Ellie In Space is more than a YouTube channel dedicated to SpaceX and space in general. The host, Ellie, has a unique story of her own. In the video (at the end of the article), we interviewed one another and shared our stories.
This article is a short recap of my interview with Ellie.
From TV to Ellie In Space
Eliana (Ellie)ย Sheriff has a very interesting story. Her background is in media and broadcasting. She moved to Utah for a job that she later left to pursue her passions for space and TV.
Ellie worked as a TV news anchor and reporter for over eight years and is now applying those skills to full-time, independent space reporting. She, as I am, is inspired by Elon Musk I asked her about her story.
Ellie left her job as a TV station news anchor to pursue independent space reporting.
Elon Musk has often talked about how negative the media has become of late. He even brought it up during my own interview with him last month.ย His words may seem harsh to some but they also ring true for those having to face the negativity day in and day out.
Ellie was one of those people.
“I had been debating leaving for a couple of years due to various reasons. One of the biggest ones being the pay is not that great. And then, other things started to drain on me such as news is quite depressing.”
“Most weeks, it would be like, ‘okay go cover that shooting that just happened and go interview victims or a family of the victim. Or, go cover this fire.’ You know, just stuff that wasn’t pleasant and that’s part of the job description.”
Ellie had another outlet for her creativity. She’d already started her YouTube channel which was already growing. Ellie asked herself ‘why don’t I just do what I’m doing now for a TV news station but instead, do it for my own brand and cover something that’s exciting and inspiring?’
Her channel had already started paying her rent for a year so it made sense for her to quit a depressing job and go full-time with Ellie in Space.
Why SpaceX and Elon?
Like me before I started writing full-time for CleanTechnica and then Teslarati, Ellie didn’t know much about Elon Musk, SpaceX, or Tesla.
“Like you, I didn’t know a lot about SpaceX and Tesla prior to covering it but that’s the thing. You learn about it. You interview people. And then you can be a source of information.”
From Airbnb to Starlink
Her former boyfriend encouraged her to start her YouTube channel and said that she’d be really good at it. She began sharing Airbnb vlogs and other things that weren’t getting much traction. But then, her former boyfriend received some good news from SpaceX.
He’d gotten approved to beta test Starlink. This was during a time when Starlink wasn’t accessible as it is now.
Ellie didn’t know what Starlink was, however, it wound up taking her on a journey that has opened her up to many adventures.
“He was like, ‘we should make a video and do some speed tests or whatever and see how it goes. And I made this video and it started doing really well. And I just thought that as any journalist has a beat, you know maybe they are covering crime news or maybe they’re covering health news. I was like, ‘why don’t I just make this my beat, and I’ll cover Starlink news?’”
You can watch our double interview in the video below. My interview with Ellie begins just after 22 minutes into the video.
Disclaimer: Johnna is long Tesla.ย
Iโd love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1
Tesla is dominating in the United Kingdom so far through 2025, and with about two weeks left in the year, the Model Y and Model 3 are leading the way.
The Model Y and Model 3 are the two best-selling electric vehicles in the United Kingdom, which is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and it’s not particularly close.
According to data gathered byย EU-EVs, the Model Y is sitting at 18,890 units for the year, while the Model 3 is slightly behind with 16,361 sales for the year so far.
The next best-selling EV is the Audi Q4 e-tron at 10,287 units, lagging significantly behind but ahead of other models like the BMW i4 and the Audi Q6 e-tron.
GOOD NEWS ๐ฌ๐ง Tesla is absolutely crushing the UK electric vehicle market in 2025 ๐ฅ
The numbers are in, and the dominance is clear. With an impressive amount of 42,270 vehicles delivered year-to-date, the brand now commands a solid 9.6% market share of the total auto market ๐โฆ pic.twitter.com/dkiGX9kzd0
โ Ming (@tslaming) December 18, 2025
The Model Y has tasted significant success in the global market, but it has dominated in large markets like Europe and the United States.
For years, it’s been a car that has fit the bill of exactly what consumers need: a perfect combination of luxury, space, and sustainability.
Both vehicles are going to see decreases in sales compared to 2024; the Model Y was the best-selling car last year, but it sold 32,610 units in the UK. Meanwhile, the Model 3 had reached 17,272 units, which will keep it right on par with last year.
Tesla sold 50,090 units in the market last year, and it’s about 8,000 units shy of last year’s pace. It also had a stronger market share last year with 13.2 percent of the sales in the market. With two weeks left in 2025, Tesla has a 9.6 percent market share, leading Volkswagen with 8 percent.
The company likely felt some impact from CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration and, more specifically, his role with DOGE. However, it is worth mentioning that some months saw stronger consumer demand than others. For example, sales were up over 20 percent in February. A 14 percent increase followed this in June.
News
Tesla Insurance officially expands to new U.S. state
Tesla’s in-house Insurance program first launched back in late 2019, offering a new way to insure the vehicles that was potentially less expensive and could alleviate a lot of the issues people had with claims, as the company could assess and repair the damage itself.
