News
Opinion: Tesla Autopilot NHTSA investigation headlines are out of control
There is a difference between slant and straight-up inaccuracy. Slant is unavoidable as it typically relies on a writer’s personal biases. Making connections that could be immediately debunked with the slightest modicum of research, however, is completely avoidable. This was exactly the case on Monday as a wave of negative Tesla news emerged following an announcement that the NHTSA is launching a formal investigation on Autopilot over 11 incidents that involved Teslas crashing into parked emergency vehicles.
The NHTSA Investigation
The NHTSA’s ODI Resume was very brief and direct. And while the agency did state that it would be evaluating Autopilot for Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y from model year 2014 to 2021, the NHTSA did note that its investigation would involve 11 incidents in the United States. These incidents resulted in 17 injuries and one fatality.
Tesla prides itself on being a company that focuses intently on the safety of its vehicles, and in this light, investigations that would make systems like Autopilot ultimately safer for the general public would likely be welcomed by the company. Elon Musk, after all, has posted in the past that he agrees with the NHTSA “99.9% of the time.” The Tesla CEO has also specified on Twitter that he thinks the “NHTSA is great.”
If one were to look at the coverage of the investigation in some mainstream media outlets, however, one would think that things are far more dire.
The Coverage and Missing Details
It is true that negative stories attract more eyeballs. This is something that has been true even before the days of online journalism. And in this landscape, a company led by a rebel CEO that no longer issues comments on issues is the perfect target. This could be seen in the headlines that immediately followed the NHTSA” s announcement. CNN’s headline, “Tesla is under investigation because its cars can’t stop hitting emergency vehicles,” is a great example of this. It’s sensationalist and it suggests that the issue being investigated by the NHTSA is something extremely grave. And this is just one outlet.
Other news outlets such as CNBC proceeded to feature Ford former Co-CEO Mark Fields, who proceeded to highlight that the NHTSA’s investigation covers Teslas from a large time period. Persistent Tesla bears were also featured for their take on the news despite their past accuracy on the EV maker.
Interestingly enough, one of the things that were not mentioned much (if at all) in the general coverage of the NHTSA Autopilot investigation was the state of the drivers in some of the incidents. As aggregated by some Tesla watchers online, a good number of the drivers in the 11 crashes were hardly the most attentive. Two incidents were deemed as DUI cases, for example, and one driver had a suspended license. Four cases involved driver inattention, with one incident having a driver who did not have their hands on the wheel for 3 minutes 41 seconds. The other four incidents have no police report readily available.
An Unrelated Incident
On the same day as the NHTSA announced its investigation, a Tesla Model 3 was involved in a car crash at a school parking lot in the UK, injuring six people. It did not take long before Reuters, citing a report from The Telegraph, ran with a headline which read “Six injured as self-driving Tesla crashes in school car park in Southern England – Telegraph.” Such a headline immediately raised red flags, the first being that no Teslas owned by consumers today are “self-driving” cars per se. They have advanced driver-assist features, but those still require constant attention.
This headline grabbed a lot of attention — that much was no surprise. What was unfortunate was that as it became clear that the Tesla involved in the incident could not be a “self-driving” car, Reuters proceeded to issue a retraction on the article, stating that it had updated the story to correct the headline and drop the “self-driving” reference. The publication, however, kept a section of the article which still stated that it remained to be seen if the Tesla that injured six people had a driver behind the wheel at the time of the incident.
The Perfect Target
Tesla is no stranger to negative reporting, and that’s to be expected. Some negative slant from a reporter covering news about the company is pretty understandable, after all. However, it becomes a bit more difficult to justify errors such as those committed by Reuters about the UK incident. Even a little research on the features of a Model 3 in Europe would show that there are no “self-driving” Teslas right now, after all, and narratives which seem to hint at rogue electric cars are ultimately just as fantastical as they are inaccurate.
This may not be Tesla’s first rodeo with false news, but it’s not like there is nothing that could be done. Tesla China, for example, has adopted an assertive external relations and legal campaign that pursues false reporting on Giga Shanghai, and it has worked to great effect. Whether a similar strategy would work in the United States is up for question, but there seems to be few reasons remaining why Tesla should just allow itself to be a punching bag for misinformation without even airing its side.
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News
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
NASA just gave SpaceX a $946 million contract for three more astronaut missions through 2030.
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification covering three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, according to an announcement the agency published Friday. The award adds Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, bringing the agreement’s total value to $5.92 billion across 17 flights.
SpaceX confirmed the award on X, writing that it was excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the Space Station from Florida. The new missions cover ground, launch, in orbit, and return operations, along with cargo transport and a lifeboat capability while docked at the station, and the period of performance runs through 2030.
We’re excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch @NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the @Space_Station from Florida https://t.co/Qm16vVK9F3 pic.twitter.com/drg3s7GtuM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2026
The award follows a notice of intent NASA issued in May, when the agency first signaled it would purchase up to six additional post certification missions from SpaceX. Teslarati covered that filing at the time, noting NASA cited technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing as a driving factor. Friday’s contract modification locks in three of those six missions, with the remaining three left open for NASA to award later, potentially to Boeing if Starliner clears certification.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not flown an operational crew rotation mission for NASA. The spacecraft’s most recent crewed test flight in 2024 ended without the astronauts returning aboard Starliner, and the company has spent the time since working through thruster problems. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said this week that SpaceX is not retiring Crew Dragon today, for sure, while stopping short of committing to fly it past 2030.
Crew-12 is currently docked at the space station, and NASA has said Crew-13 is targeting a launch in the coming weeks. The newly awarded Crew-15 through Crew-17 missions extend SpaceX’s role as NASA’s primary way of getting astronauts to and from orbit well into the back half of the decade, regardless of what happens with Starliner or Starship in the meantime.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
