Lifestyle
Tesla gets wrongfully accused (initially) of Polestar 2’s crash into residential home
Teslas are undoubtedly the most popular electric vehicles on the market today, so it’s no surprise that some mainstream EVs can be mistaken for one. This is especially the case with the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover since both vehicles are produced in large volumes.
However, the Model 3 and Model Y are still not at the level of true ubiquitous cars like the Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. There are tons of them out there, but not enough that even those not well-versed in electric cars know them. And if recent media reports are any indication, this could result in confusion — and some wrongful accusations.
On Friday, a report was posted on the Lake Forest Patch stating that a Tesla had crashed into a Lake Forest home on Thursday afternoon. The source of the news was cited as the Orange County Fire Authority, which also happened to post photos of the incident on social media. The event did seem newsworthy especially considering the media attention that Tesla crashes get. There was, however, an issue with the report.
The car photographed in the report was no Tesla. Instead, it was a white Polestar 2 sedan, a vehicle considered a competitor to the Tesla Model 3. Fortunately, the Polestar 2, just like a Model 3, is a safe vehicle, and thus, the driver was uninjured by the incident.
As social media users corrected the initial article from the Lake Forest Patch, the publication updated the article with the headline “Car Crashes Into Garage In Lake Forest Thursday,” which is more accurate but arguably less interesting than a Tesla crash. An editor’s note was also posted explaining that the original version of the piece mistakenly identified the vehicle involved in the incident as a Tesla. The publication changed the featured image of the article to not show the Polestar 2 anymore as well.
Unfortunately, platforms such as MSN still have the article’s initial version online, which means that the erroneous report is still viewable. What’s rather interesting is that the updated featured image of the Patch article, which simply shows the aftermath of the incident, is already visible in MSN. This is likely simply the result of the article being updated, of course, but the optics are not very good.
For better or worse, Tesla is a lightning rod of attention and news. This could work for and against the company’s favor. On the one hand, Tesla is interesting by default, and thus, content about the company is a pretty good way to gain an audience. But on the other hand, Tesla is so synonymous with electric cars that even incidents involving non-Teslas can be blamed on the company’s vehicles.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
Elon Musk
The FCC just said ‘No’ to SpaceX for now
SpaceX is fighting the FCC for spectrum that could put satellites inside every smartphone.
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities.
The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building toward this through its Starlink Mobile service, formerly called Direct-to-Cell, in partnership with T-Mobile. The service officially launched on July 23, 2025, starting with messaging and expanding to broadband data in October of that year.
T-Mobile Starlink Pricing Announced – Early Adopters Get Exclusive Discount
It’s worth noting that SpaceX is not alone in this race. AT&T and Verizon have their own satellite texting deals with AST SpaceMobile, while Verizon separately offers free satellite texting through Skylo on newer phones.
The regulatory foundation for all of this dates to March 14, 2024, when the FCC adopted the world’s first framework for what it called Supplemental Coverage from Space, allowing satellite operators to lease spectrum from terrestrial carriers and fill gaps in their coverage. On November 26, 2024, the FCC granted SpaceX the first-ever authorization under that framework, approving its partnership with T-Mobile to provide service in specific frequency bands. SpaceX then went further, completing a roughly $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, which gave it the ability to negotiate with global carriers more independently.
Starlink’s EchoStar spectrum deal could bring 5G coverage anywhere
This recent ruling by the FCC blocked SpaceX from going further, protecting incumbent spectrum holders like Globalstar and Iridium. But the market momentum is already in motion. As Teslarati reported, SpaceX is targeting peak speeds of 150 Mbps per user for its next generation Direct-to-Cell service, compared to roughly 4 Mbps today, which would bring satellite connectivity close to standard carrier performance.
With a reported IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation on the horizon, each spectrum fight, carrier deal, and regulatory win or loss now carries weight beyond just connectivity. SpaceX is quietly becoming the infrastructure layer underneath the phones of millions of people, and the FCC’s next move will help determine how much further that reach extends.
FCC Satellite Rule Makings can be found here.
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
