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Florida man charged after trying to hit Tesla protestors with car
Tesla protestors were nearly struck with the man’s car, though authorities say no one was injured.
A man in Florida has been charged with assault after attempting to drive into protestors outside of a Tesla store over the weekend, coming as the latest in ongoing protests and vandalism against CEO Elon Musk.
On Saturday, 44-year-old Andrew Tutil attempted to drive into protestors with his Nissan Pathfinder at the West Palm Beach Tesla store, although no one was injured, according to a report from Palm Beach Daily News. The store had around 150 protestors outside around 1:00 p.m., and Tutil reportedly drove slowly into the crowd before parking on the sidewalk and getting out.
“He drove into a crowd of senior citizens,” said Mark Offerman. “Everybody was able to move out, but two older women were really almost clipped. We immediately called the cops.”
After parking on the sidewalk where protestors had to jump out of the way, Tutil, a retired U.S. Army Captain, civil engineer, and supporter of Donald Trump, claimed that he was an employee of the Tesla store and that his brakes and electronics had malfunctioned, according to Offerman.
Palm Beach County records show that Tutil was later arrested and charged with first-degree felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent after police questioned Tutil and surrounding witnesses and reviewed photos and video footage.
The news comes as a wave of protests, acts of vandalism, and some violent encounters such as this one have been increasingly targeting Tesla stores in recent weeks against Musk and the Trump administration. Additionally, Musk’s work with Trump’s newly created “government efficiency” division has been a central theme in protests at Tesla stores, as federal workers have expressed criticism for the administration’s approach to “eliminating fraud and waste.”
🚨 President Trump on Tesla protests and vandalism:
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 11, 2025
READ MORE ON TESLA PROTESTS: I went to an anti-Musk protest at a Tesla store in Colorado—here’s what I experienced
The widespread protests began in January, after Musk performed what many said looked like a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration ceremony, and after he spoke at a campaign event for the far-right German party Alternative for Germany (AfD). During the rally, Musk said that there was “too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that,” which many claimed was in reference to Nazi Germany.
The so-called “Tesla Takedown” movement launched over the past several weeks is targeting around 500 separate protests across 277 stores around the U.S. The Palm Beach protest on Saturday was just one of a handful in Florida alone, including those in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Merrit Island, and Sarasota, to name a few.
One protestor at a Tesla store in Colorado earlier this month told Teslarati that she was protesting Musk because she was “highly concerned that our Constitution is being ignored,” adding that “it’s dangerous to have power rest in a handful of ultra-wealthy people.”
Others at the event highlighted Musk and Trump’s attacks on queer, trans, and non-binary people, as well as the administration’s recent controversies with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and claims that the President is aligning with Russia President Vladimir Putin, as a few of the major reasons they were protesting at the Loveland Tesla store.
Musk has mostly deflected and made light of claims of his alignment with Nazis, while the public has been polarized on defending or condemning these and other actions.
The Tesla CEO was defended by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he was being “falsely smeared” immediately following the inauguration event. While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also went on to defend the action as an “awkward gesture,” the group has since condemned some of Musk’s more recent posts making light of genocide.
Earlier this month, Musk reposted then deleted a screenshot shared by X user Rothmus claiming that “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people,” but that “their public sector workers did.”
“It is deeply disturbing and irresponsible for someone with a large public platform to elevate the kind of rhetoric that serves to undermine the seriousness of these issues,” the ADL wrote in a response on X.
Credit: Rothmus/Alice Smith (via Elon Musk repost on X)
In addition to what have largely appeared to be peaceful protests at Tesla stores, a number of acts of vandalism, including graffiti, arson, and some even more violent assaults involving weapons, have been targeting the automaker’s locations around the world.
Multiple people were taken into custody following repeated arson and graffiti at a Tesla store in Colorado within the past few weeks, while multiple Tesla vehicles have been set on fire at stores, and one Tesla store has been shot at. Owners of Tesla’s vehicles have also been targeted in public, with some being captured on Sentry Mode keying or tagging the vehicles.
The Trump administration has also started labeling such attacks against Tesla as “domestic terrorism,” and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has started investigating several of the events, including one involving two Cybertrucks that were set on fire in Seattle and another at a store in Oregon that was shot at twice in a few weeks.
Tesla’s Giga Berlin director responds to anti-Musk criticism
Elon Musk
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
Tesla teased an October 1 Roadster reveal, reviving years of delayed SpaceX thruster hover promises.
Tesla teased an October 1 event date for its next generation Roadster, posting an image on X Saturday that shows the car lit up like it is sitting on a launch pad, with the date “10.01” stamped across the bottom and the caption “Go for launch.” A countdown clock on Tesla’s Roadster order page now points to the same date, which falls on a Thursday. The company has not said where the event will happen or whether it will be streamed at the moment. Stay with us @Teslarati for live updates.
Go for launch pic.twitter.com/Khu03eiZ04
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 12, 2026
Tesla has since sent formal invitations to reservation holders confirming the event will take place in Waco, Texas, about 90 minutes north of its Austin headquarters, based on a digital ticket shared on X by Sawyer Merritt. Tesla did not name the exact venue, though Waco sits close to SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket test site, previously reported as the planned location for a Roadster thruster demonstration. The invite sets the reveal for 8:30 p.m. Eastern on October 1, requires RSVPs by midnight on September 16, and limits entry to guests 21 and older. Invitations are non-transferable.
The tease follows nine years of a project defined by unimaginable specs along with slipped dates. Musk first showed the second generation Roadster in November 2017 as a surprise reveal at the end of the Tesla Semi event, promising a 0 to 60 mph time under two seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery, and production starting in 2020. At last November’s shareholder meeting, Musk set an April 1 demo date and joked the choice gave him “deniability” if it slipped again, which it did, moving first to late April, then to “a month or so,” then to August.