Tesla Insurance has officially expanded to a new U.S. state, its thirteenth since its launch in 2019.
Tesla has confirmed that its in-house Insurance program has officially made its way to Florida, just two months after the company filed to update its Private Passenger Auto program in the state. It had tried to offer its insurance program to drivers in the state back in 2022, but its launch did not happen.
Instead, Tesla refiled the paperwork back in mid-October, which essentially was the move toward initiating the offering this month.
BREAKING: Tesla Insurance has just officially launched in Florida.
This is the first new state to receive @Tesla Insurance in more than 3 years. In total, Tesla insurance is now available in 13 U.S. states (map in thread below of all the states).
Tesla Insurance in Florida usesโฆ pic.twitter.com/bDwh1IV6gD
โ Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 17, 2025
Tesla’s in-house Insurance program first launched back in late 2019, offering a new way to insure the vehicles that was potentially less expensive and could alleviate a lot of the issues people had with claims, as the company could assess and repair the damage itself.
It has expanded to new states since 2019, but Florida presents a particularly interesting challenge for Tesla, as the company’s entry into the state is particularly noteworthy given its unique insurance landscape, characterized by high premiums due to frequent natural disasters, dense traffic, and a no-fault system.
Annual average premiums for Florida drivers hover around $4,000 per year, well above the national average. Tesla’s insurance program could disrupt this, especially for EV enthusiasts. The state’s growing EV adoption, fueled by incentives and infrastructure development, aligns perfectly with Tesla’s ecosystem.
Moreover, there are more ways to have cars repaired, and features like comprehensive coverage for battery damage and roadside assistance tailored to EVs address those common painpoints that owners have.
However, there are some challenges that still remain. Florida’s susceptibility to hurricanes raises questions about how Tesla will handle claims during disasters.
Looking ahead, Tesla’s expansion of its insurance program signals the company’s ambition to continue vertically integrating its services, including coverage of its vehicles. Reducing dependency on third-party insurers only makes things simpler for the company’s automotive division, as well as for its customers.
News
Tesla Full Self-Driving gets sparkling review from South Korean politician
“Having already ridden in an unmanned robotaxi, the novelty wasnโt as strong for me, but it drives just as well as most people do. It already feels like a completed technology, which gives me a lot to think about.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving got its first sparkling review from South Korean politician Lee So-young, a member of the country’s National Assembly, earlier this week.
Lee is a member of the Strategy and Finance Committee in South Korea and is a proponent of sustainable technologies and their applications in both residential and commercial settings. For the first time, Lee was able to utilize Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology as it launched in the country in late November.
Her thoughts on the suite were complimentary to the suite, stating that “it drives just as well as most people do,” and that “it already feels like a completed technology.”
๋๋์ด ์ค๋, ์์ธ์์ ํ ์ฌ๋ผ FSD ์ฒดํ ํ์ต๋๋ค.
JiDal Papa๋์ ๋ชจ๋ธS ํ์ฐฌ์ ํ์ ์ด^^ ํํ๋ ์ ๋ง ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค.
๊ตญํ -> ๋ง์์์ฅ -> ํ์ต๋ -> ๊ตญํ ๋ณต๊ท ์ฝ์ค์๊ณ ์.
์ด๋ฏธ ๋ฌด์ธ ๋ก๋ณดํ์๋ฅผ ํ๋ด์ ๊ทธ๋ฐ์ง ์ ๊ธฐํจ์
๋ํ์ง๋ง, ์ฌ๋งํ ์ฌ๋๋งํผ ์ด์ ์ ์ํ๋ค์.์ด๋ฏธ ์์ฑ๋ ๊ธฐ์ ์ด๋ผ๊ณ โฆ pic.twitter.com/8pAidHBpRG
โ ์ด์์ ๊ตญํ์์ (Soyoung Lee) (@im_soyounglee) December 17, 2025
Her translated post says:
“Finally, today I got to experience Tesla FSD in Seoul. Thanks to the Model S sponsored by JiDal Papa^^, Iโm truly grateful to Papa. The route was from the National Assembly -> Mangwon Market -> Hongik University -> back to the National Assembly. Having already ridden in an unmanned robotaxi, the novelty wasnโt as strong for me, but it drives just as well as most people do. It already feels like a completed technology, which gives me a lot to think about. Once it actually spreads into widespread use, I feel like our daily lives are going to change a lot. Even I, with my license gathering dust in a drawer, donโt see much reason to learn to drive a manual anymore.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving officially landed in South Korea in late November, with the initial launch being one of Tesla’s most recent, v14.1.4.
It marked the seventh country in which Tesla was able to enable the driver assistance suite, following the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.
It is important to see politicians and figures in power try new technologies, especially ones that are widely popular in other regions of the world and could potentially revolutionize how people travel globally.
Tesla dominates in the UK with Model Y and Model 3 leading the way
Tesla Insurance officially expands to new U.S. state
