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Rimac Nevera receives EPA and CARB range estimates

Credit: Rimac

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The Rimac Nevera all-electric hypercar has four motors, a 120-kilowatt-hour battery, and a $2.1 million price tag. New certifications of the vehicle from the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resource Board now give the Nevera a new metric: range, and it sits at 287.28 miles per charge, according to the documents.

Rimac’s humble beginnings as a Croatian carmaker have shifted substantially since the company was somewhat of a hobby for founder Mate Rimac. Now, Rimac has completely transitioned to a full-fledged operation, developing some of the fastest and most advanced all-electric hypercars on the planet. Rimac’s early successes have launched collaboration projects with VW’s Porsche and Bugatti.

Tesla Model S Plaid and Rimac Nevera face off in world’s quickest production car drag race

But Rimac has been working on its own projects too, like the Concept One and the Nevera, which will be the company’s first attempt at a new design that features more power upgrades due to improvements in the electric motor systems. Rimac estimates its Nevera hypercar can reach 258 miles per hour.

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Early range estimates from the WLTP have found the Rimac Nevera capable of a much more forgiving 342 miles of range per charge, but these ratings are generally not as close to realistic as the EPA range ratings for other vehicles that have been released in the past. According to the EPA and CARB documents, first seen by AutoBlog, the Nevera will have 287.28 miles of range at a full charge.

Of course, customers who will end up buying the Nevera will not be super worried about a high-range EV. If they wanted that, they’d stick with the Lucid Air, which, amongst its configurations, has the most range over the Tesla Model S Long Range, which was the first EV to receive an over 400-mile range rating from the EPA. Rimac customers want speed and performance, and they’ll get it. The 258 MPH top speed is complemented with 1,914 horsepower and 1,741 pound-feet of torque.

Rimac will also feature several other tech features in the Nevera that truly set it apart from other vehicles. Not only will the car have a fully independent torque vectoring system for handling, but it will also have a facial recognition feature that will allow only the owner of the car to start the vehicle. Additionally, the vehicle will adjust its performance settings to match the mood of the driver, and will have Level 4 autonomy capabilities, Mate Rimac estimates.

As previously mentioned, the Nevera will cost somewhere around $2.1 million. The Nevera Production Car #002 is currently undergoing pre-delivery testing in Croatia.

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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.

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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Elon Musk

Tesla’s golden era is no longer a tagline

Tesla “golden era” teaser video highlights the future of transportation and why car ownership itself may be the next thing to change.

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Tesla Cybercab Golden Era is Here (Credit: Tesla)
Tesla Cybercab Golden Era is Here (Credit: Tesla)

The golden age of autonomous ridesharing is arriving, and Tesla is making sure we can all picture a future that looks like the future. A recent teaser posted to X shows a Cybercab parked outside a home, and with a clear message that your everyday life may soon look like this when the driverless vehicles shows up at your door.

Tesla has begun the rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the production of its dedicated, fully-autonomous Cybercab vehicle. The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas assembly line on February 17, 2026, with volume production now targeted for this month. Additionally, the Robotaxi service built around it is already running, without human drivers, in US cities.

Tesla Cybercab production ignites with 60 units spotted at Giga Texas

The Cybercab is built without a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors, designed from the ground up for unsupervised autonomous operation. Musk described the manufacturing approach as closer to consumer electronics than traditional car production, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds at full scale.

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Drone footage from April 13, 2026 captured over 50 Cybercab units on the Giga Texas campus, with several clustered near the crash testing facility. Musk has noted that Tesla plans to sell the Cybercab to consumers for under $30,000, and owners will be able to add their vehicles to the Tesla robotaxi network when not in personal use, potentially generating income to offset the vehicle’s purchase cost. That model changes the math on vehicle ownership in a meaningful way, making a car something closer to a depreciating asset that can also earn by paying itself off and generate a profit.

During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call, the company confirmed plans to expand the Robotaxi program to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. The service already runs without safety drivers in Austin, and public road testing of the Cybercab has expanded to five states, including California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts.

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Tesla’s last chance version of the flagship Model X is officially gone

The Signature Edition was no ordinary Model X Plaid. Offered exclusively by invitation to select existing Tesla owners, it represented the final production batch of the current-generation Model X before manufacturing at Fremont ends.

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Tesla enabled a last-chance version of its two flagship vehicles, the Model S and Model X, over the past few weeks. The Model X, the company’s original SUV, is officially gone.

Tesla has officially closed the book on its most exclusive send-off for the Model X. The limited-run Model X Signature Edition—priced at $159,420 before fees and limited to just 100 units—is now sold out, with reservations closed as of April 16.

The Signature Edition was no ordinary Model X Plaid. Offered exclusively by invitation to select existing Tesla owners, it represented the final production batch of the current-generation Model X before manufacturing at Fremont ends.

Every unit featured an exclusive Garnet Red exterior paint, unique badging, and a standard six-seat configuration. With full Plaid powertrain specs—Tri-Motor All-Wheel Drive, over 1,000 horsepower, and blistering acceleration—it was positioned as a collector’s item for loyalists who wanted one last shot at owning a piece of Tesla history.

The timing is no coincidence.

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Tesla announced earlier this year that it would discontinue regular production of both the Model S and Model X to repurpose the Fremont factory’s dedicated lines for mass production of its Optimus humanoid robots.

