Lifestyle
Leave Tesla alone, autonomous cars can’t come soon enough
Here in Philly, I could set my clock by daily rush hour accidents once school starts. I’ve joked that since most school kids aren’t old enough to drive, teachers must be terrible drivers. Either that or they don’t drive all summer and have to learn all over again. In reality, roads are just more crowded. Many more people are on the roads during the 7am and 4pm hours that I commute. In addition, there are a new set of stressors and distractions for parents that come with the kids going back to school. All of this is a recipe for disaster.
Yesterday was the first day of school for those in Philadelphia public schools and as expected, I encountered an accident on my way home. The car, a Nissan, was turned the wrong way and had an exceptionally mangled front end. I sincerely hope whoever was driving the car survived, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t.
What caused the accident? Driving a car is a series of mundane tasks and subconscious mental processes. Did the driver make an honest mistake and misjudge something? Or was he distracted by thoughts of school supplies or a little red number showing a notification on any one of the many communication apps on his smart phone? Maybe he had nothing to do with it. Maybe another driver made an egregious error and the Nissan did all it could to avoid it, but ended up losing control. Maybe he and another driver both processed routine thoughts to make driving decisions such as seeing that there was a space in the middle lane and deciding to merge into it.
Whatever the case, I’m fairly certain that being in a Tesla while using Autopilot driver’s assistance features, the Nissan driver would be a very different situation right now. The Tesla would have attempted some maneuver to mitigate the crash as best as it could. Not knowing the situation, I certainly can’t claim the accident would not have happened in a Tesla. What I can claim is that once full autonomy comes to cars, the roads will be measurably safer. They have to be, or the technology will be regulated out of existence.
“once full autonomy comes to cars, the roads will be measurably safer”
A few miles later and more minutes than it should have taken, I was off the highway. I came to a 4-way stop sign, which are extremely common where I live. The problem with 4-way stop signs is that you process them without even thinking. Stop, wait a few seconds, move. I’ve been guilty a few times of going too early and cutting off the person who deserved to cross the intersection ahead of me. I’ve been the one cut off plenty too. So many times with stop signs you are just stopping for an appropriate interval of time rather than actually waiting for someone. (Chances are, that someone has already gone quickly, if there is someone on the cross street at all.) Again, this all happens so many times per drive that it has become an almost subconscious process. Your foot holds the brake pedal. Your foot moves to the go pedal.
Oh Sh#! Moment
What happened next did so in a flash, and left my hands shaking. I came to a stop and stayed that way for some appropriate length of time. In an imperceptibly short amount of time, my brain decided the pickup truck waiting to cross my path wasn’t going and I should go. There was a woman standing on the corner with a dog. I’m pretty sure my brain processed that the pickup truck driver was talking to her. He didn’t wave me on, but something made me go.
What should have happened next is that the pickup truck driver should have honked at me and cursed me out. Maybe even held up a 1-finger salute. That is not what happened. What happened is that after I had already started going, he did too. For another imperceptibly short amount of time, my brain thought ‘crap, I guess just cut this guy off.’ Then, he didn’t stop. After his nearly subconscious process of moving his foot from brake to go pedal, he should have seen me in his path and stopped. I can only assume he was not looking ahead. He was getting closer and I quickly calculated that since I was in a Tesla and he in a truck, the best course of action was to stomp on the go pedal. That’s what I did. I accelerated faster than I should have in a residential area, but I’d certainly rather go from 10 to 30 mph too quickly than be in an accident. I heard tires screeching, then the word “asshole” being yelled.
What just happened? Who was at fault? Me, partially, because I took his turn. Him, mostly, because regardless of what another person does, if you are stopped then begin moving and t-bone that someone, you’re at fault. He should have been looking. He should have stopped. He would have had plenty of time to stop considering he was starting from a complete stop. I had been paying attention. He hadn’t. There was no reason for this situation to result in tire screeching. There was definitely no reason for it to result in a collision.
Computers vs. the Human Brain
The point is, human brains are amazing. They process unlimited amounts of information in record time. They are efficient. Too efficient even. They take shortcuts to arrive at a thought. (Lights are off at CVS and it’s midnight, it must be closed. No need to go to the door and check the sign to see closing time.) All of these shortcuts help us to drive but can also harm us. We get too complacent, too quick to take action without intentional thought. Have you ever been driving and realized you don’t really recall the last few miles? Probably. Your brain and hands and feet drove you, without incident, to that point. To add to this, our brains are thinking about other things. We change the radio station, adjust our air conditioning, mentally plan dinner and chores, wonder how our spouse’s day went. Autonomous cars will have one job. That job will be to drive safely. I picture a world where cars communicate too, so the question of whose turn it is at a 4-way stop sign should be an easy one. An autonomous car won’t stop to talk to the lady on the corner with the dog. An autonomous car won’t look away from the road ahead. An autonomous car may have camera failure, but it would know it was unable to see and act accordingly.
