News
Tesla says Autopilot was engaged during Model X fatal crash
Tesla recently released an update confirming that Autopilot was activated on the ill-fated Model X when the SUV crashed into a concrete barrier last Friday near Mountain View, CA.
According to the company’s update, the Model X’s Autopilot was engaged with the car’s adaptive cruise control set to minimum in the moments leading up to the crash. Tesla also noted that the Model X’s driver received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier on in the drive. The driver’s hands were not detected on the steering wheel for 6 seconds before the accident occurred as well.
Ultimately, Tesla stated that the driver of the ill-fated Model X had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider before the accident took place. Logs from the electric SUV, however, revealed that no action from the driver was taken.
Tesla also highlighted that the absence of a crash attenuator — a highway safety device designed to absorb the impact of a collision — was a key reason why the fatal Model X crash was so severe. Tesla noted that it has “never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash.”
As we noted in a previous report, the crash attenuator, better known as a crash cushion, was destroyed in a vehicular accident 11 days before the fatal Model X crash. This is in line with an image that Tesla provided on its first blog post about the incident, when the company showed a picture of the damaged crash cushion a day before the Model X’s collision.
Local news agency ABC7 News was able to get in touch with the driver of the vehicle that collided with the crash cushion 11 days before the Tesla accident. According to the news agency, the previous crash involved James Barboza, who was driving a 2010 Toyota Prius at 70 mph. Barboza walked away from the crash with lacerations on his face and complaints of pain all over his body. The Toyota Prius driver was eventually arrested for driving under the influence.
In a statement to ABC7, Steven Lawrence — a lawyer who specializes in highway safety — stated that the crash cushion, which could have saved the Model X driver’s life, should have been repaired long before the accident. According to Lawrence, 11 days is far too long to fix a crash cushion, especially in areas where the Model X accident took place.
“Some states have as short as a 3-day repair time for high traffic locations. And if you look at the material in California, this thing should have been repaired within a week. Again, there are a lot of questions about what happened and what went wrong, but it should have been repaired in under 11 days.” Lawrence said.
- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
- The aftermath of a fatal Tesla Model X accident. (Credit: Mercury News/Twitter)
- The aftermath of a fatal Tesla Model X accident. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
- The aftermath of a fatal Tesla Model X accident. (Credit: ABC News Radio/Twitter)
CalTrans issued a statement to the local news agency on Thursday, addressing the delay in its repair of the road safety device. While CalTrans admitted that the crash cushion should have been repaired within 7 days after the 2010 Prius collided with the crash attenuator, the agency noted that storms in the area delayed the repair.
“Once our Maintenance team has been notified, the Department’s goal is to repair or replace damaged guardrail or crash attenuators within 7 days or 5 business days, depending on weather. These are guidelines that our Maintenance staff follow.
“However, as in this case, storms can delay the fix. In this incident, as soon as maintenance was aware of the damaged attenuator, efforts were made to place cones or safety barricades at the site, and the replacement work was scheduled.”
As noted in a previous report, the Tesla Model X has a 5-star safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), due to its safety features such as its 12-airbag system and its huge crumple zone. Roughly 85,000 successful Autopilot trips have been done by Tesla owners in the same stretch of road as the ill-fated Model X since the driver-assist feature was introduced in 2015, with around 200 trips being conducted every day.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
News
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.





