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Hitch’s autonomous Farming Robot is the answer to the declining agricultural industry

Hitch's Farming Robot harvesting grapes while working on a vineyard.

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The farming industry was critical in the success and growth of our nation and today is still a keystone part of the American economy. Since the founding of the United States in 1776, farming has been considered a dominant force in providing American citizens with employment and food. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost half of the American population was employed in agriculture. However, this number has sharply declined.

The Agricultural industry employed less than 1% of the American workforce in 2018. With the U.S. population steadily increasing, the agriculture sector is in need of more laborers and workers to keep up with the demand for food and harvesting of other necessities.

One of the most booming sub-industries in the agricultural field is cannabis and hemp. Cannabis-based products have become a hot commodity because of their wide array of uses. Everything from industrial-strength hemp rope to Cannabidiol (CBD) products have taken over as some of the most popular items to buy.

CBD has boomed since its initial introduction into the medical industry in 2018 after its legalization due to the passing of the U.S. Farm Bill that allowed the product to be used medically and recreationally. CBD products are used by the world’s biggest athletes, and also by regular citizens who suffer from common medical issues like anxiety and depression. Forbes suggests that the CBD industry could be worth $20 billion by 2024.

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Hitch’s Farming Robot harvesting grapes while working on a vineyard.

California-based Hitch Robotics is one of the companies aiming to assist the industry with its lack of workers. The company has developed a fully-autonomous and solar-powered farming robot that is geared toward assisting in the harvesting of large fields of cannabis. With the development of autonomous machines like Hitch’s farming robot that can work around the clock without human interference, the workforce may not need to grow.

Hitch notes that the continuing decline in the agricultural workforce has cost the U.S. economy $3.1 billion annually in the production of crops. With Hitch, farms can see a 30% increase in labor productivity, which could save California, the state with the biggest Ag industry, around $1.7 billion.

Hitch’s fully-autonomous product will assist in the harvesting of crops and plants through a fully-computerized method of navigation. The robot will use Artificial Intelligence, High Precision GPS systems, various cameras and sensors to navigate through any crop field it is meant to be utilized for.

The robot also has three different “hitches” to assist with different tasks: The Transport Hitch, the Harvest Hitch, and the Command Hitch. The Transport Hitch can be used for transporting crops and plants to other locations. The Harvest Hitch is pulled by a series of autonomous vehicles and will accurately identify and then pick and pack ripe produce or crops, place them in a bin and transport them to the appropriate location. The Command Hitch allows a series of autonomous vehicles to be operated through a solar-powered trailer with automated battery swaps.

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The versatility of the Hitch Farming Robot could revolutionize the modern agricultural industry as we know it. The company has raised $386,600 of its $2,000,000 goal for the current investment round and is backed by a global early-stage venture fund, focused on Deep Tech and enterprise solutions. Hitch has requested the help of Teslarati to secure the rest of the needed funding to continue the development of its product.

Hitch has already garnered the attention of many farms, and two have submitted pre-orders, one is a publicly-traded cannabis company, Grown Rogue, and another is 130-year old specialty farm, HMC Farms. Combined, they have pre-ordered 500 bots totaling $26.8 million in revenue for Hitch.

For as little as $1,000 today, you can become a shareholder revolutionizing and invigorating the agricultural industry.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Lifestyle

Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense

Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.

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A recent Tesla app update, released last week  (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.

The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.

The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.

Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy

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As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.

As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.

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The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville

The Boring Company’s Prufrock MB2 is commissioned and ready to mine beneath Nashville’s streets.

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The Boring Company’s second tunnel boring machine, Prufrock MB2, is officially ready to dig in Nashville. The company confirmed the news on X, posting: “Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here. Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start? And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August!”

MB2 arrives with meaningful improvements over its predecessor. Lessons learned from the launch and operation of MB1 have already been applied to MB2 to improve efficiency and prepare the machine for launch.

Traditional tunnel boring machines operate in a stop-and-go cycle, digging roughly five feet, halt, erect precast concrete segments to line the tunnel wall, then resume. That repeated interruption is one of the main reasons conventional tunneling is slow and expensive. Prufrock is designed to install the tunnel liner simultaneously with mining, eliminating the need to stop every five feet. The machine also skips the need for excavated launch pits. Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and launches into the ground within 24 hours. And when the tunnel is complete, it emerges from the ground and drives to its next launch site on a trailer, eliminating the need for expensive cranes or pit excavation. The machine is also fully electric and runs with zero people in the tunnel during normal operations, controlled remotely from a surface operations center.

It won’t be long before we hear of another major update on The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project – a planned underground transit network beneath Nashville that would move passengers in electric vehicles through a series of tunnels at highway speeds, and bypassing surface traffic entirely. Nashville was selected in part because of its strong rock conditions that suits the Prufrock machines well, and relatively less regulatory hurdles.

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Progress has been steady on multiple fronts. All 37 permits and approvals required ahead of tunneling have been obtained, out of 45 total. Key wins include a fully executed TDOT tunnel permit authorizing 25 miles of tunnel, unanimous airport authority approval for a Nashville International Airport station, and the city’s first residential station agreement serving downtown tower residents.

With MB1 already tunneling, MB2 now commissioned, and MB3 shipping in August, Nashville is becoming something of a live proving ground for scaled tunnel boring. The broader ambition is not limited to one city. The Boring Company’s stated goal is to make underground transportation a practical alternative to surface roads across major metro areas. Nashville is one of many cities, including a successful Las Vegas tunnel system, where that idea is being put to the test at real speed.

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Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”

Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.

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Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.

While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure

The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.

Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

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Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.

Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.

As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.

Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.

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