There were a number of notable events that transpired in the electric vehicle sector in the past few days. Tesla rolled out a minor $1,000 limited-time discount for the Model Y crossover until the end of February. And this Sunday, BMW, Volkswagen, and KIA aired their respective advertisements for the BMW i5, VW ID.Buzz, and the KIA EV9 at Super Bowl LVIII.
The Super Bowl is the United States’ biggest sporting event, reaching nearly 100 million people every year since Super Bowl 44 in 2010, as per ratings agency Nielsen. It is then no surprise that ad spots for the premier sporting event are sold at a premium, with Automotive News noting that a 30-second advertisement for this year’s Super Bowl costs about $7 million on average.
Now, $7 million is definitely not a small amount, but it does help a company reach 100 million people. That’s invaluable, and likely well worth it for automakers looking to highlight their electric vehicle offerings. This was evident in BMW’s star-studded ad with actor Christopher Walken, Volkswagen’s nostalgic advertisement for the ID.Buzz, and KIA’s heartwarming commercial for the EV9. And as per Wall Street veteran and Tesla bull Gary Black, Tesla could have easily benefitted from a Super Bowl ad this year.
At $7M for a 30 second Super Bowl ad, $TSLA would have to sell 875 incremental cars (@$8k gross profit per car) to justify the cost of the ad. And the follow up interest from TSLA paying for a Super Bowl ad would be huge. Instead $TSLA cuts price by $1,000 per Model Y in the US… https://t.co/ZrqxUpRCcB— Gary Black (@garyblack00) February 12, 2024
As explained by Black in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, a $7 million Super Bowl ad for Tesla would result in massive follow-up interest in the electric vehicle maker. Black also highlighted that at $7 million, Tesla would only have to sell 875 incremental cars at $8,000 gross profit per unit to justify the cost of a 30-second Super Bowl advertisement.
In comparison, Tesla’s $1,000 discount for the Model Y, which is generally unknown to conventional car buyers outside X and the EV community, will cost Tesla about $40 million, Black estimated. What’s worse is that avid Tesla critic Dan O’Dowd, who is on a crusade to ban Full Self-Driving on public roads, is paying for two Super Bowl ads. Thus, not only will Super Bowl viewers not see an ad supporting Tesla during the premier sporting event. They will instead see two ads encouraging them to boycott the company’s products.
Do you think @Tesla spending $7 million on a 30 second Super Bowl ad would be a good investment for the company?
Explain your reasoning below.— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 11, 2024
What is interesting is that Tesla has a ton of advertisements that could have worked for the Super Bowl as well. Tesla’s Cybertruck commercials alone would be very interesting, such as the company’s 60-second “all-features” ad or the vehicle’s dedicated Basecamp advertisement. One could even argue that some fan-made Tesla commercials that have been created by enthusiasts over the years are good enough for such an event.
It was thus unsurprising that numerous EV fans and TSLA investors supported Black’s suggestion. After all, a good number of car buyers are still very unfamiliar with Tesla’s vehicles, such as the fact that they start below $40,000, that they are the safest cars on the road, or that they are the most American-made, among others. This was quite evident in a poll that was posted on X which asked users if Tesla would benefit from a Super Bowl ad. While those who support and those who do not support the idea are pretty much equal, one cannot deny the fact that the voices calling for Tesla to advertise are getting notably louder.
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Check out BMW, Volkswagen, and KIA’s EV ads for Super Bowl LVIII below.
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Tesla just officially confirmed it has built its 10 millionth car, a major milestone for the company that started producing sustainable electric powertrains less than two decades ago.
In that time, Tesla has truly revolutionized the automotive industry, disrupting the idea of what a car should be, how it should be fueled, and how it truly impacts day-to-day life.
10 million vehicles produced globally.
Congrats to all Tesla teams! pic.twitter.com/JkcraR63bs— Tesla Manufacturing (@gigafactories) July 30, 2026
Tesla achieved this feat across four production facilities: the Fremont Factory in Fremont, California, Gigafactory Shanghai in China, Gigafactory Berlin in Germany, and Gigafactory Texas in Austin, Texas.
The 10 millionth vehicle was a Diamond Black Model Y.
Over the course of the past roughly 18 years, Tesla has evolved its lineup from a sporty sedan built on a Lotus body to a lineup of various body styles, performance metrics, and other characteristics that make each one unique.
This is an incredible achievement for a company that is young compared to what it goes up against. When Tesla entered the automotive market, Ford, GM, and Stellantis widely dominated the playing field. Since then, Tesla has caused such a disruption that these three massive brands had to scramble to create EV projects of their own.
Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to match the prowess or the effectiveness of Tesla. They are all reliant on Tesla’s charging infrastructure, their software is inferior, and their self-driving projects are elementary in comparison.
Tesla felt its fair share of growing pains over the years as well. As recent at 2019, there were complaints about build quality, paint quality, and overall luxuriousness. These things have all been improved upon through the company’s maturity, and these strides in quality have led to this 10 million vehicle production achievement, something that other small-and-scrappy EV makers will hope to accomplish one day.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
Elon Musk shed two new bits of detail on Starship following its 13th test launch, which was an overwhelming success.
SpaceX launched Starship for the 13th time last Friday after two delays: one on Monday when several Raptor engines did not ignite, and another on Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions in Starbase, Texas.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. SpaceX was able to complete a necessary test of the heat shield tiles by increasing the acceleration of Starship from launch throughout the flight; 20 Starlink v3 satellites were released with no issue; the Super Heavy Booster landed safely in the Gulf of America, Ship successfully reignited engines while in space; and it also splashed down without incident in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Nevertheless, more details are coming out about Starship, and Musk is doing the talking.
Starship Will Be Retrieved in the Ocean
Musk revealed on Tuesday night that Starship would be recovered by a ship in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX routinely tries to recover Starship after splashdown in an effort to find out more about the flight by examining the spacecraft afterward.
We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship https://t.co/fUqUZTITO9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2026
This helps engineers find out more about why things might have happened, allows them to examine any potential damage or anomalies that might have occurred, and increases the chances of an even more successful flight next time thanks to the additional information recovered.
Ship Could Have Been Caught by Tower Arms, Musk claims
Musk has already indicated that SpaceX will plan to attempt a catch of Starship with the 14th test flight. While this would be a major accomplishment, it would be an expected next step, considering the fact that the Super Heavy Booster has already been caught by the chopsticks on numerous occasions.
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms https://t.co/6nbNrRfX9P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
A ship catch would be a great indication of where SpaceX stands in terms of reusability and launch cadence. A successful catch with relatively no incidents would be a good sign that SpaceX is nearing a more frequent launch of Starship, but also that the reusability of the massive rocket would be something many would expect in the near future.
It is a necessity to make life multiplanetary.
Tesla just built it 10 millionth car
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
