News
Change.org Petition Promotes Nobel Prize for Elon Musk
Edward Tanas of Calgary, Canada has begun a Change.org campaign to nominate Elon Musk for a Nobel Prize in Economic Science. The petition has already been signed by 374 supporters.
Following the unveiling of the Tesla Model 3 on March 31, Edward Tanas of Calgary, Canada, began to petition the Swedish Nobel Prize Committee to award Elon Musk with a prize in Economic Science.
There is no question Elon is one of the most gifted and creative thinkers of our time. If you would like to support Tanas’ petition, you may do so at Change.org. Here is the text of the petition.
We, the signed, would like you, the Swedish Nobel Committee, to award Mr. Elon Musk, a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Mr. Musk has spent most of his life helping not only to help the economics of transportation flourish with technological breakthroughs but has done so in a manner that addresses climate change.
His ventures into the production of electric cars. most recently the more affordable Tesla Model 3, which at the time of writing this petition has over 253,000 orders, has helped to reduce the impact on the environment by replacing internal combustion engine vehicles.
Biography
Elon Reeve Musk is an American entrepreneur, inventor and investor. He is best known for his role as CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, and as co-founder of online money transfer system PayPal, and of commercial space program SpaceX.
Elon was born in South Africa, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. He was raised primarily by his father, who was an engineer. Elon became interested in computers at a young age and began programming in his teens. After high school, Elon emigrated to Canada, where he attended college, and later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
In 1995, Musk started a PhD in applied physics at Stanford University in California, but quickly dropped out to start his own company. He would go on to sell that company, called Zip2, to Compaq, for more than $300 million in 1999, of which he received $22 million. With that capital, Musk started X.com in 1999. It was an online banking site that later changed its name to PayPal. EBay purchased the company in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock, of which $165 million went to Musk. That same year, he became an American citizen. (See also: Three Steps Elon Musk Took To Become Successful.)
Flush from the PayPal sale, Musk looked to the heavens, and began SpaceX, a private, for profit space program. After a few false starts, the company began developing its own rockets. The company launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2009 and again in 2012.
While planning his assault upon the heavens, Musk took an interest in more terrestrial matters, specifically the way people get across the surface of the earth. After a major investment in 2004, Musk joined the board of Tesla Motors as its chairman. Also contributing as a product architect, he played a role in the designs of the cars Tesla was building. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Musk assumed the mantle of Tesla Motors CEO, a position he still holds today. (For more, see: Is Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Economically Feasible?)
Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk remains involved in a number of futuristic projects. He is connected with a high-speed transportation system called the Hyperloop. He has also been a proponent of a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) supersonic jet aircraft.
We thank you for your patience in reading about his past accomplishments and various ventures which have benefited society and will continue to do so.
Photo credit: Change.org
Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
News
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
The Tesla Model X was the fastest-selling used vehicle in the United States in the first quarter of the year, crushing every other used car in America.
iSeeCars data for the first quarter shows that the Model X was the fastest-selling used car, lasting just 25.6 days on the market on average, two days better than that of the second-place Lexus RX 350h. The Cybertruck, Model Y, and Model S, in seventh, ninth, and thirteenth place, respectively, also made the list.
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
Bringing closure to these two vehicles signaled the end of the road for the cars that have effectively built Tesla’s reputation for luxury and high-end passenger vehicles.
Relying on the sales of its mass market Model Y and Model 3, as well as leaning on the success of future products like the Cybercab, is the angle Tesla has chosen to take.
Teslas are also performing extremely well as a whole on the resale market. iSeeCars data shows that, “while the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old non-Tesla EV fell 10.3% in Q1 2026 year-over-year, the average price of a used Tesla was essentially flat at 0.1% lower across the same period. Traditional gas car prices dropped 2.8% during this same period.”
Additionally, market share for gas cars has dropped nearly 3 percent since the same quarter last year. Tesla has remained level, while the non-Tesla EV market share has increased 30 percent, mostly due to more models available.
Nevertheless, those non-Tesla EVs have seen their value drop by over 10 percent, while Tesla’s values have remained level.
Executive Analyst Karl Brauer said:
“Used electric vehicles without a Tesla badge have lost more than 10% of their value in the past year. This compares to stable values for Teslas and hybrids, and a modest 2.8% drop for traditional gasoline vehicles.”
Teslas, as well as non-luxury hybrids, are displaying the strongest resistance in the face of faltering demand, the publication says. But the more impressive performance is that of the Model X alone.
Tesla’s decision to stop production of the Model X may have played some part in the vehicle’s pristine performance in Q1. With the car already placed at a premium price point, used models are already more appealing to consumers. Perhaps second-hand versions were more than enough for those who wanted a Model X, and only a Model X.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck’s head-scratching trim sold terribly, recall documents reveal
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
After Tesla decided to build a Rear-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck trim back in 2025, which was void of many features and only featured a small discount.
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
The recall deals with a potentially separating wheel stud and potentially impacts 173 Cybertruck units with the 18-inch steel wheels. The Cybertruck RWD was the only trim level to feature these, and the 173 potentially impacted units represent a portion of the population of pickups. Therefore, it’s not the entire number of RWD Cybertruck sold, but it could show how little interest it gathered.
The NHTSA document states:
“On affected vehicles, higher severity road perturbations and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
Only 5 percent are expected to be impacted, meaning less than 10 units will have the issue if the NHTSA and Tesla estimates are correct. Nevertheless, the true story here is how terribly the RWD Cybertruck sold.
Tesla ended production and stopped offering the RWD Cybertruck to customers last September. For just $10,000 less than the All-Wheel-Drive trim, Tesla offered the RWD Cybertruck with just one motor, textile seats instead of leather, only 7 speakers instead of 15, no Rear Touchscreen, no Powered Tonneau Cover for the truck bed, and no 120v/240v outlets.
For just $10,000 more, at $79,990, owners could have received all of those premium features, as well as a more capable All-Wheel-Drive powertrain that featured Adaptive Air Suspension. The discount simply was not worth the sacrifices.
Orders were few and far between, and sources told us that when it was offered, sales were extremely tempered because customers could not see the value in this trim level.
Even Tesla’s most loyal supporters thought the offering was kind of a joke, and the $10,000 extra was simply worth it.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
