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Advancement in nuclear fusion tech continues transition to clean energy future
The development of unlimited, carbon-neutral, and safe energy through nuclear fusion is expanding around the world, and scientists at the Atomic Energy Authority in the United Kingdom (AEA) have recently cleared one more key hurdle to making it a commercial reality: exhausting gas that’s hotter than the Sun. The hot plasma created during fusion power generation needs to cool down as it’s being used, but at its extreme temperatures, there aren’t any materials available to withstand the heat. Now, that problem appears to have been solved.
The AEA team’s answer to the heat issue is a “sacrificial wall” design which will require replacement every few years. Plasma will be moved down a path within its fusion generator’s holding device to cool it slightly before coming into contact with a specially designed wall for the remainder of the cooling process. However, even at a lower temperature, the heat will degrade the wall’s integrity over time and need to be changed. With the first nuclear fusion reactor set to turn on in seven years, AEA’s fusion exhaust system may be one of the developments that keeps it on schedule.
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and recent fusion energy developments show that sentiment’s considerations don’t remain within the bounds of Earth. At about 90 million miles away, our Sun is essentially a fusion reactor in the sky, its large size creating enough gravity to force atoms together at its core and release massive amounts of energy. Artificially reproducing the conditions needed for this kind of generation is tough, but the attempt has been going on since the 1960s. The AEA is representative of one agency in a global endeavor.
The most advanced nuclear fusion project today is ITER, the International Nuclear Fusion Research experimental reactor in southern France, which hosts scientists from 35 countries dedicated to achieving the first ever positive fusion energy production. Their device is called a “tokamak”, and its structure is something like a flattened donut (torus) encapsulated by rings of powerful magnetic coils. The magnetic fields generated by the coils both suspend the plasma created by extreme heat and squeeze the plasma into a small space to create the fusion reactions. ITER is scheduled to turn its reactor on in 2025.
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- A visualization of the ITER tokamak in operation.| Credit: ITER.org/Jamison Daniel, Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility
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- A computer-animated visualization of the ITER tokamak in operation. | Credit: ITER.org
Creating fusion in a laboratory involves two primary parts: 1) creating plasma, a soup of electrons and nuclei released from their atomic structures due to extremely high temperatures; and 2) merging the nuclei of two different types of atoms, generally different forms of hydrogen. The heat in a tokamak is generated from both the magnetic field movement and external heating devices, and the nuclei merge is achieved by squeezing the plasma using those same magnetic fields into a constricted area to encourage collisions. Essentially, the high heat excites the atomic particles, speeding their motion, and their energetic movements within the magnetically confined area significantly increases the likelihood the nuclei will crash and fuse together. When this fusion occurs, a massive amount of energy is released, the object of desire for all involved in this field of research.
The amount of heat needed to convince atoms to release their electrons and form plasma is in the range of millions of degrees Celsius, the core of the Sun itself being 15 million degrees. Without high gravity to aid with squeezing plasma, as in the Sun’s case at 27 times the gravity of Earth, reactors on our planet need to heat well beyond the Sun’s temperature to ensure the atomic particles in the plasma collide and fuse. ITER’s tokamak heats to 100 million degrees Celsius.
All of this heating and magnetic control requires its own energy input, and this is where the current state of fusion energy development is focused. The ratio of energy used and energy produced is called “Q”, the desired amount aimed for by scientists in the field being 10:1. When ten times the energy is produced by nuclear fusion than used to produce it, it will have advanced to a level ready for further development as an alternative power source, or so goes the thinking. ITER’s specific goal is to produce 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of heating power.
Once energy is released from the fusion process, it can then be captured to create steam to power generators currently using other power sources such as coal and natural gas. This is another benefit purported benefit of fusion power; it can plug directly into existing power grids, minimizing any disruptions or requirements for new equipment. Combined with the abundant availability of hydrogen and the lack of greenhouses gases or radioactive waste, there are high hopes for fusion’s future as an all-in-one energy solution.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
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PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
