Lifestyle
Giving Thanks to the Tesla Village
They say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to raise a young car company. A village to handle advertising for the company, so that it doesn’t have to spend big bucks on traditional advertising. A village to help potential owners understand that they too can be free of gas – a novel concept that requires a little faith to fully embrace.
And it was that village that led to my husband and I taking the plunge on a car with a price tag of nearly triple that of the vehicle it replaced. That village that has contributed to our ownership experience wildly exceeding our very high expectations.
First, there came a test drive. After having seen the car in person in November of 2012 at an event, I left scratching my head, interest definitely piqued. Fast forward to Spring 2014, and I convinced the old ball and chain we needed to drive it. There was a lot of soul searching and numbers crunching in the months to follow and we landed in a magical place where hopes, dreams and fears are shared. That is, the forums section of the Tesla Motors website. There, owners and enthusiasts answer newbie questions and share stories. In August, a fine man organized a coffee meet up in the Philadelphia suburbs. One veteran owner and Supercharger pro joined us from a road trip that had taken him to Atlantic City, which was already 2,000 miles away from his home. We chatted about charging and batteries and road trips. Most of all, we chatted about how this was “the best” car any of them had ever driven. Needless to say, meeting real life owners was the exact push we needed. Our order was placed the following morning. To those gentlemen, I say thank you.
Then came the waiting. In October, Elon showed us the D. Between that and the time of the quarter we made our order, our wait was longer than usual for a domestic delivery. 108 days actually. Visiting the Tesla forum became a daily ritual for me. I even attended one more meet up, this time as an actual reservation holder. I also commiserated with others who saw their delivery projection slip from November to December, as Tesla shifted production to accommodate a new motor configuration. Aside from filling my time, I got to learn everything about the car. The mythical “range anxiety” concept proved to be a phenomenon often reserved for potential owners and detractors, not so much once you actually have the car and understand how to plan. To every forum contributor, I say thank you.
Next came the disappointment. The Tesla supercharger map advertised the charger we needed the most as being completed within 2014. Allentown, PA – midway between our Philadelphia home and the driveway/garage-less home of my in-laws – was lit up with a little red dot. Weeks turned to months and 2014 came and went. Finally in the summer of 2015, it was confirmed: the location fell through and the scouting process had to start all over. Every trip we take there requires us to borrow someone’s car to drop our Tesla off at a L2 charger 10 miles away. The Supercharger team has been working extremely hard and scouted a location that will actually work even better for folks traveling North and South along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They even hit a snag with township zoning board approval that cost the process an entire month, which I know was as frustrating to them as it was to owners counting on that location. To Max and Jesse (who I bugged about this) and the whole Tesla Supercharger team responsible for a whopping 556 supercharging locations to date, I say thank you.
Then came the kindness of a stranger. This summer, my husband and I were headed to Jersey Shore to celebrate with some friends. Two of those friends were coming from Texas with their 1-year old and it was our Model S that would take the 5 of us from Philly to the shore. There are no Superchargers along the way and were no L2 chargers in any convenient location. After making mention of this on the forums, a fellow owner reached out with a solution. That solution was his own home just a short walk from the hotel we were staying in. (Which oddly had no outlets anywhere near the parking spaces.) We touched base a bit about when we would come and his level of accommodation was extraordinary. He moved his own Model S to the street and left his charge cable outside. We parked, took enough juice to get us home with a comfortable buffer, and were on our way without ever having met this kind owner in person. To him, I say thank you.
Last month came Autopilot. It has proven to be the source of countless hours of fun, the inspiration to start making videos, and yet another layer of safety to keep Model S occupants as far away from potential injury as possible. To the engineers and programmers, testers, visionaries and everyone else at Tesla responsible for making this system a reality, I say thank you.
