News
Answering Elon Musk’s call for help to build Thailand’s cave rescue pod in 24 hours
On the morning of Friday, July 6, Andrew Branagh received a call that would put his company’s 30-year experience in the field to the test. Branagh, who serves as the CEO of Arcata-based Wing Inflatables, had been asked by Elon Musk’s engineering team from SpaceX to construct an inflatable escape pod for the 12 children and their coach who are currently stranded in an air pocket inside the sprawling Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex in Thailand. Knowing that time is of the essence, Branagh and his team got to work.
The stranded members of the Wild Boar Soccer Team have been stranded in the caves since June 23, after a casual excursion into the underground caverns turned into a pitch-black ordeal due to flash floods. The group of 13, comprised of boys aged 11-16 and their 25-year-old coach, were missing until this past Monday, when they were located by two UK divers. The children and their coach have been given food and survival supplies, and on Tuesday, a doctor and a nurse spent the night with them. While the group is safe for now, however, retrieving them is not easy, considering that they are located 2.5 miles away from the entrance to the caves. Parts of the cave systems are also underwater, which would force the children to dive into murky waters during their retrieval.
- Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
- Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
- Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
- Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
- Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
Wing Inflatables’ rescue pods under construction. [Credit: Giovanna Castro Salas/Wing Inflatables via Mad River Union]
In a tweet on Friday, Elon Musk posted a brief update on Twitter stating that SpaceX and Boring Co. engineers are headed to Thailand in order to see if they can be helpful to the government’s rescue efforts. That was the same day that Branagh woke up to a text and call from the SpaceX team. Branagh notes that the message was brief, but the request was clear.
“Elon has an idea, or our team does.”
Musk’s initial idea to rescue the trapped children is to use an inflatable tube. Considering Wing’s experience in the field, Branagh and his team went to work refining the idea. The result was a submersible “torpedo,” which could hold a person with an air tank and a breathing apparatus. The torpedo is designed to be towed by its front and back, and be sleek enough to be guided through the cave system’s trickiest sections. Branagh opted to utilize 30% of his company’s workforce for the fast-track effort, reducing his business’ usual output by half. The CEO’s gambit worked, and by 9:30 a.m. on Friday, a prototype was ready. Branagh noted that the first rescue pod, which is 7-feet-long, sealed with velcro, and inflatable with the passenger’s exhaled air, was a finished product. There were no throw-away units or re-dos. There was just not enough time.
By 1:00 p.m., Wing’s rescue pod was tested on the Arcata Community Pool, with a certified dive instructor and two individuals who do not know how to swim. The tests were encouraging, with both test individuals being able to breathe comfortably inside the rescue pod. Branagh had also been speaking with Musk and his engineering staff in a conference call.
“He (Elon) was very direct and clear on supporting getting a solution in place,” Branagh said.
By 5:15 p.m., the first set of Wing Inflatables rescue pods were ready to be transported from Arcata-Eureka airport in Northern CA.
Apart from the inflatable pods that the engineers from SpaceX and The Boring Company transported to Thailand on Friday, Musk and his team at LA are also designing a mini-submarine for the children. In a series of tweets over the weekend, Musk stated that the mini-sub would be small enough to fit through the contours of the cave and its hull will be made of the same material as the oxygen transfer tube of a Falcon rocket, making it extremely durable. The mini-sub would have four handles and hitch points for the front and rear, with two air tanks on both front and rear, allowing up to four tanks to be connected.
Given Chiang Rai airport hours, soonest we could’ve departed US was an hour ago, but cave now closed for diver rescue. Will continue testing in LA in case needed later or for somewhere else in future.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2018
Rescue efforts for the stranded children are already underway as of Sunday. For this rescue attempt, the children would have to dive using scuba gear into the waters with two experienced divers. Divers who will be conducting the retrieval of the soccer team are expected to spend 11 hours inside the caves, six hours heading to the children, and five hours going out. It remains unknown for now if the rescuers will be utilizing the rescue pods delivered by the SpaceX and Boring Co. team. Musk’s mini-sub continues testing in LA, just in case it’s needed for the cave rescue efforts.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
News
Tesla expands massive safety feature worldwide in latest update
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
News
Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing
Tesla confirmed this morning that it has sent the first production units, manufactured with no steering wheel or pedals, to on-road testing in Austin, sharing video of the first rides with no human controls.
The lack of steering wheels and pedals in the Cybercab aligns with Tesla’s self-certification of Robotaxi as Level 4 SAE, a platform it plans to make widespread through internal vehicles and customer-owned cars that will operate and generate revenue for individuals.
The start of these engineering tests is a major signal for Tesla, which plans to bring driverless, wheel-less, and pedal-less Cybercabs to market in the coming months. With production already well underway at Gigafactory Texas, where the Cybercab is built, there is some inclination to believe the first public rides could happen sooner rather than later.
Engineering tests of the first production Cybercab have begun in Austin pic.twitter.com/fk3KQvcE8a
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 30, 2026
Tesla’s engineering tests will put the Cybercab in real-world scenarios, testing not only the hardware, but more importantly, the software that drives the car around Austin with nobody supervising it within the car.
This is perhaps the biggest part of the internal testing process, especially prior to allowing regular, everyday people to hail the Cybercab for an autonomous ride. These early rides serve as a true benchmark for Tesla: How many rides can it achieve safely? How many miles did it travel consecutively without needing an intervention? What scenarios challenge the Full Self-Driving suite the most?
The proper precautions have already been put into place as well, as Tesla released the First Responders Guide to Cybercab over the weekend, ensuring that emergency services have 24/7 access to Robotaxi Assistance, as well as other boundaries, such as Geofencing features that can be used to redirect autonomous vehicle traffic due to accidents, road closures, construction, or maintenance.
Cybercab seems genuinely close to being added to the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, but Tesla has prioritized safety throughout this entire process. Therefore, we think it could be months before it truly starts giving rides to the public. People have been frustrated with this, but Robotaxi in Austin has a tremendous safety record so far, so the slow rollout has kept people safe and accidents to a minimum.
The most important thing is that Tesla continues to show consistent progress in the Cybercab’s ramp-up toward fleet addition. A few weeks back, we saw the EPA reward the Cybercab a Certificate of Conformity, allowing it to enter the stream of commerce. Then, we saw Tesla add decals, signaling that it was likely about to start testing it publicly. That has now happened.
The next big move will be the announcement of the first rides, so this Summer should be filled with anticipation.





