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iRobot is going outdoors with an autonomous Roomba lawn mower with smart mapping tech
Mowing the lawn can quickly get in the way of summer fun, just like vacuuming and mopping interfere with just about anything else you might rather be doing. Never fear, iRobot, the company that brought you the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and Braava electronic mop, has been listening. Yesterday, the robotic chore solution company announced its launch of Terra, an intelligent lawn mower ready to do your outdoor bidding. According to iRobot’s press release, it will be on sale in Germany and the US, the latter being through a beta program only; however, no exact release date has been provided.
To accomplish its yard travels, iRobot’s Imprint Smart Mapping technology, which is arguably one of the features that made Roomba so popular, has been incorporated into Terra’s functionality. The new grass buster also has some other convenience features in common with its indoor cousins: It recharges on its own by returning to a docking base and can be controlled via an app on either a smartphone or digital assistant. For its more unique features, Terra’s designers relied on the current masters of lawn care for inspiration: humans.
Rather than follow any sort of random get-it-done movement path a Roomba might follow to clean a floor, Terra has a preprogrammed pattern modeled after the straight, back-and-forth lines typically used for mowing. If the battery is running low, the robot returns to its base to recharge, picking up where it left off until its task is complete. The grass cut length is also programmable for heights of about 1″ to about 2.5″, but it should be noted that Terra’s function focus being on maintenance over heavy cut jobs.
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- The new iRobot Terra robotic lawn mower. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
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- The new iRobot Terra robotic lawn mower during install. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
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- Beacons used when installing iRobot’s Terra robot lawn mower. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
The weather isn’t lost on this outdoor helper, either. Terra has been designed with rugged features so that rainy conditions – and by extension, tough terrain – will not prevent it from doing its job. As for grass clippings? There aren’t any or at least any that need to be hauled off to the trash like classic lawn mowers. Sliced blades of grass are refined into tiny mulch bits that double as fertilizer.
Of course, iRobot isn’t the first company to venture into automated lawn maintenance solutions. Swedish manufacturer Husqvarna’s Automower robotically maintains lawns using frequent trips around a programmed area, naturally fertilizes soil with miniscule clippings, mows any time of day and in inclement weather, resists theft with a built-in alarm, and is controlled via app using smartphone or digital assistant. It uses an installed boundary line for yard area detection, however, making set-up more complicated than regular operation. German outdoor product manufacturer GARDENA and Wisconsin-based McCullough Motors have their own lawn robots as well – the SILENO and ROB R1000, respectively, with similar features as well as a required boundary line.
After a survey of the lawn robot market, iRobot took aim to eliminate costly and labor-intensive ground wiring which is required to operate other auto mowers. For Terra, the company developed a wireless communications system incorporating standalone beacons, enabling users to simply program their lawn’s boundary line after placing the beacons around their yard. The intelligent detection software developed by iRobot for its other robotic household helpers combined with a simpler installation process may just give the company an edge over its established competitors in the lawn bot arena.
Read iRobot’s full Terra Press Release.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