Most recently came protection over profits. After a single vehicle in Europe experienced a detached seat belt situation resulting in no injury, Tesla decided to recall 90,000 vehicles to check them. Last I heard, no other defects had been found. In addition to checking cars at service centers everywhere, Tesla has even taken to sending testers to Superchargers to reach more vehicles and provide no disruption to owners. To the members of the Tesla leadership team that acted swiftly, the number-crunchers that allowed caution over costs, and every employee pulling hard on a belt, I say thank you.
Finally, a great big thank you to the readers. I am now fully entrenched in this wonderful community of Tesla owners and enthusiasts and can only hope that I contribute to someone else’s decision to jump into the future and experience the Tesla life for themselves.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company clears final Nashville hurdle: Music City loop is full speed ahead
The Boring Company has cleared its final Nashville hurdles, putting the Music City Loop on track for 2026.
The Boring Company has cleared one of its most significant regulatory milestones yet, securing a key easement from the Music City Center in Nashville just days ago, the latest in a series of approvals that have pushed the Music City Loop project firmly into construction reality.
On March 24, 2026, the Convention Center Authority voted to grant The Boring Company access to an easement along the west side of the Music City Center property, allowing tunneling beneath the privately owned venue. The move follows a unanimous 7-0 vote by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority on February 18, and a joint state and federal approval from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on February 25. Together, these green lights have cleared the path for a roughly 10-mile underground tunnel connecting downtown Nashville to Nashville International Airport, with potential extensions into midtown along West End Avenue.
Music City Loop could highlight The Boring Company’s real disruption
Nashville was selected by The Boring Company largely because of its rapid population growth and the strain that growth has placed on surface infrastructure. Traffic has become a persistent problem for residents, convention visitors, and airport travelers alike. The Music City Loop promises an approximately 8-minute underground transit time between downtown and the Nashville International Airport (BNA), removing thousands of vehicles from surface roads daily while operating as a fully electric, zero-emissions system at no cost to taxpayers.
The project fits squarely within a broader vision Musk has championed for years. In responding to a breakdown of the Loop’s construction costs, Musk posted on X: “Tunnels are so underrated.” The comment reflected a longstanding belief that underground transit represents one of the most cost-effective and scalable infrastructure solutions available. The Boring Company has claimed it can build 13 miles of twin tunnels in Nashville for between $240 million and $300 million total, a fraction of what comparable projects cost elsewhere in the country.
Image Credit: The Boring Company/Twitter
The Las Vegas Loop, The Boring Company’s first operational system, has served as a proof of concept. During the CONEXPO trade show in March 2026, the Vegas Loop transported approximately 82,000 passengers over five days at the Las Vegas Convention Center, demonstrating the system’s capacity during large-scale events. Nashville draws millions of convention visitors and tourists each year, and local business leaders have pointed to that same capacity as a major draw for supporting the project.
The Music City Loop was first announced in July 2025. Construction began within hours of the February 25 state approval, with The Boring Company’s Prufrock tunneling machine already in the ground the same evening. The first operational segment is targeted for late 2026, with the full route expected to be complete by 2029. The project represents one of the largest privately funded infrastructure efforts currently underway in the United States.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s $10 Trillion robot: Inside Tesla’s push to mass produce Optimus
Tesla’s surging Optimus job listings reveal a company sprinting from prototype to one million robot production.
Tesla is accelerating its push to bring the Optimus humanoid robot to high volume production, and its recent job listings tells the story as clearly as any earnings call.
With well over 100 Optimus related job openings now posted across its U.S. facilities, Tesla is signaling a critical pivot for the program, moving it from a captivating tech demo to a serious manufacturing endeavor. Roles span the full spectrum of the product lifecycle, from Robotics Software Engineers and Manufacturing Engineers to Mechanical Integration Engineers and AI Engineers focused on world modeling and video generation. One active listing for a Software Engineer on the Optimus team asks candidates to build scalable and reliable data pipelines for Optimus manufacturing lines and develop automation tools that accelerate analysis and visualization for mass manufacturing.