Elon Musk has repeatedly emphasized that Optimus could ultimately become more valuable to the company than its vehicle business, with ambitions to build hundreds of thousands of units annually.

The Signature Editions served as a final “runout” series: 250 for the Model S and only 100 for the Model X, all built to the highest Plaid specification before the line is converted.

Deliveries of the remaining Signature units are scheduled to begin in May 2026. For buyers who secured one, it’s the ultimate swan song for a vehicle that helped define Tesla’s early luxury EV dominance.

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Launched in 2015, the Model X introduced falcon-wing doors, a panoramic windshield, and class-leading performance that turned heads and set benchmarks. While newer models like the Cybertruck and refreshed Model Y have taken center stage, the Model X Plaid remained a halo product for those seeking maximum range, space, and speed in an SUV package.

With inventory of standard Model X units already nearly exhausted across the U.S., the rapid sell-out of the Signature Edition underscores enduring demand for Tesla’s premium flagships even as the company pivots toward robotics and autonomy.

For enthusiasts, these 100 garnet-red SUVs will likely become instant collector’s items—tangible reminders of the vehicles that built the brand before Tesla’s next chapter fully begins. The last chance is gone, but the legacy endures.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents

Two new patents, which were coincidentally filed on the same day as the “We, Robot” event back in October 2024, protect Tesla’s mechanically actuated, tendon-driven architecture.

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Credit: Tesla China

Tesla is planning to soon reveal its latest and greatest version of the Optimus humanoid robot, and a series of new patents for the hands and arms, with the former being, admittedly, one of the most challenging parts of developing the project.

Two new patents, which were coincidentally filed on the same day as the “We, Robot” event back in October 2024, protect Tesla’s mechanically actuated, tendon-driven architecture.

The designs relocate heavy actuators to the forearm, route cables through a sophisticated wrist design, and employ innovative joint assemblies to achieve human-like dexterity while enabling lightweight construction and high-volume manufacturing.

Core Tendon-Driven Hand Architecture

The primary patent, which is titled “Mechanically Actuated Robotic Hand,” details a cable/tendon-driven system.

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Actuators are positioned in the forearm rather than the hand. Each finger features four degrees of freedom (DoF), while the wrist adds two more.

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Three thin, flexible control cables (tendons) per finger extend from the forearm actuators, pass through the wrist, and connect to the finger segments. Integrated channels within the finger phalanges guide these cables selectively—routing behind some joints and forward of others—to enable independent bending without unintended motion.

Patent diagrams illustrate thick cable bundles emerging from the wrist into the palm and fingers, with labeled pivots and routing guides. This setup closely mirrors human forearm-muscle and tendon anatomy, where most hand control originates proximally.

Advanced Wrist Routing Innovation

One of the standout features is the wrist’s cable transition mechanism. Cables shift from a lateral stack on the forearm side to a vertical stack on the hand side through a specialized transition zone.

This geometry significantly reduces cable stretch, torque, friction, and crosstalk during combined yaw and pitch wrist movements — common failure points in simpler tendon systems that cause imprecise or jerky motion.

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By minimizing these issues, the design supports smoother, more reliable multi-axis wrist operation, essential for complex real-world tasks.

Companion Patents on Appendage and Joint Design

Two supporting patents provide additional depth. “Robotic Appendage” covers the overall forearm-to-palm-to-finger assembly, with a palm body movably coupled to the forearm and finger phalanges linked by tensile cables returning to forearm actuators. Tensioning these cables repositions the phalanges precisely.

“Joint Assembly for Robotic Appendage” describes curved contact surfaces on mating structures paired with a composite flexible member. This allows smooth pivoting while maintaining consistent tension, enhancing durability, and simplifying assembly for mass production.

Executive Insights on Hand Development Challenges

Tesla executives have consistently described the hand as the most difficult component of Optimus.

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Elon Musk has called it “the majority of the engineering difficulty of the entire robot,” emphasizing that human hands possess roughly 27–28 DoF with an intricate tendon network powered largely by forearm muscles. He has likened the challenge to something “harder than Cybertruck or Model X… somewhere between Model X and Starship.”

Elon Musk shares ridiculous fact about Optimus’ hand demos

In mid-2025, Musk acknowledged that Tesla was “struggling” to finalize the hand and forearm design. By early 2026, he stated that the company had overcome the “hardest” problems, including human-level manual dexterity, real-world AI integration, and volume production scalability.

He estimated the electromechanical hand represents about 60 percent of the overall Optimus challenge, compounded by the lack of an existing supply chain for such precision components.

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These patents directly tackle the acknowledged pain points: relocating actuators reduces hand mass and inertia for better speed and efficiency; advanced wrist routing and joint geometry address friction and crosstalk; and simplified, stackable parts visible in the diagrams indicate readiness for high-volume manufacturing.

Implications for Optimus Production and Leadership

Collectively, the patents portray the Optimus v3 hand not as a mere prototype, but as a production-oriented system engineered from first principles.

The 22-DoF architecture, forearm-driven tendons, and crosstalk-minimizing wrist deliver a clear competitive edge in dexterity. They align with Musk’s view that high-volume manufacturing is one of the three critical elements missing from most other humanoid projects.

For Optimus to become the most capable humanoid robot, its hand needed to replicate the useful and applicable design of the human counterpart.

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These filings demonstrate that Tesla has transformed years of engineering challenges into patented, elegant solutions — positioning the company strongly in the race toward general-purpose robotics.

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