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Starlink shows insanely impressive in-flight speeds in real-world test

Credit: JSX

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Just like that, SpaceX’s Starlink has definitively changed the world of in-flight internet. This was suggested as much following a real-world test of JSX’s Starlink in-flight WiFi speeds. Needless to say, the satellite internet service’s performance was a cut, or perhaps two or three cuts, above the competition. 

JSX is among the first airlines to embrace Elon Musk’s Starlink in-flight internet. In previous comments, JSX CEO Alex Wilcox noted that Starlink has been received by the airline’s customers with “amazement and delight.” The same sentiments were shared recently by a tech reviewer who took the satellite internet system through its paces. 

Travel reporter and blogger Zach Griff of The Points Guy recently tested JSX’s Starlink in-flight internet system during a trip. Being a tech reviewer, Griff opted to connect five Apple devices — a 14-inch MacBook Pro, a 13.6-inch Macbook Air, an iPhone 14 Pro Max, an iPhone 13 Pro Max, and an 11-inch iPad Pro — to Starlink’s in-flight WiFi. 

Now, this is a pretty unrealistic number of devices to use in a plane, but the tech reviewer was looking to see how Starlink performs even when passengers have an impractical number of devices. Thus, after connecting to JSX’s in-flight internet service seamlessly, the reviewer fired up four of his Apple devices and loaded up a speed test. The results were shocking. 

Each device listed download speeds over 100 Mbps, and upload speeds hovered between 5-20 Mbps. This is impressive enough, but what truly made Starlink stand out was its ping, which clocked in at 28 and 150 ms during the four tests. “Just by the measure of these speeds alone, I could quickly tell that this would be my fastest in-flight internet experience ever,” the reviewer noted. 

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Streaming videos during the flight was seamless, and Zoom meetings were a breeze. The same was true for a FaceTime video call and downloading an album off Spotify. The reviewer noted that in streaming, at least, Starlink’s in-flight WiFi feels comparable to the speeds of internet services like Verizon Fios. 

Starlink is pretty young as far as Elon Musk-based services go, but it is growing rapidly. The service has been expanded to numerous countries, including those in Southeast Asia like the Philippines, and in Australia, it is closing in on 100,000 customers. Starlink also launched a rental option for customers in the UK recently, which should make the satellite internet system more attainable for consumers. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Tesla partners with Lemonade for new insurance program

Tesla recently was offered “almost free” coverage for Full Self-Driving by Lemonade’s Shai Wininger, President and Co-founder, who said it would be “happy to explore insuring Tesla FSD miles for (almost) free.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla owners in California, Oregon, and Arizona can now use Lemonade Insurance, the firm that recently said it could cover Full Self-Driving miles for “almost free.”

Lemonade, which offered the new service through its app, has three distinct advantages, it says:

  • Direct Connection for no telematics device needed
  • Better customer service
  • Smarter pricing

The company is known for offering unique, fee-based insurance rates through AI, and instead of keeping unclaimed premiums, it offers coverage through a flat free upfront. The leftover funds are donated to charities by its policyholders.

On Thursday, it announced that cars in three states would be able to be connected directly to the car through its smartphone app, enabling easier access to insurance factors through telematics:

Tesla recently was offered “almost free” coverage for Full Self-Driving by Lemonade’s Shai Wininger, President and Co-founder, who said it would be “happy to explore insuring Tesla FSD miles for (almost) free.”

The strategy would be one of the most unique, as it would provide Tesla drivers with stable, accurate, and consistent insurance rates, while also incentivizing owners to utilize Full Self-Driving for their travel miles.

Tesla Full Self-Driving gets an offer to be insured for ‘almost free’

This would make FSD more cost-effective for owners and contribute to the company’s data collection efforts.

Data also backs Tesla Full Self-Driving’s advantages as a safety net for drivers. Recent figures indicate it was nine times less likely to be in an accident compared to the national average, registering an accident every 6.36 million miles. The NHTSA says a crash occurs approximately every 702,000 miles.

Tesla also offers its own in-house insurance program, which is currently offered in twelve states so far. The company is attempting to enter more areas of the U.S., with recent filings indicating the company wants to enter Florida and offer insurance to drivers in that state.

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Tesla Model Y gets hefty discounts and more in final sales push

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Model Y configurations are getting hefty discounts and more benefits as the company is in the phase of its final sales push for the year.

Tesla is offering up to $1,500 off new Model Y Standard trims that are available in inventory in the United States. Additionally, Tesla is giving up to $2,000 off the Premium trims of the Model Y. There is also one free upgrade included, such as a paint color or interior color, at no additional charge.

Tesla is hoping to bolster a relatively strong performance through the first three quarters of the year, with over 1.2 million cars delivered through the first three quarters.

This is about four percent under what the company reported through the same time period last year, as it was about 75,000 vehicles ahead in 2024.

However, Q3 was the company’s best quarterly performance of all time, and it surged because of the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit, which was eliminated in September. The imminent removal of the credit led to many buyers flocking to Tesla showrooms to take advantage of the discount, which led to a strong quarter for the company.

2024 was the first year in the 2020s when Tesla did not experience a year-over-year delivery growth, as it saw a 1 percent slide from 2023. The previous years saw huge growth, with the biggest coming from 2020 to 2021, when Tesla had an 87 percent delivery growth.

This year, it is expected to be a second consecutive slide, with a drop of potentially 8 percent, if it manages to deliver 1.65 million cars, which is where Grok projects the automaker to end up.

Tesla will likely return to its annual growth rate in the coming years, but the focus is becoming less about delivery figures and more about autonomy, a major contributor to the company’s valuation. As AI continues to become more refined, Tesla will apply these principles to its Full Self-Driving efforts, as well as the Optimus humanoid robot project.

Will Tesla thrive without the EV tax credit? Five reasons why they might

These discounts should help incentivize some buyers to pull the trigger on a vehicle before the year ends. It will also be interesting to see if the adjusted EV tax credit rules, which allowed deliveries to occur after the September 30 cutoff date, along with these discounts, will have a positive impact.

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Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’

“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.

During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.

While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.

Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.

He said:

“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”

It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”

With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.

This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.

Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.

But it is close.

That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.

All we can say is, we’ll see.

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