Tesla is racing toward a one million unit annual production target. The clearest signal yet that Tesla is treating Optimus as its primary business came on January 28, 2026, during the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call. Musk announced that Tesla is ending production of the Model S and Model X, and will repurpose those lines at its Fremont, California factory to build Optimus humanoid robots.
A production intent prototype of Optimus Version 3 is planned to be ready in early 2026, after which Tesla intends to build a one million unit production line with a targeted production start by the end of 2026. To support that ramp, Tesla broke ground on a massive new Optimus manufacturing facility at Gigafactory Texas in late 2025, with ambitions to eventually reach 10 million units per year.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The business case for scaling this aggressively is rooted in labor economics. Musk has stated that “Optimus has the potential to be the biggest product of all time,” reasoning that if Tesla can produce capable humanoid robots at scale and reasonable cost, every task currently performed by human labor becomes a potential application. In a separate statement, Musk framed Optimus’s long term importance even more bluntly, saying it could surpass Tesla’s vehicle business in scale with the potential to generate $10 trillion in revenue.
The industries Tesla is targeting first are those most burdened by repetitive physical labor. Early applications include manufacturing assembly, material handling and quality inspection, as well as logistics tasks like loading, unloading, sorting, and transporting goods in warehouses and distribution centers. Longer term, Tesla’s vision is for Optimus to penetrate household, medical, and logistics scenarios at the scale of a smartphone rollout.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Tunnel Vision Challenge ends with a surprise for Louisiana, Maryland and Dallas
The Boring Company stunned three cities today, awarding New Orleans, Baltimore, and Dallas free underground Loop tunnels.
Elon Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC) announced today that it is building free underground Loop tunnels in three American cities: New Orleans, Louisiana; Baltimore, Maryland; and Dallas, Texas. The company had promised one winner when it launched the Tunnel Vision Challenge in January. After receiving 487 submissions, it selected three, committing to fund and construct all of them pending a feasibility review, entirely at its own expense. For a company that has faced years of skepticism over the gap between its promises and its delivered projects, choosing to expand its commitment rather than narrow it is a notable shift in both scale and accountability.
All three projects will now enter a rigorous, fully funded diligence phase that includes meetings with elected officials, regulators, community and business leaders, geotechnical borings, and a complete investigation of subsurface utilities and infrastructure. TBC confirmed that all costs associated with this diligence process are 100% funded by the company. If all three projects pass feasibility, all three get built. If only one clears the bar, that one gets built. The company’s willingness to fund the due diligence regardless of outcome removes one of the most common early-stage barriers that kills promising infrastructure proposals before they leave a spreadsheet.
Beyond the three winners, TBC announced it will continue working with two additional entrants it found compelling enough to pursue independently: the Hendersonville Utility Tunnel in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and the Morgan’s Wonderland Tunnel in San Antonio, Texas, which would notably serve one of the nation’s premier theme parks built specifically for guests with special needs.
The challenge also coincides with TBC’s most active construction period to date. The company recently began drilling on the Music City Loop near the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, and in February it broke ground on a Loop in Dubai. Musk has long argued that the fundamental problem with urban infrastructure is cost and bureaucratic inertia, not engineering. “The key to solving traffic is making going 3D either up or down,” he said in 2018, a conviction now reflected in a company structure built to absorb the financial risk that typically stalls public projects for years.
Music City Loop could highlight The Boring Company’s real disruption
The Tunnel Vision Challenge’s most underappreciated element may be what it produced beyond three winners. Submissions came from individuals, companies, and governments across states including Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, and Texas, as well as from international entrants. Musk captured the underlying logic years ago when he said, “Traffic is driving me nuts. I’m going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.” Today, three American cities are counting on exactly that.
Tunnel Vision Challenge results!
We’ve been overwhelmed with the amazing submissions…so we are announcing three winners!
The Thrilling Three are:
– NOLA Loop (New Orleans, LA)
– Ravens Loop (Baltimore, MD)
– University Hills Loop (Dallas, TX)What happens next? TBC and the… https://t.co/cY2ULftfiK
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) March 24, 2026
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