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Exploring Details Behind the Tesla Model S Update

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2016 Tesla Model S revised front end

After four years on the market, Tesla has quietly released a new styling update for the Model S aligning it with the design found on the Model X and Model 3 prototype.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once said that Tesla continues to improve on their vehicles making sometimes twenty engineering design changes per week, with many of them being released via over-the-air software updates, but major redesigns are few and far between.

Let’s take a closer look at what the new Model S “refresh” introduced.

Exterior Design Updates

The most noticeable exterior update is the new front-end of the Model S which looks most like the front-end of the Model X.

 

Though they look very similar in design, the Model S looks even sleeker due to the lower profile over the Model X. The revised look keeps the Model S modern in appearance, but subtle enough that it still remains true to its original contour and body lines.

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One update that easily goes unnoticed is the relocation of the front facing radar. Because of the new grill-less design of the Model S, the Tesla design team had to move the radar up from the bottom grill to the open space behind the Tesla emblem. This not only helps with functionality because of a higher mounting position with potentially less obstruction, but the new hidden location makes the car look a heck of a lot better.

Also improved on the exterior are the headlights which are now adaptive LED headlamps that adjust according to the curvature of the road. This is standard equipment found on the Model X but also seen on the Model 3 prototypes.

Interior Design Updates

The interior treatment of the Model S received a few new updates as well. Tesla has included a standard center console that looks to be the same one from the Model X.

Tesla Model S (left) vs Model X (right) interior

Tesla has also added a Figured Ash as an available interior trim. This trim has been very popular among Model X buyers, but it also happens to be a personal favorite of mine.

Additional Features

High amperage chargerThe Model S onboard charger has been upgraded from a 40A standard charger to a 48A standard charger, with an option to further increase charging rate by opting for a 72A “high amperage” charger. The older Model S configurations offered a 40A charger standard with an option to upgrade to 80A (‘dual chargers‘).

Tesla also made the automatic lift gate now a standard option which makes sense for a premium vehicle in this price range.

Included in the premium upgrade package is the BioWeapon defense mode air filtration system, as well as ambient interior lighting (previously an optional upgrade).

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Pricing

While there were many rumors of a Model S price increase leading up to this design refresh, the new updates do not seem to be reflected in the price.

“The new Model S may actually be less expensive than before”

I priced out the latest Model S with options that I chose from before, and compared the new price side by side with one I previously saved.

Side by Side

The price from before was $98,450 and the new price is $104,450, but despite the price difference there are a couple of key differences which makes for the price disparity. Let me explain.

The last time I configured a Model S I couldn’t locate a high amperage/dual charger option so my $98,450 does not include that option. On the other hand, the updated Model S comes with a 48A charger as a standard feature. This is included in the base price of the vehicle.

Tesla also no longer offers the S85D which I priced-out back then, so this new price is for the 90D. In the past the extra 5 kWh was a $3,000 option.

If you back both of those out to the new price you get to a price difference of $99,950 or a price increase of $500. Keep in mind that the updated Model S also comes with a center console (previously a $650 extra charge) and the new air filtration system. Depending on how you look at it, the new Model S may actually be less expensive than before.

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One could easily make the case that the new offering is an improvement over what Tesla offered before and is actually less expensive.

Summary

It’s great to see Tesla keeping the Model S design fresh and current despite all of the activity going on within the company, let alone conquering challenges with launching the Model X and preparing for the Model 3. Being able to pull off this current update – factoring in changes to production, logistics, service, etc – Tesla continues to defy naysayers and show the world what ingenuity and perseverance can accomplish in such a short amount of time.

 

"Rob's passion is technology and gadgets. An engineer by profession and an executive and founder at several high tech startups Rob has a unique view on technology and some strong opinions. When he's not writing about Tesla

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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big

SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.

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SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.

The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.

The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.

SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.

Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.

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Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.

The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.

Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.

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Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.

Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.

The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.

The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.

Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.

Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.

For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.

While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.

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