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DARPA joins Musk’s Boring Co. initiative to advance tunneling technology
Elon Musk’s tunneling venture, The Boring Company, would not be alone in its underground ventures for very long. Just recently, DARPA launched a competition aimed at creating an efficient, cost-effective and safe way to travel underground. The contest, dubbed by the US Department of Defense branch as the SubT Challenge, is open to interested teams of participants from all over the world, and it has a pretty hefty prize waiting for its lucky winners.
As noted in a DARPA press release, the competition asks its participants to develop effective systems that can aid humans in navigating, mapping and exploring underground locations. Unlike Musk’s The Boring Company, which is primarily geared towards addressing “soul-destroying traffic” in densely populated areas, DARPA’s SubT Challenge is mostly focused on underground life-saving innovations.
Timothy Chung, the program manager for DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), described one of the most pertinent reasons behind the agency’s initiative. According to Chung, DARPA’s upcoming underground system would provide a massive benefit during emergency situations.
“The DARPA Subterranean or ‘SubT’ Challenge aims to explore new approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments. Teams from around the world will be invited to propose novel methods for tackling time-critical scenarios through unknown courses in mapping subsurface networks and unpredictable conditions, which are too hazardous for human first responders.”
The SubT Challenge will involve teams that would be competing side-by-side along two different research tracks. Each team would have the option to pursue the Systems track, which develops actual hardware that would be tested on a physical course, or the Virtual track, which requires teams to come up with software-based systems that would be tested on a simulated course.
Rival teams from both Systems and Virtual tracks will be competing in three preliminary Circuit events, each one addressing different underground environments, as noted in a Live Science report. The first event simulates man-made tunnel systems, the second mass transit and municipal infrastructure, and the third naturally-occurring cave networks.
As noted by DARPA, “One of the main limitations facing warfighters and emergency responders in subterranean environments is a lack of situational awareness; we often don’t know what lies beneath us. The DARPA Subterranean Challenge aims to provide previously unimaginable situational awareness capabilities for operations underground.”
The SubT Challenge Finals, which will be held in 2021, will require competing teams to put their creations to the test using various challenges from all three underground environments. The winning team for the Systems track will receive $2 million, while the team that wins the Virtual track will take home $750,000. Interested groups who would like to take a crack at DARPA’s SubT Challenge can submit their applications by January 18, 2018.
As DARPA starts its underground initiatives through the SubT Challenge, Elon Musk’s Boring Company continues to make significant progress with its operations. Early last month, Musk’s appropriately-named company published the first images of a proposed tunnel map for Los Angeles. The map included a Phase 1 tunnel that connects the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne with Culver City, as well as a proposed Phase 2 route that extends further into the greater LA region.
The Boring Company has seen a significant amount of support from many US cities as well, including Los Angeles, where Mayor Eric Garcetti welcomed the new underground initiative for the city’s transportation system. Furthermore, back in August, Hawthorne’s city council approved Musk’s tunneling project, with Mayor Alex Vargas expressing his full support for the underground initiative.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
News
Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment
This suggests that the addition of the Model Y L to Tesla China’s lineup will not result in a case of cannibalization, but a possible case of “premiumization” instead.
Tesla’s domestic sales in China held steady in November with around 73,000 units delivered, but a closer look at the Model Y L’s numbers hints at an emerging shift towards pricier variants that could very well be boosting average selling prices and margins.
This suggests that the addition of the Model Y L to Tesla China’s lineup will not result in a case of cannibalization, but a possible case of “premiumization” instead.
Tesla China’s November domestic numbers
Data from the a Passenger Car Association (CPCA) indicated that Tesla China saw domestic deliveries of about 73,000 vehicles in November 2025. This number included 34,000 standard Model Y units, 26,000 Model 3 units, and 13,000 Model Y L units, as per industry watchers.
This means that the Model Y L accounted for roughly 27% of Tesla China’s total Model Y sales, despite the variant carrying a ~28% premium over the base RWD Model Y that is estimated to have dominated last year’s mix.
As per industry watcher @TSLAFanMtl, this suggests that Tesla China’s sales have moved towards more premium variants this year. Thus, direct year-over-year sales comparisons might miss the bigger picture. This is true even for the regular Model Y, as another premium trim, the Long Range RWD variant, was also added to the lineup this 2025.
November 2025 momentum
While Tesla China’s overall sales this year have seen challenges, the Model Y and Model 3 have remained strong sellers in the country. This is especially impressive as the Model Y and Model 3 are premium-priced vehicles, and they compete in the world’s most competitive electric vehicle market. Tesla China is also yet to roll out the latest capabilities of FSD in China, which means that its vehicles in the country could not tap into their latest capabilities yet.
Aggregated results from November suggest that the Tesla Model Y took the crown as China’s #1 best-selling SUV during the month, with roughly 34,000 deliveries. With the Model Y L, this number is even higher. The Tesla Model 3 also had a stellar month, seeing 25,700 deliveries during November 2025.
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
