Lifestyle
Porsche steps up Mission E marketing efforts with latest endorsement by Adam Levine
With the Mission E expected to start production next year, Porsche is steadily ramping up its marketing efforts for its Tesla Model S-rivaling all-electric car. Just recently, Porsche opted to feature Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine as its latest endorser for the all-electric sedan.
Unlike Mark Webber, a former Formula One driver who recently took a Mission E prototype around the track, Porsche opted to give Adam Levine a hands-on experience with the Mission E concept car, a vehicle that has drawn eyes since it debuted in 2015 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Despite not being fully affiliated with Porsche like Webber, however, Levine is still a hardcore Porsche enthusiast, driving to the track in his beloved 1958 356A Porsche Speedster. During his segment in the promotional video, Levine stated that ultimately, the Mission E is every bit a Porsche as the company’s other offerings.
“Porsche people are not normal, because we want more out of driving. The problem with electric cars last time was that they just don’t have a soul. They don’t have a beating heart. This one actually does, which is amazing to me,” Levine said.
Porsche’s test drive video is not the only time that Levine brushed shoulders with the all-electric sedan, however. In a recent episode of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke featuring the singer, the Mission E concept car made a cameo as the late-night host and the Maroon 5 frontman were racing around on the track.
Overall, Porsche’s decision to utilize Levine as its celebrity endorser for the Mission E is a step in the right direction. Porsche, after all, has a hardcore fanbase that values its classic, iconic, ICE-based performance. Considering that the Mission E is the company’s first all-electric vehicle, Porsche needs a familiar face that its fans can relate too. Adam Levine, a self-confessed Porsche enthusiast, definitely fits the bill.
Levine is no stranger to electric cars. The Maroon 5 frontman also owns a Tesla Model X. Levine’s Model X caught headlines in the entertainment and auto world back in 2016, when the all-electric SUV was rear-ended by a Ferrari. The Model X only ended up with minor damages, however, and Levine and his then-pregnant wife Victoria’s Secret Angel Behati Prinsloo drove away in their Tesla afterward.
Adam Levine with the Porsche Mission E concept car. [Credit: Porsche]
While Porsche is steadily ramping up its marketing efforts for the Mission E, the company is currently dealing with a sales halt in Europe over the region’s new emissions standards. As we noted in a recent report, interested buyers who access Porsche’s online configurator in Europe are prompted that a “pending model revision” is currently ongoing and that none of the company’s lineup of vehicles are freely configurable. Porsche’s cars that will be produced according to the EU’s new emissions standards, such as the Panamera and the Cayenne, are expected to be unavailable until March 2019.
The Porsche Mission E is expected to hit the market sometime next year. The vehicle is equipped with specs that rival the Tesla Model S, with its 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds, a top speed of 155 mph, and a range of 310 miles per charge. The Mission E is also designed to support Porsche’s IONITY chargers, which are expected to have an output of 350 kW.
Watch Levine’s test drive of the Porsche Mission E concept car in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCdKezPKPIM
See the Porsche Mission E concept car’s cameo in the recent Carpool Karaoke episode in the video below.
https://youtu.be/CZkUNPBlJIQ?t=581
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Texas ranch to showcase the lifelong work that changed the world
Elon Musk is building a product gallery at his Texas ranch spanning his lifelong inventions.
Elon Musk took to X earlier today, noting “Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas.” in response to a resurfaced famous quote from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s wherein he draw parallels of the Tesla CEO to legendary physicist Albert Einstein.
Dimon made the remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland back in January 2025, telling CNBC at the time, “SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, I mean, the guy is our Einstein.” The remark seemingly ended a long-time feud between the two high profile execs.
While details are thin about the exact location of Elon Musk’s Texas ranch and any pending projects that would serve as a gallery and homage to his portfolio of revolutionary product inventions spanning from 1984 to 2025, land acquisition records point to roughly a location of several thousand acres in Bastrop County, east of Austin near the Colorado River and held through an LLC called Horse Ranch LLC that’s managed by Musk’s longtime personal friend and family wealth manager Jared Birchall. Birchall also serves as the CEO of Neuralink.
Tesla’s “ecological paradise” in Giga Texas may be larger than expected
The broader Bastrop County footprint surrounding the ranch has grown significantly. Entities tied to Musk have accumulated approximately 2,000 acres in Bastrop County as of mid-2026, up from 700 acres earlier in the year, with possibly as much as 6,000 acres acquired in total across Bastrop and Travis counties based on deed records.
No completion date for the gallery has been announced and Musk has not confirmed whether it will be open to the public. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX just completed the largest IPO in history raising $75 billion, a milestone that makes this particular moment in Musk’s career a natural inflection point for looking back at what he has built through the years.
Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas https://t.co/xQf5FRy4uz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026
Starting with Blastar, a simple space shooter game Musk coded at 12 years old and sold to a South African magazine for $500. From there the timeline moves through a commercial career that started with Zip2 in 1995, a city guide software company sold to Compaq for roughly $300 million in 1999. That was followed by X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity to become PayPal, acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. SpaceX came in 2002, Tesla in 2003, SolarCity in 2006, the Supercharger network in 2012, Neuralink in 2016, The Boring Company in 2016, OpenAI co-founded in 2015, X acquired in 2022, xAI in 2023, Optimus in 2024, the Cybercab in 2026, and most recently SpaceXAI following the SpaceX and xAI merger. The gallery will also likely include items that blur the line between product and cultural artifact, among them The Boring Company’s Not-a-Flamethrower from 2018, Tesla Short Shorts from 2020, and Burnt Hair perfume released under X in 2022.
Lifestyle
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
California just signed a $270 million EV rebate into law and it starts this summer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 168 into law on Monday, July 13, 2026, creating a $270 million EV rebate program that delivers money directly at the dealership rather than as a tax credit applied months later. The program, called MyFirstEV, is funded equally by California’s state budget and participating automakers, with each contributing $135.5 million to make the math work.
The timing is directly tied to the loss of federal support when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ended, removing the most significant consumer incentive that had driven EV adoption in the U.S. California, which accounts for roughly one-third of all EVs sold nationally, moved to fill that gap with a state-level replacement.
The rebate structure is straightforward. First-time EV buyers can receive $3,500 off any new battery-electric vehicle with an MSRP up to $50,000. Used EVs priced at $25,000 or below qualify for a $1,750 rebate. The credit is applied at the point of sale, which removes the friction of the old federal system where buyers had to wait for tax season to see the benefit. The program goes live later this summer, with the California Air Resources Board expected to release full participation details next month.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
For Tesla buyers, the implications are mixed. The Tesla Model 3 RWD at $42,490 and the Model 3 Long Range at $47,490 both fall under the $50,000 cap and would qualify for the full $3,500 rebate for first-time buyers. The Model Y, which starts at $44,990 after Tesla’s recent price adjustment, also qualifies. The Model X, Model S, and Cybertruck all exceed the cap and receive no benefit. As Teslarati has reported, the program also includes a carve-out exempting California-based automakers like Rivian and Lucid from the price cap entirely, a provision that puts Tesla at a disadvantage since it relocated its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Other qualifying vehicles include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.
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