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Pres. Biden finally acknowledges Tesla, but don’t blink or you’ll miss it

Credit: Tesla

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President Joe Biden is a self-proclaimed big car guy, but that has not stopped the 46th President of the United States from avoiding the word “Tesla” like the plague. Today, President Biden finally acknowledged Tesla, not with words, but with a single photo of a Model X, which was exposed for a fraction of a second before being hidden by another picture of another electric vehicle.

On Wednesday morning, Biden Tweeted a short video clip of the history of automobiles, flashing photographs of American cars for a fraction of a second. The video shows the evolution of the American automotive sector from the beginning until Present Day. Interestingly, a Tesla Model X is visible in the video at the four-second mark, and it is the first time in Biden’s nearly year-long reign in the White House, that he has acknowledged Tesla’s existence.

Credit: Twitter | @POTUS

The Tweet from Biden was promoting the Build Back Better plan, which promotes an increase in electric vehicle infrastructure, including State-sponsored subsidies and incentives that encourage consumers to choose electric vehicles.

“Electric vehicles are the future. With my Build Back Better Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re going to create jobs, boost manufacturing here in the U.S., and create consumer rebates for folks to buy American-made, union-made electric vehicles,” Biden’s Tweet said.

The Tweet comes as a surprise to many Tesla enthusiasts and electric vehicle supporters, who are more than willing to admit that traditional OEMs and legacy automakers are only building EVs because of Tesla’s influence on the market. Despite this, Biden and the entire Administration have failed to acknowledge Tesla in any capacity, instead giving credit to General Motors and its CEO Mary Barra.

It is fair to believe that Tesla does deserve more credit from President Biden than he has given. Biden has focused on companies that operate Union facilities, and according to the Build Back Better plan, which has passed the House of Representatives and is in the Senate, will offer more money in its incentive program for vehicles built at Union facilities.

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Tesla does not operate a Union at its U.S. production facility in Fremont, California, and CEO Elon Musk has spoken openly in the past about his distaste for the Union model. Earlier this year, Musk was ordered to delete a 2018 Tweet that talked about unionization at its Fremont factory, according to a motion from the NLRB. The Tweet is still published.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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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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Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised

Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla owners have now driven more than 8 billion miles using Full Self-Driving Supervised, as per a new update from the electric vehicle maker’s official X account. 

Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.

“Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervised,” the company wrote in its post on X. Tesla also included a graphic showing FSD Supervised’s miles driven before a collision, which far exceeds that of the United States average. 

The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable. As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.

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At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.

Tesla also recently updated the safety data for FSD Supervised on its website, covering North America across all road types over the latest 12-month period.

As per Tesla’s figures, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles. In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.

During the measured period, Tesla reported 830 total major collisions with FSD (Supervised) engaged, compared to 16,131 collisions for Teslas driven manually with Active Safety and 250 collisions for Teslas driven manually without Active Safety. Total miles logged exceeded 4.39 billion miles for FSD (Supervised) during the same timeframe.

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The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval

After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project.

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(Credit: The Boring Company)

The Metro Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA) has approved a 40-year agreement with Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to build the Music City Loop, a tunnel system linking Nashville International Airport to downtown. 

After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project. Under the terms, The Boring Company will pay the airport authority an annual $300,000 licensing fee for the use of roughly 933,000 square feet of airport property, with a 3% annual increase.

Over 40 years, that totals to approximately $34 million, with two optional five-year extensions that could extend the term to 50 years, as per a report from The Tennesean.

The Boring Company celebrated the Music City Loop’s approval in a post on its official X account. “The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority has unanimously (7-0) approved a Music City Loop connection/station. Thanks so much to @Fly_Nashville for the great partnership,” the tunneling startup wrote in its post. 

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Once operational, the Music City Loop is expected to generate a $5 fee per airport pickup and drop-off, similar to rideshare charges. Airport officials estimate more than $300 million in operational revenue over the agreement’s duration, though this projection is deemed conservative.

“This is a significant benefit to the airport authority because we’re receiving a new way for our passengers to arrive downtown at zero capital investment from us. We don’t have to fund the operations and maintenance of that. TBC, The Boring Co., will do that for us,” MNAA President and CEO Doug Kreulen said. 

The project has drawn both backing and criticism. Business leaders cited economic benefits and improved mobility between downtown and the airport. “Hospitality isn’t just an amenity. It’s an economic engine,” Strategic Hospitality’s Max Goldberg said.

Opponents, including state lawmakers, raised questions about environmental impacts, worker safety, and long-term risks. Sen. Heidi Campbell said, “Safety depends on rules applied evenly without exception… You’re not just evaluating a tunnel. You’re evaluating a risk, structural risk, legal risk, reputational risk and financial risk.”

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Tesla announces crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone

The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has announced a crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone, as it has officially confirmed drivers have surpassed over 8 billion miles traveled using the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite for semi-autonomous travel.

The FSD (Supervised) suite is one of the most robust on the market, and is among the safest from a data perspective available to the public.

On Wednesday, Tesla confirmed in a post on X that it has officially surpassed the 8 billion-mile mark, just a few months after reaching 7 billion cumulative miles, which was announced on December 27, 2025.

The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.

The milestone itself is significant, especially considering Tesla has continued to gain valuable data from every mile traveled. However, the pace at which it is gathering these miles is getting faster.

Secondly, in January, Musk said the company would need “roughly 10 billion miles of training data” to achieve safe and unsupervised self-driving. “Reality has a super long tail of complexity,” Musk said.

Training data primarily means the fleet’s accumulated real-world miles that Tesla uses to train and improve its end-to-end AI models. This data captures the “long tail” — extremely rare, complex, or unpredictable situations that simulations alone cannot fully replicate at scale.

This is not the same as the total miles driven on Full Self-Driving, which is the 8 billion miles milestone that is being celebrated here.

The FSD-supervised miles contribute heavily to the training data, but the 10 billion figure is an estimate of the cumulative real-world exposure needed overall to push the system to human-level reliability.

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