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Tesla Autopilot and Ford BlueCruise compared in brutally honest critique

Credit: Munro Live/YouTube

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Automotive teardown specialist Sandy Munro is a brutally honest veteran who tells things as they are. This is one of the reasons why he regularly criticizes Tesla for its vehicles’ inconsistent build quality, and, more recently, why he came away unimpressed after operating Ford’s upcoming BlueCruise driver assist system, which allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel in designated “blue zones” across the United States. 

Munro recently took a drive with Ford Driver Assist Technology Chief Engineer Chris Billman on a freeway, and immediately, the teardown expert and former Ford engineer noticed a number of interesting behaviors from the hands-free system. While he liked some of BlueCruise’s behaviors, Munro quickly observed that Ford’s advanced driver-assist suite could not take the off-ramp by itself. This made it quite different from the Autopilot that Munro has been using for some time now in his Tesla Model 3. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Munro soon learned that BlueCruise required manual interventions when navigating curves. And when these happened, the alerts prompting drivers to keep their hands on the wheel did not include loud, audible warnings. Manual interventions with BlueCruise were also required for basic maneuvers like lane changes, and Billman was quite unclear if Ford has any plans to expand the system’s driver-assist features to inner-city streets like Tesla’s FSD Beta. 

At the end of the trip, Munro concluded that Ford BlueCruise, at least in its current iteration, still has a lot of room to improve. The teardown expert highlighted that for Ford to make BlueCruise impressive, the veteran automaker must fix the system’s incapability to handle curves on the highways, even those that the company describes as “sharp curves.” Munro also noted that Ford needs to improve BlueCruise’s disengagements, which could be unclear to the driver. 

“I would suggest that the sweeping curve stuff, you need to address that. I think that would be something that you absolutely flat out would want to have, better than what you’ve got today. And the reason basically is that, um, you know I got a pension plan that I need to be fully funded. I guess I’ve been a little bit spoiled by watching what Tesla’s been doing with the Full Self-Driving Beta. That is really impressive, and I’m going to suggest that somehow, if you can get your hands on that and try it out, it’ll really help you understand what I was talking about as far as improvements are concerned,” Munro said. 

Interestingly enough, Ford has mounted a rather pointed strategy in promoting BlueCruise, which would be released for the Mustang Mach-E and the F-150 Lightning, with both CEO Jim Farley and Ford North America Product Communications director Mike Levine taking shots at Tesla’s Autopilot. Farley, for one, highlighted during BlueCruise’s announcement in April that the system was tested in the real world so that Ford’s customers “don’t have to,” and Levine is known to frequently mock FSD and Autopilot for its flaws while engaging in arguments with Tesla owners on Twitter. 

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Watch Sandy Munro’s take on Ford’s BlueCruise in the video below. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to tips@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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Elon Musk

Elon Musk weather update tips Tesla Roadster speculation into Plaid Mode

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.

For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.

However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.

“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”

Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”

With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.

FAA Airspace Restriction

The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.

Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges

Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.

Elon Admits High Winds

“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.

A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.

All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.

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Tesla snags $30B in fresh credit lines for expanding its biggest projects

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Credit: Grok

Tesla has secured $30 billion in fresh credit lines from Citibank and Wells Fargo in an effort to scale its biggest current projects.

Tesla agreed to a $20 billion three-year delayed-draw term loan facility from Citibank, it announced on Tuesday. Additionally, it signed a five-year, $8 billion revolving credit facility and a $2 billion, 364-day term credit facility with Wells Fargo.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it “may draw” from the $20 billion delayed-draw term “from time to time” and “no more than ten times during the 18 months following the closing date.” This loan matures on September 29, 2029.

The five-year revolving facility from Wells Fargo will also be accessed by Tesla “from time to time,” and will become due and payable on September 29, 2031. Tesla can request two separate one-year extensions.

On the $2 billion, 364-day revolving loan, it becomes due and payable on September 28, 2027. Tesla can also increase its additional commitments to an additional $4 billion across the Revolving Facilities. This would increase the total facilities to $14 billion. Tesla said it does not plan to utilize any of these loans in 2026.

Tesla plans to utilize the money to help prop up its ambitions to scale its biggest products, each of which is either in early launch phases or still in development. Of course, we’re talking about Cybercab and Semi, which have launched, and Optimus, which is still under heavy development and working toward initial release.

All three Tesla products have one thing in common: they’ve all required Tesla to build new manufacturing lines for them.

For the Semi, Tesla built a brand new factory in Sparks, Nevada, adjacent to the Tesla Gigafactory. For Optimus, Tesla sunset Model S and X production at the Fremont Factory, which brought an end to the two flagship models, thus creating manufacturing space for the humanoid robot. Finally, Cybercab is being built at Gigafactory Texas and officially entered production earlier this year.

Tesla Cybercab fleet doubles to well over 100 units

The cash will help Tesla bolster its finances for the continuing development of these products. Tesla said that it forecasts its CapEx to be over $25 billion, up from just over $8.5 billion last year. These loans surely help with that spending.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner

Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.

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Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.

A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.

Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.

SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center

 

Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.

The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.

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