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Cruise names two new executives amidst efforts to re-launch self-driving

Credit: Cruise

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The board of General Motors’ (GM’s) self-driving unit Cruise has officially appointed its next CEO, following a major shakeup that ensued in the wake of an October accident with one of the company’s robotaxis.

On Tuesday, Cruise shared a press release announcing that former Xbox team founder and Amazon services executive Marc Whitten has been appointed as the company’s new CEO. Whitten will fill the new role starting on July 16, and will serve alongside standing President and CEO Mo Elshenawy.

“In a few years, transportation will be fundamentally safer and more accessible than it is today, creating much more value for individuals and communities around the world. It is an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation,” Whitten said in the press release. “The team at Cruise has built world-class technology, and I look forward to working with them to help bring this critical mission to life.”

Whitten helped launch Xbox and Xbox Live, along with scaling the platforms, before going on to serve as Chief Product Officer at Sonos, VP of Entertainment Devices and Services at Amazon, and President of Unity Create.

Following the announcement, he wrote in a post on LinkedIn that accepting the Cruise position had been the “easiest ‘yes’ in his career,” adding that he was “inspired by its deep and meaningful mission and world-class technology.”

Whitten will also be joined by the company’s newly hired Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Nick Mulholland, who has served as the VP of Global Communications of Rivian for the past few years.

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“My core belief is that this technology and Cruise’s dedication to its mission will change the world. Achieving such a bold vision will require a deep and meaningful collaboration with the communities we serve,” Mulholland said in the press release. “It is an incredible opportunity to play a role in building these vital connections.”

The news comes as GM attempts to re-launch Cruise’s self-driving services, after one of the company’s driverless vehicles hit, dragged, and pinned a pedestrian in San Francisco in October, after the person had already been hit by another car with a human behind the wheel.

After the accident, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) revoked the company’s permit to operate self-driving vehicles, followed by a series of layoffs and departures.

Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt resigned from his position on November 19, and fellow co-founder and former Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan resigned the following day. In December, the company announced a staff reduction of around 24 percent of its workers.

GM also announced plans to cut spending on Cruise in half this year while it tries to regain public trust and relaunch the service.

“At Cruise, we are committed to earning back the trust of regulators and the public through our commitments and our actions,” GM CEO Mary Barra wrote in a shareholder letter in April.

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Cruise began testing again with human drivers last month, though the tests are currently limited to Phoenix, Arizona. Alongside the announcement, Cruise said it also planned to gradually expand to a handful of the surrounding suburbs.

Cruise ordered to pay max penalty for delayed accident report

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”

The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.

“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.

FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.

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Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.

The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.

For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.

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Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges

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Credit: @BLKMDL3/Twitter

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established a Temporary Flight Restriction over SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket development and test facility, a move widely viewed as preparation for Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal. The restriction took effect September 18 and runs through October 2.

NOTAM FDC 6/3825 covers a 1.5-nautical-mile radius around the site near Waco and extends from the surface to 10,000 feet above ground level. The FAA cited hazards under 14 CFR 91.137(a)(3) and barred aircraft and drones from the zone. Tesla’s invitation to reservation holders already placed the event in Waco, about 20 minutes from McGregor, making the timing and location more than coincidental.

What stands out is the altitude. Typical recent TFRs at McGregor for engine static fires and component tests have used far lower ceilings, often around 2,000 feet. Raising the limit to 10,000 feet is unusually high even compared with some Starbase restrictions and signals operations that go beyond a standard ground-level engine test.

That extra airspace has fueled speculation about the long-promised SpaceX Package for the Roadster. Elon Musk has described cold-gas thrusters that could deliver sub-one-second 0-60 times and, more dramatically, brief lift-off. Reports earlier this year indicated Tesla planned a remote-controlled demonstration at McGregor in which the car would leave the ground with no one inside; spectators kept hundreds of yards away because of the noise.

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The 10,000-foot envelope would give operators a large safety buffer even if the vehicle only hovers a short distance.

Tesla has not confirmed a flight demo. The company has only used the phrase “Go for launch” and posted a teaser image of the car on what looks like a launch pad. The TFR itself mentions only hazards. Still, closing airspace this high and this close to the reveal date strongly suggests the event will include more than a static display.

Whether the Roadster actually hovers on October 1 remains to be seen. What is certain is that the FAA has cleared a large vertical slice of Texas sky for whatever Tesla and SpaceX intend to show. Reservation holders heading to Waco will be among the first to find out if the car can do more than drive.

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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.

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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.”


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.

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