News
Pencils down on Tesla Model 3: here’s what I hope to see
From what tidbits Tesla has shared, it’s already “pencils down” on the Model 3 design. We’ve seen the prototype, we’ve poured over spy spots and video stills. We’ve even accidentally drooled on our copy of a Franz print. (Oh, that was just me?) In fact, there are quite a few things we already know.
But because this is the age of instant information and chronic impatience – and because I have an enormous amount of faith in Tesla – I’ll pass the time by sharing 10 things I hope to see on the smaller and much more affordable Model 3 that if true, would arguably make owning it an even better experience than the Model S.
Efficiency
The Model 3 will require a smaller battery to go 200 miles on a single charge than a Model S would require. What this should also mean is that on a miles per kWh basis, it’s cheaper to drive than the Model S. I’ve already figured out using very rough and imperfect math that it costs me $.06/mile to drive the Model S given our just slightly above average electricity rates. That is about 1/3 the cost to run my ICE. It’s a bit closer now as gasoline prices have dropped, but the Model S still wins by plenty. If the Model 3 does what I think it will, it should cost even less.
Wheelbase
Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never owned a 4-door car before the Model S but I really crave a slightly shorter wheelbase in a car. The Model S is a phenom in acceleration at any trim level. The Model 3, especially in a dual motor Performance version, will be no different. Pair this with the agility that comes with having a lighter, shorter car and perennial favorite “car guy” cars like the BMW 335 or Mustang GT will be made to look a fool.
Steering Feel
This right here. Of all the goofy things a person can insist upon when picking out a car, a tightly tuned steering situation is inordinately high on my list. In fact, I almost ended up in a Camaro or Mustang in late 2012. My machismo really wanted to like them. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t actually see over the hood scoop in certain models, I loathed feeling like I was steering a minivan and thus opted for neither. Well, what I assume a minivan feels like. I’ve never actually had the pleasure (?) of driving one. It should go without saying that Tesla will offer driver selectable steering on the Model 3 like it does on the Model S. This pairs nicely with my wheel base argument.
Kicking the Clutter
I’m anti a lot of stuff: Anti “big oil,” anti the color olive green, anti waiting in line at a chain restaurant when you live in a major city with approximately 17,045 better places to eat. One of the other things I’m against is something that our Model S has not only indulged me on but has made me more so. I’m of course talking about car clutter: unnecessary buttons, knobs, cupholders, nooks, crannies and dust magnets. I do expect a center console of some sort, as well as some semblance of perceived normalcy regarding cupholders but I trust Tesla will maintain their trademark lack of crap.
Ease of manufacturing was a major cornerstone of designing the Model 3. It needs to be given Tesla’s ambitious plans to ramp up production. Cupholders aside, I expect the Model 3 to have an even cleaner cabin. There may be a HUD, may be a simpler instrument cluster (if one at all) and there may even be super minimalistic HVAC vents. As if driving a Tesla isn’t calming and soothing enough, the modern, clean and clutter free interior I’m expecting will probably transport me to an even happier place than a Model S can. The Model S design, while utterly amazing and thus far ageless, was still made to look like a car. The original front end, for example, gently lulled first time EV owners away from the look and feel of a gasoline powered car. Model 3 will have to do no such thing in order to sell.
More Power
Tim the tool man Taylor would be proud that anyone who may own a non-performance Model S or X and chooses to add a performance Model 3 to their garage, may have a hard time going backwards. I don’t imagine it will be quite as stark a contrast as when a Model S owner jumps into a rental ICE, but it’ll surely be plenty to make you want pickup your 3 fob when given the choice.
Next-gen Autopilot
A series of recent Elon tweets speaks to at least a moderate upgrade being possible for Autopilot on today’s equipped cars via software update. Because Tesla is Tesla, I also expect that some hardware refinements will be present by the time the Model 3 rolls off the line. Also because Tesla is Tesla, if the Model 3’s Autopilot isn’t better than a an early AP Model S at the moment you get the Model 3, it probably will be eventually. If my hopes and dreams estimations are correct, I should have a Model 3 around my the third birthday of my Model S. (December 2017.) It speaks to reason that once my youngest Tesla grows up just a bit, he may even exceed the skills of his older sister.
