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Tesla chief Elon Musk reveals photo of tunnel boring machine

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While the rest of America is gearing up for Super Bowl Sunday, Elon Musk is tweeting about the tunnel project that has begun at SpaceX headquarters. The Tweet, posted late Friday night, shows a worker with a step ladder deep underground as the business end of a tunnel boring machine is being configured. There is but one word in the tweet, a typically cryptic, “Minecraft.”

Interestingly, there appears to be another completed  tunnel in the photo. The camera seems to be located in a vertical shaft which is presumably located somewhere on SpaceX property. Musk tweeted on January 26 that the first tunnel would be “Starting across from my desk at SpaceX. Crenshaw and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX.”

Musk shared during the recent Hyperloop Pod Comptition that the first tunnel had already been dug beneath Crenshaw Boulevard, which runs alongside  SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.”It’s right there, you can check it out. That’s going to be the hole for the tunnel boring machine.” said Musk. “We’re just going to figure out what it takes to improve tunneling speed.”

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The serial tech entrepreneur hasn’t offered many clues to why he suddenly is interested in digging tunnels, but one could presume that it might have something to do with constructing pathways for the Hyperloop transportation corridors of the future. Purchasing the land needed for new surface transportation infrastructure costs a lot of money. Boring underground could be quite inexpensive by contrast.

It may also be associated with the colonies Musk plans to build on Mars. The surface of that planet is inhospitable to human habitation. Creating a network of tunnels beneath the surface of the Red Planet could allow people to live there without ferrying building materials for external shelters from earth. Sending one boring machine to Mars could be a much less costly alternative.

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Elon Musk

Tesla seems to have fixed one of Full Self-Driving’s most annoying features

Tesla seems to have resolved an issue that many users of the Full Self-Driving suite complained about recently.

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Tesla's Cabin-facing camera is used to monitor driver attentiveness. (Credit: Andy Slye/YouTube)

Tesla seems to have listened to drivers and owners who complained about a very annoying feature that monitors the eyes of the vehicle operator while using the Full Self-Driving suite.

Earlier this month, owners complained that versions of Full Self-Driving Supervised were too quick to alert drivers of their eyes going off the road, which is required for operation.

Tesla to fix an FSD driver monitoring annoyance, Elon Musk hints

If you’re doing something as simple as adjusting HVAC settings or changing Autopilot speed offset, the cabin-facing camera would alert the driver that their eyes need to be on the road.

It was incredibly quick to warn you, and many argued that changing these features while the vehicle is using FSD is safer than doing it while operating the car manually.

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After several complaints, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he agreed with the fact that FSD would warn drivers so quickly. When a user on X noted that “I can’t even glance at the display to add a nav stop without getting yelled at” and stated it was what they hated most about FSD, Musk replied, “You’re right.”

Tesla is now rolling out a new update of the FSD suite with v13.2.9, which includes various improvements. One of which appears to be a less dramatic driver monitoring system, which includes perhaps a slightly longer grace period before it will alert you to look at the road.

Several owners are reporting they’ve noticed a change, with it being less restrictive than previously:

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Driver monitoring is very important, considering people do abuse FSD and its capabilities. It is important to pay attention, even if you are overwhelmingly confident in the abilities of FSD, because, in the event of an accident, Tesla will be the one to take the bad publicity for it.

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This is even if the driver is found liable for the accident.

However, from personal experience, the alerts it gave were slightly dramatic, and I felt that they were over the top. I was admonished by the driver monitoring system for simply adjusting the Autopilot speed offset.

Many owners welcome this change. FSD is being refined with every update, becoming more robust, accurate, and less naggy with its requests.

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Tesla details latest safety addition with new Model Y

Tesla’s newest safety feature isn’t even visible to the human eye when you get in the new Model Y

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Tesla has detailed the addition of its latest safety feature that comes standard with the new Model Y. It is a feature that has been in development for several years and aims to assist in saving lives while also enabling other safety features.

Within the past few years, Tesla has been developing an in-cabin radar that was aimed at detecting humans left in the vehicle that typical cameras would not detect. It was a feature that was initially developed to save the lives of children, who die a handful of times each year from being left in cabins without air conditioning.

Teslarati first reported on the development of an in-cabin radar system several years ago through Federal Communications Commission (FCC) documents, which showed Tesla was hoping to gain approval for a wave sensor that would detect heartbeats instead of relying on cameras.

Tesla safety tech takes giant step with FCC approval for wave sensor

The company has started using the in-cabin radar system with the new Model Y, which has been available in the U.S. for several months. Tesla has released the new Model Y Owner’s Manual online, which gives us a first-hand look at the details it released on the various advancements it has made with the newest version of the best-selling vehicle in the world.

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Credit: Tesla

As shown above, the Model Y’s new cabin radar is located above the rearview mirror and behind the ceiling gear shifter buttons.

Tesla describes its duties:

“Cabin radar can detect the presence of people inside the vehicle and use the measurements to determine occupancy. Cabin radar supports certain vehicle and safety features, including driver detection, seat occupancy, Occupant Classification System (OCS), and auto parking brake engagement.”

Interestingly, Tesla has added that it will be able to enable auto parking brake engagement, a great feature for when someone exits the vehicle. In the past, we knew it would handle driver and occupant protection, but we did not recognize its value as a way to enable a parking brake.

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Tesla’s Elon Musk clarifies shocking Optimus fact

Musk clarified that while Optimus is already impressive today, it is still very far from its planned final form.

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Credit: Tesla Optimus/X

This week has been a tour de force of Tesla Optimus demonstrations. But even with the humanoid robot’s already impressive capabilities, CEO Elon Musk dropped a comment that truly made Optimus even more exciting. 

Inasmuch as Optimus today is likely one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the industry, it is still nothing close to what Tesla really wants to create.

Optimus Demonstrations

Optimus’ demonstrations this week caught headlines because they showed the humanoid robot performing impressive dance moves. Initially, a video posted by Elon Musk on social media platform X showed Optimus dancing while being tethered to a cable. A follow up video upped the ante, with Optimus performing actual ballet moves without any support.

Comments from Tesla Vice President of Optimus (Tesla Bot) Milan Kovac revealed that the humanoid robot’s movements were fully learned in simulation and zero-shot transferred to real without extra training. Elon Musk later joked that he would be accompanied by a troupe of dancing Optimus robots at the 2024 Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Not Even Close

But in another follow-up comment on X, Musk clarified that while Optimus is already impressive today, it is still very far from its planned final form. This was quite surprising as the humanoid robot is already in initial production at the Fremont Factory. Even in its current state, Optimus also looks production-ready. Elon Musk even noted that Optimus robots are just walking around Tesla’s factories today around the clock, charging themselves as needed.

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Credit: @heydave7/X

With this in mind, one could wonder what Optimus’ final form could really be like. While the humanoid robot’s current iteration is already pretty sleek, perhaps Tesla is still developing Optimus until its appearance could mirror the robot’s static display model that the company showed off back in 2021. That Optimus model featured very human proportions and joints, making it look more like an android from a sci-fi flick than a humanoid robot with obvious mechanical parts.

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