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Elon Musk says Autopilot can have ‘significant improvements’ via software update
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that current Autopilot can see ‘significant improvements’ via an over-the-air software update. The announcement was made on Sunday after Musk took to Twitter to reveal that he had earlier talks with Bosch, maker of the radar equipment used on the Model S and Model X. Aside from feeling hopeful that the existing Autopilot system can be improved without hardware upgrades, Musk also thanked driver-assistance technology company MobilEye “for their help and support in making Autopilot better.”
Btw, want to thank both Bosch and MobilEye for their help and support in making Autopilot better. Please direct all criticism at Tesla.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2016
When questioned about whether radar would be capable of detecting people – previous tests pitting a moving Tesla vs. a live human suggested that current versions of Autopilot were not great at detecting humans – Musk defended the company’s use of radar stating that radar can in fact detect humans at moderate range, however Tesla’s Autopilot suite also uses ultrasonic sensors which are “very good at human detection”.
It can at moderate range, but our ultrasonics are very good at human (or anything >= water density) detection
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2016
Musk did not provide any details on when the next update of Autopilot would arrive, but did say that Tesla Version 8.0 would be the company’s largest software release since the first rollout of Autopilot 1.0.
V8 will be our biggest release since v1, so taking longer to refine. Awesome on every level. Meeting w design team every day.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2016
Musk also took the opportunity to defend his position on Autopilot after Consumer Reports criticized Tesla for releasing the auto-steering feature within the Autopilot suite. CR along with mass media have continued to put pressure on the Silicon Valley automaker and energy company to reconsider the use of beta software after Joshua Brown was killed when his Model S driving on Autopilot collided with a tractor trailer.
Musk posted a link to the a great write up by a Tesla owner on TMC who shared his thoughts on Autopilot. He also tweeted praise on an article in The Guardian entitled “The First Self-Driving Car Fatality Proves Nothing.”, by John Naughton. The author quite correctly points out, “In the US, about 33,000 people are killed in automobile accidents every year. That’s 90 a day on average. So on 7 May, about 89 other people as well as Joshua Brown were killed in car crashes. But we heard nothing about those 89 personal and family tragedies: the only death that most people in the US heard about was Mr Brown’s.”
Tesla customers are v smart & don't want media speaking on their behalf abt Autopilot. Recent poll: 0.0% want it disabled — not 0.1%, 0.0%.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2016
Media and even the US Senate want to get in on the Tesla bashing fun. The New York Times claims “the race by automakers and technology firms to develop self-driving cars has been fueled by the belief that computers can operate a vehicle more safely than human drivers. But that view is now in question after the revelation on Thursday that the driver of a Tesla Model S electric sedan was killed in an accident when the car was in self-driving mode.”
Really, asks Naughton? He refers to a recent report by the Rand Corporation that says, “[F]ully autonomous vehicles would have to be driven hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles to demonstrate their safety in terms of fatalities and injuries. Under even aggressive testing assumptions, existing fleets would take tens and sometimes hundreds of years to drive these miles — an impossible proposition if the aim is to demonstrate performance prior to releasing them for consumer use.
“Our findings demonstrate that developers of this technology and third-party testers cannot simply drive their way to safety. Instead, they will need to develop innovative methods of demonstrating safety and reliability. And yet, it may still not be possible to establish with certainty the safety of autonomous vehicles.
“Therefore, it is imperative that autonomous vehicle regulations are adaptive — designed from the outset to evolve with the technology so that society can better harness the benefits and manage the risks of these rapidly evolving and potentially transformative technologies.”
The hope here is that concerns about Autopilot do not turn into a media driven maelstrom. If Musk’s tweets are any indication, Tesla is laser-focused on bringing about its next generation Autopilot 2.0.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.