Tesla Roadster SpaceX Package’s 1.1-second 0-60 mph launch visualized in concept video
Whatever Tesla shows on October 1 is expected to center on the SpaceX developed thruster package Musk has described since 2018. Internally code named A71, a nod to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the system reportedly uses cold gas thrusters fed by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same tank design SpaceX uses on Falcon 9. Musk has said a thruster equipped Roadster could hit 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds under roughly 2.75 g of launch force, well past the 1.9 second figure quoted for the standard car. That version reportedly will not be street legal and has reportedly been discussed as a limited run sold through a track only program.
The standard Roadster is still expected to carry the original $200,000 base price and $250,000 Founders Series tier, both set when Tesla opened $50,000 and $250,000 reservations in 2017. Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy has confirmed production will happen at Gigafactory Texas, with Musk targeting 2027 or 2028, 12 to 18 months after whatever the company demonstrates next month.
Tesla is planning to roll out some pretty significant safety and accident avoidance features with Full Self-Driving version 15, which will be the next major FSD deployment from the company.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy used a near-miss this week to preview what the company says is the next leap in Full Self-Driving.
In response to a driver whose car had swerved away from another vehicle pulling out of a parking lot, Elluswamy wrote that he was glad the owner was safe and that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” would arrive with FSD v15.
Glad you are safe. Even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance coming as part of the next big upgrade (v15).
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 11, 2026
The comment landed as Tesla continues to treat software as the primary safety upgrade path. v15 is described internally as a larger architectural step, with a much bigger neural network and tighter coupling between prediction and control.
The company has already begun using early v15 software in some robotaxi operations while rolling out safety features such as Automatic Collision Evasion into current customer cars, allowing the driving stack to intervene even when the driver is in manual control.
Tesla is rolling out a new FSD version with a massive safety addition
Tesla’s published telemetry is the backbone of its safety argument. In recent North American Vehicle Safety Report data, vehicles with FSD (Supervised) engaged traveled roughly 5.1 million to 5.7 million miles between major collisions, defined as airbag-deployment events.
Tesla’s estimate of the U.S. average over the same period is about 699,000 miles per comparable crash. That is the comparison Tesla often frames as roughly seven times fewer major collisions.
A tighter comparison uses the same Tesla fleet. Cars driven manually with active safety features such as automatic emergency braking still recorded a major collision about every 2.1 million miles. Against that baseline, FSD’s advantage shrinks to roughly 2.4 to 2.7 times fewer severe crashes, which independent researchers argue is the more apples-to-apples figure.
European data released in 2026 pointed in the same direction: Tesla reported FSD as 3.5 times safer than manual driving in the Netherlands and 4.1 times fewer collisions than manually driven Teslas with active safety across more than 100 million kilometers in five approved countries.
Those numbers do not settle every debate. NHTSA’s Standing General Order still shows Tesla accounting for the large majority of U.S. Level 2 driver-assist crash reports, in part because the fleet logs far more assisted miles than rivals. Critics also note that Tesla’s “U.S. average” mixes crash definitions and driving mix.
Even so, Tesla’s own same-car comparisons, plus lower rates of automatic emergency braking and harsh maneuvers when FSD is engaged, are the evidence Elluswamy is pointing to when he says v15 will push prediction and collision avoidance further. The claim is not that software already eliminates risk. It is that each major version is meant to widen the gap between the system and an unaided human driver.
Cybertruck
Tesla’s most delayed Cybertruck feature is finally here
Tesla finally links Cybertruck Powershare with Powerwall 3 for extended home backup after years overdue.
Tesla’s Cybertruck can now pair with a Powerwall 3 to keep a house running longer during an outage, a feature the company first promised when the truck launched in November 2023.
The official Cybertruck account posted the update on X Thursday: “Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together. This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls,” Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill confirmed the rollout separately, calling it the first time a vehicle and a home battery have worked together this way. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ compatibility is still coming later this year, per both the Cybertruck account and Morrill.
Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together⁰ ⁰This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls pic.twitter.com/8G2twIm6AN
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 10, 2026
Powershare itself is not new. Tesla enabled the version that lets Cybertruck power tools, appliances or another EV through its bed outlets when the truck launched in 2023. Home backup through a Powershare Gateway and Universal Wall Connector arrived in 2024, and Tesla extended that support to homes with solar the following year. What has been missing until now is Powershare working alongside an existing Powerwall, instead of functioning as a separate backup source competing for the same job.
The pairing matters because a single Powerwall home battery typically covers a home for about a day, less if usage is heavy or the outage stretches into a heat wave or freeze. A second Powerwall for more backup storage costs several thousand dollars installed. A Cybertruck instead uses a battery the owner already has, one large enough here to add roughly three more days of backup without mounting another unit or booking an installer visit. For households in wildfire, hurricane or winter storm regions where outages run past a day, that keeps the refrigerator and medical equipment running instead of shutting down.
The company told owners in October 2024 that Powerwall integration was coming sometime in 2025. That date passed, and in December 2025 Tesla pushed the target to mid-2026, with Morrill explaining at the time that two grid-forming devices need to negotiate which one manages a home during an outage, and that certifying the process across multiple generations of Powerwall took longer than expected.
For owners who bought Powershare hardware expecting it to work with whatever battery setup they already had, Thursday’s update closes a gap that has shown up repeatedly in owner complaints since Cybertruck deliveries began. Tesla has also rolled out a separate Powershare grid support program in Texas, letting Cybertrucks send power back to the grid during high demand events, so the truck’s role in a home’s energy setup keeps expanding even as individual pieces of it arrive later than promised.
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