If anyone out there still thinks Tesla’s Autopilot is a gimmick, hear this: it is a group of driver’s assistance features that make us leaps closer to truly autonomous driving. In my opinion – and presumably that of the poor Nissan driver – it can’t come soon enough.
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Elon Musk
NASA sends humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – Here’s what’s next
NASA’s Artemis II launched four astronauts toward the Moon on the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Operations and Support Building II at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 6:35pm EDT from Launch Complex 39B. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA launched four astronauts toward the Moon on April 1, 2026, marking the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket at 6:35 p.m. EDT, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon and back.
The mission does not include a lunar landing. It is a test flight designed to validate the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space with a crew aboard for the first time. If the crew reaches the planned distance of 252,000 miles from Earth, they will set a new record for the farthest any human has ever traveled, surpassing even the Apollo 13 distance record.
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX holds a central role in what comes next. The Starship Human Landing System is under contract to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for Artemis IV, now targeting 2028, after NASA restructured its mission sequence due to delays in Starship’s orbital refueling demonstration. Before any Moon landing happens, SpaceX must prove it can transfer propellant between two Starships in orbit, something no rocket program has done at this scale.
The last time humans left Earth’s orbit was 53 years ago. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 were the final people to walk on the Moon, a record that stands to this day. Elon Musk has long argued that returning is not optional. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the Moon,” Musk said. “That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the Moon.”
The Artemis program involves 60 countries signed onto the Artemis Accords, and this mission sets several firsts beyond distance. Glover becomes the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American astronaut to reach the Moon’s vicinity. According to NASA’s live mission updates, the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed successfully after liftoff and the crew completed a proximity operations demonstration within the first hours of flight.
Artemis II is step one. The Moon landing and the permanent lunar base come later. But after more than five decades, humans are heading back.
Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
Tesla’s Optimus robot left the Hollywood Diner within months of opening. Now Musk is planning its return with a bigger role and a major Gen 3 upgrade underway.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus robot was one of the most talked-about features when the Tesla Diner opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on July 21, 2025. Dubbed “Poptimus” by Tesla fans, the Gen 2 robot stood upstairs at the retro-futuristic, drive-in theater and Tesla Supercharging station, scooping popcorn into bags and handing them to guests with a wave.
The diner itself had been years in the making. Elon Musk first floated the idea in 2018 with a tweet about building an “old-school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant” at a Hollywood Supercharger. What eventually opened was a unique two-story neon-lit space, with 80 EV charging stalls, and Optimus serving as a live demonstration of where Tesla’s ambitions were headed.
If our retro-futuristic diner turns out well, which I think it will, @Tesla will establish these in major cities around the world, as well as at Supercharger sites on long distance routes.
An island of good food, good vibes & entertainment, all while Supercharging! https://t.co/zmbv6GfqKf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2025
But Optimus did not stay long, and was gone by December 2025.
Now, the robot is set to return with a more demanding job. Musk has ambitions for Optimus to take on a food runner role in 2026, delivering meals directly to cars at the Supercharger stalls. While the latest Gen 3 Optimus is likely to initially take on its previous popcorn-serving role, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Optimus to see a quick promotion. With improved hand dexterity that features 50 total actuators and 22 degrees of freedom per hand, and significantly more powerful processing through Tesla’s latest AI5 chip that includes Grok-powered voice interaction, Musk described Optimus at the Abundance Summit on March 12, 2026, as “by far the most advanced robot in the world, Nothing’s even close.”
Back to work
See you at Tesla Diner tomorrow pic.twitter.com/H3tTajrUbu
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) March 30, 2026
That confidence is backed by a major manufacturing shift. At the Q4 2025 earnings call in January, Musk announced Tesla would discontinue the Model S and Model X and convert those Fremont production lines to build Optimus. “It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end,” he said, calling for a pivot that reflects where the Tesla’s future lies.
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
Elon Musk calls out $2 trillion SpaceX IPO valuation as ‘BS’
