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SpaceX’s Hyperloop competitors are preparing to set top speed records
The 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition is set to be held this Sunday, July 22, 2018, at SpaceX’s campus in Hawthorne, CA. Participants for this Sunday’s event, which are comprised of roughly 600 students from 40 countries, will be aiming for one target alone — setting top speed records in SpaceX’s 0.8-mile test track.
As a teaser for this weekend’s event, Elon Musk recently shared images of some competitors already making preparations for the upcoming competition. Considering the theme of this year’s event, all 20 teams (comprised of 18 main competition teams and 2 levitation sub-competition groups) will be attempting to beat the top speed record currently held by Virgin Hyperloop One on the SpaceX test track. Last December 2017, Virgin Hyperloop One’s pod was able to reach a speed of 240 mph, beating out the record set by a Tesla-branded pusher pod that was able to hit 220 mph before it started heating up.
- Participants for SpaceX’s 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition prepare for the event. [Credit: Hyperloop/Twitter]
- Participants for SpaceX’s 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition prepare for the event. [Credit: Hyperloop/Twitter]
- Participants for SpaceX’s 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition prepare for the event. [Credit: Hyperloop/Twitter]
Participants for SpaceX’s 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition prepare for the event. [Credit: Hyperloop/Twitter]
Among the student teams that would be participating this year, one group to watch would be WARR Hyperloop, a team from the Technical University of Munich that won the fastest pod award last year. The team was able to accomplish last year’s feat by designing a lightweight pod propelled by a 50 kW electric motor that runs on polyurethane wheels. The pod, which only weighed 190 pounds, was able to hit 202 mph, blowing away the speed records of its two biggest competitors — Paradigm Hyperloop and SwissLoop.
WARR Hyperloop’s team for this Sunday’s competition is comprised of 45 members from 16 different countries. In order to keep its top speed crown this year, Team WARR has created a new pod that is specifically designed to beat its old speed records and possibly even surpass the figure set by Virgin Hyperloop One. In a press release last month, the team from the Technical University of Munich stated that they are hoping their new pod could hit speeds of 372 mph (600 kph).
Another team that would be returning this year would be Delft Hyperloop from the Delft University of Technology. Just like Team WARR, Team Delft is also returning to the event as a champion, having won the overall top prize at SpaceX’s first event in January 2017. According to team leader Edouard Schneiders, Delft’s pod this year has a strong power-to-weight ratio, which would likely enable it to beat not only its competitors, but Virgin Hyperloop One’s 240 mph record as well.
Hyperloop technology has progressed over the years since Elon Musk first mentioned the idea of a “fifth mode of transportation” back in 2012. Since then, the idea has been picked up by companies in several countries, most notable of which is Virgin Hyperloop One’s project in Dubai, which is expected to debut as early as 2020. Earlier this year, Virgin Hyperloop One unveiled a 1:1 model of its transport pod, which features futuristic design elements and plush amenities.
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Lucid unveils Lunar Robotaxi in bid to challenge Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race
Lucid’s Lunar robotaxi is gunning for Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race
Lucid Group pulled back the curtain on its purpose-built autonomous robotaxi platform dubbed the Lunar Concept. Announced at its New York investor day event, Lunar is arguably the company’s most ambitious concept yet, and a direct line of sight toward the autonomous ride haling market that Tesla looks to control.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.
A comparison to Tesla’s Cybercab is unavoidable. The concept of a Tesla robotaxi was first introduced by Elon Musk back in April 2019 during an event dubbed “Autonomy Day,” where he envisioned a network of self-driving Tesla vehicles transporting passengers while not in use by their owners. That vision took another major step in October 2024 when, Musk unveiled the Cybercab at the Tesla “We, Robot” event held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 concept Cybercabs autonomously drove around the studio lot giving rides to attendees.
Fast forward to today, and Tesla’s ambitions are finally materializing, but not without friction. As we recently reported, the Cybercab is being spotted with increasing frequency on public roads and across the grounds of Gigafactory Texas, suggesting that the company’s road testing and validation program is ramping meaningfully ahead of mass production. Tesla already operates a small scale robotaxi service in Austin using supervised Model Ys, but the Cybercab is designed from the ground up for high-volume, low-cost production, with Musk stating an eventual goal of producing one vehicle every 10 seconds.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.
Into this landscape steps Lucid’s Lunar. Built on the company’s all-new Midsize EV platform, which will also underpin consumer SUVs starting below $50,000. The Lunar mirrors the Cybercab’s core philosophy of having two seats, no driver controls, and a focus on fleet economics. The platform introduces Lucid’s redesigned Atlas electric drive unit, engineered to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper to manufacture at scale.
Unlike Tesla’s strategy of building its own ride hailing network from scratch, Lucid is partnering with Uber. The companies are said to be in advanced discussions to deploy Midsize platform vehicles at large scale, with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi publicly backing Lucid’s engineering credentials and autonomous-ready architecture.
In the investor day event, Lucid also outlined a recurring software revenue model, with an in-vehicle AI assistant and monthly autonomous driving subscriptions priced between $69 and $199. This can be seen as a nod to the software revenue stream that Tesla has long championed with its Full Self-Driving subscription.
Tesla’s Cybercab is targeting a price point below $30k and with operating costs as low as 20 cents per mile. But with regulatory hurdles still ahead, the window for competition is open. Lucid’s Lunar may not have a launch date yet, but it arrives at a pivotal moment, and when the robotaxi race is no longer viewed as hypothetical. Rather, every serious EV player needs to come to bat on the same plate that Tesla has had countless practice swings on over the last seven years.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.


