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German auto industry wary of EV innovations inspired by Tesla
More than 300 high-ranking representatives of the German automotive industry gathered in Berlin recently to hear the President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) express firm views that “the calls to ban combustion engines are becoming louder.”
VDA President Matthias Wissmann explained that the German automotive industry has already invested 14 billion euros in electric mobility, and, with 30 electric models in series production, it is currently one of the world’s leading providers of electric mobility. Electric mobility is an important component for achieving climate targets, reducing emissions of pollutants, and lowering CO2. The VDA expects that the country’s automotive manufacturers will more than triple the number of electric vehicle models to nearly 100 by 2020 as battery costs decline and electric ranges increase toward 500 km. That will edge closer to the distances gasoline and diesel cars can travel on a single tank.
Wissman warned that, if energy policy follows developments, both passenger cars and commercial vehicles would need to adhere to increased regulations and automakers would have to engage in some serious self-examination. “This industry is not start-up company that can constantly procure fresh funding despite persistent losses,” he said in a remark likely directed at Tesla. “Today we can imagine that in 2025, 15 to 25 percent of new passenger car registrations worldwide could be electric vehicles. The trend is accelerating – just a short while ago experts thought a share of only 3 percent was more likely. Every fourth or fifth new car sold will then have an electric drive.” Tesla, it must be noted, paid back its Department of Energy loan nine years early.
The German car industry is investing 40 billion euros in alternative drivetrains. This amount includes research and development expenditures as well as assets such as equipment and tools for production. Late last month BMW, Daimler, and the Volkswagen Group were among European automakers that signed a declaration of intent to start next year with the construction of a quick charging network for electric cars based on the CCS standard. Of course, Tesla has also joined the CharIN group, which created and promotes the CCS charging standard commonly found on the SAE-Combo plug.
The German automotive industry has recently intensified research and development activities in the fields of digitization and connected driving. Instead of having “to worry about the new competition,” Wissman said the German automotive industry aims to be right at the forefront of developments. These were more lightly-veiled references to Tesla Motors, Inc., with its Model S now performing as the best selling luxury car in Western Europe, accelerating past traditional high-status and internal combustion engine powered favorites like the Mercedes S class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, and Porsche Panamera. Wissman also affirmed that European automakers could not switch immediately to electric vehicles and eliminate combustion engines from their catalogs, as they employ hundreds of thousands of workers around the world – many of which build diesel and gasoline engines.
To accelerate the evolution toward innovative automotive methods, Wissman described how the German automotive industry is now working intensively on new mobility concepts that generate totally new business models. “This trend arises from a rapidly changing expectation on the part of customers, who no longer demand just a product, but instead a mobility service,” Wissmann said. “In addition, completely new players are appearing on the market, such as large IT corporations. We take this challenge seriously, and are also tackling it.”
The VDA recognizes that increased efficiency, recycling, and a reduction in emissions benefit both companies and consumers as is preserving natural resources is an integral part of national and European regulation. They note on their website that, according to figures published in the national Inventory Report of the German Environmental Agency, CO₂ emissions produced by road traffic in Germany from 1999 to 2012 dropped by about 30 million metric tons. “In the last ten years the average fuel consumption by newly registered passenger cars in the EU has been brought down by over one quarter, and CO2 emissions have fallen in parallel,” Wissman noted. “The potential has not yet been exhausted. We expect that in the next few years we can increase the efficiency of gasoline and diesel vehicles by at least another 10 to 15 percent.”
Since 2006, German road traffic CO₂ emissions have been below 1990 levels for the seventh successive year and are around 5 million metric tons less than the 1990 figure. No other Western European country has so far succeeded on a sustained basis in reducing road traffic CO₂ emissions below the level of 1990, according to the VDA. German automakers’ shifts to more fuel-efficient and carbon-reducing vehicles, however, can only help reduce these levels further.
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 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 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.
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