never turn off the car. For that reason, there’s been several times during her early days of driving where she would just get out of the car and forget to turn off the engine, or lock the car. Usually one of us remembers before we get too far, but it’s crazy how quickly you become accustomed to a certain way of life.
As the automotive industry continues to shift towards plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles, not to mention introduce technologies where vehicles can drive themselves, there’s still a world of education that needs to be had before people eventually transition from the old ICE-age into this new form of transportation. But for now, I’ll start with my daughter.
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.
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