Fit and Finish
Disclaimer: I have never owned a luxury car. The Model S replaced a Jeep Wrangler and to me, it’s perfect. It’s gorgeous, flawless even, elegant and comfortable. The leather, despite not being my choice, is soft and the cabin seems well put together. There are no rage-inducing rattles, nothing has faded or worn or cracked. The car is a real gem, at least in the eyes of someone with my car history. I fully expect the Model 3 will be manufactured with a fit and finish quality on par with an automaker far more experienced than Tesla. Even if it’s not, the many owners who have never had a luxury car before will probably, like me, assume it’s perfect!
Comfort
See: fit and finish above. 30,000 miles later and I still have no idea why people say the seats in the Model S aren’t comfortable. I don’t pretend to be old or tall or especially large so maybe that’s it. All I do know is that the people have spoken and Tesla has listened. Next-gen seats now exist for the Model S and Tesla will certainly keep seat comfort in mind. For anyone with a Model S with standard seats, the Model 3 may very well be more comfortable.
Booster Seat Ease
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had kids in the Model S but I can already tell you that installing a car seat or worse, using a booster seat, sucks big time. The seat belts are so deeply recessed (which looks great, by the way) that it makes buckling them over a booster require a circus act of contortion and a whole lot of force. Actually, I hope Tesla is listening to this one because aren’t kids supposed to be able to buckle themselves in? I don’t mean babies, I mean kids. (Aren’t you now required to use a booster seat until Junior Prom?) Neither my 5 or 7-year-old nephew would be able to do it in our S and I imagine having to buckle it for them would get old quickly.
Recognizability
I’m not going to lie here. I love when people recognize our Model S. I sometimes get smiles, raised thumbs and even compliments as I drive the car and there are few things in life I enjoy more than answering questions about it. I expect that to skyrocket in the Model 3. As I learned at the car show, Average Jane already knows about Model 3. If the aforementioned hopes and dreams do come true, I will be a very early Model 3 owner. I can not wait to be stopped and questioned, nodded to and waved at because people recognize the car. The Model S, despite being immensely gorgeous and still well ahead of it’s technological time, will be overshadowed by the excitement of the first Model 3 cars to hit the road.
It’s hard to imagine having a car that is better to drive than the Model S, but boy does it sound like that’s exactly what is going to happen.
News
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
Elon Musk clapped back at France’s decision to withhold the approval for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised system, projecting a clear and blunt message to French Transport Minister Phillippe Tabarot, after he publicly rejected the technology in its current form.
Tabarot outlines several concerns with Tesla Full Self-Driving in a detailed video statement, where he said, “The safety trade-offs are not yet sufficient to authorize it as it currently stands,” he said. He emphasized that FSD is not a true self-driving system and that the driver remains fully responsible.
Key issues Tabarot also brought up included allowing speeding when surrounding traffic exceeds limits and what he believes are insufficient guarantees of driver attention during complex urban maneuvers such as lane changes, intersections, and roundabouts.
Delaying the approval of FSD in France will cost lives
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
While acknowledging technological progress and France’s support for autonomous innovation, Tabarot stressed that deployment must prioritize road safety. He noted ongoing technical discussions with Tesla, the Netherlands, and other European partners, with further ecosystem meetings planned for the fall.
Musk’s rebuke highlights the human cost of regulatory caution. Tesla’s latest safety reports provide compelling data supporting accelerated adoption. In the most recent 12-month period, vehicles using FSD (Supervised) recorded one major collision per approximately 5.1 million miles driven, dramatically better than the U.S. national average of one crash per 698,000 miles.
Even Tesla vehicles driven manually with active safety features outperform the average by a wide margin. These figures come from billions of real-world miles of telemetry, showing FSD vehicles involved in far fewer incidents than both manual Teslas and the broader U.S. fleet.
Critics argue Tesla’s comparisons require careful scrutiny regarding reporting thresholds and fleet demographics, yet the data consistently positions FSD as a potential lifesaver. With road fatalities remaining a leading cause of death worldwide, Musk contends that proven safer technology should not face prolonged bureaucratic hurdles.
France’s measured approach reflects the broader European regulatory caution, which many, especially Musk, have been critical of in the past. However, as autonomous systems from Tesla and competitors like Waymo demonstrate superior safety in independent studies, pressure is mounting for harmonized approvals.
Musk’s warning carries the belief that every month of delay may equate to avoidable tragedies on European roads.
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
Tesla stock tumbles after earnings, one of its sharpest single-day declines
