Welcome to a FREE preview of our weekly exclusive! Each week our team goes ‘Beyond the News’ and handcrafts a special edition that includes our thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
You can receive this newsletter along with all of our other members-exclusive newsletters, become a premium member for just $3/month. Your support goes a long way for us behind the scenes! Thank you.
One week after its reveal, I’m not sure there’s much left to be said about Tesla’s first foray into the truck world. The specs are obviously impressive, and the design has mixed reviews with the predictable players taking their predictable positions. I hadn’t planned on talking much about Cybertruck in my weekly newsletter column since, at this point, literally everyone with something to say about it has done just that. But something has been bothering me about the discussion.
I don’t like the divide the Cybertruck’s design is creating, and I don’t blame Elon Musk or Tesla. I blame the part of the Tesla fan base that is responding very poorly to criticism of a product that was expected to draw that very same criticism.
On one end, there’s the steady Tesla crowd ready to buy anything the company produces that their budget can afford. On the other end, there’s the average consumer who is paying attention to what’s going on in the green car movement and imagining how one of the latest electric cars would fit their life and style. After all, the decision to buy a car has numerous factors (literally) driving it, and an electric car has even more factors built-in thanks to the fact that the industry is still new. For example, home charging isn’t an option for a lot of people, and filling up is already a chore when it takes 5 minutes, much less 30+ minutes at a Supercharger. There would need to be several reasons for the average consumer (read: someone that’s not part of the Tesla fan base or electric car crowd) to make the decision to buy one.
That being said, if someone doesn’t like Cybertruck’s design, they’re not going to want to buy it unless there’s literally no other vehicle that meets their needs and wants with a more appealing design. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with their opinion. It doesn’t mean they’re a boring person that’s part of a dying culture that will cease to exist in 50 years. It doesn’t mean Tesla will fail at their mission because its radical truck design doesn’t appeal to people that aren’t into radical truck designs. It just means that they don’t like it. Frankly, I don’t like it, either. I also didn’t expect to like it. I also expected to maybe like it but not want to ever buy it.
The Cybertruck isn’t just about thinking “outside the box” by creating a truck that looks like an odd box. It has a design that says something about the personality of the owner, and unlike a lot of conventional car designs, its message is overwhelming and distracting. If that’s your personality, great. If it’s not, great. Pushing this idea that if you don’t like the Cybertruck, or rather, you don’t like dystopian science fiction from the 80s and 90s, there’s something wrong with you… It’s feeding into a stereotype about electric cars that is annoying if not outright rude, dismissive, and very unhelpful for the green car movement.
Actually, what it starts to do is remind people (like me) of this long-term dystopian vision that they really really really don’t want that tech people are always pushing for as “cool” or “the unavoidable future.” Elon Musk might watch Blade Runner and love the designs it inspires, but I watch that movie and shudder to think of such an awful world to exist in. It’s one thing to like the artistic side of science fiction, but there are big glaring warnings about the worlds it represents. In Total Recall, for example, many like the whole Mars colonization thing it’s based on, but the back story is this company using mind control and manipulation while causing God-awful deformities in the people living there. Instead of focusing on that part, we wear shirts with “Get Your Ass to Mars” as a rallying cry for a mission to the red planet.
The inspiration to live on other worlds is something I love. What I don’t love is pushing the whole movie as the ideal future. That’s what I see in Cybertruck. I like it as a cool, movie-inspired design that will appeal to people who really like that style. I don’t like it as a representation of a full-on future that I have to like or I’m an idiot or a hater. In my opinion, throwing those types of stones at people who don’t like Cybertruck’s design feeds into the notion that if you’re not on board with the dystopian world it was inspired by, you have no place in the world’s future.
I like the Victorian touches of the mid-century A-frame I’m building, and the micro-controller watering and monitoring system I’m working on that will help with my gardening fuse the traditional with the new. I still don’t see a place for an angular, military-style truck in my driveway. It’s not my thing, and I really hope it stays as just a thing that some people like and not representative of a future that will dismantle my farm dreams in favor of robots vs. humans defending their right to live. Sheesh.
That’s one perspective the (typed) shouting matches about Cybertruck push. Another one is full of eye rolls and comments about Kool-Aid drinking. I honestly thought the point of the design was probably that Musk finally had the opportunity to do a vehicle that he knew would have a small market appeal but did it anyway because he just wanted to do it. He’d already done conventionally in the Model S, 3, and Y, pushed the limits a bit with the X and Semi, and was working on a sports car masterpiece with the next-gen Roadster.
I didn’t think that Cybertruck was supposed to upend Ford’s or Chevy’s or Toyota’s hold on pickups, so when that argument started making the rounds and doubters shouted down… I was surprised. If there’s one way to be seen as a “Tesla bro” or not be taken seriously by the very consumers you’re trying to win over, that’s it. Also, 250k people putting down $100 on a truck that they don’t have to fork over the full cash to buy for at least another couple of years doesn’t prove that the design is a mainstream hit, either. It’s an encouraging sign for sure, but not as encouraging as the 350k Model 3 reservations in that same one-week timeframe that required $1,000 to make.
In summary, the Cybertruck might win people over in the mainstream, and it might not. The specs combined with the gas savings might pull in commercial customers and start a new movement in that direction on a design level. It also might not. Tesla could just revise its design a bit while keeping the specs and appeal to a much broader base (which I’m hoping for), but it still might not.
Perhaps yelling at people that don’t like it that they’re dumb and have no taste might win them over eventually. It also might not. Being obnoxious about the Cybertruck to people on the fence about electric cars might cull a new consumer base.
But again, it might not.
Elon Musk
Tesla FSD is about to know your specific house and neighborhood better than any map
Tesla confirmed it is building a feature that lets you teach your car where to go.
Tesla is building a feature that will let drivers talk to their car in plain language and teach it exactly what to do, with the vehicle remembering those instructions for every future trip. Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy confirmed it this week on X after a user pointed out one of FSD’s most persistent real-world limitations is that the system has no way to receive contextual instructions the way a human driver would.
“FSD would be twice as useful in neighborhoods if I could actually talk to the car and tell it which driveway to pull into, the same way I would with a person driving me home. Right now, there isn’t really an input for telling Tesla what color the house is or giving it specific context like that. Google Maps is also notorious for putting pins on houses that aren’t actually yours.” Tesla owner Chris further noted, “It would be so cool if I could talk to the car while going down my street and say something like, ‘It’s the white house on the left, just past that SUV,’ and then have FSD remember that for next time.”
FSD would be twice as useful in neighborhoods if I could actually talk to the car and tell it which driveway to pull into, the same way I would with a person driving me home.
Right now, there isn’t really an input for telling Tesla what color the house is or giving it specific…
— Chris (@ChrissGPT) July 8, 2026
This feature would carry more weight than it might seem. Grok has been available inside Tesla vehicles since July 2025, expanded to European vehicles in February 2026, and gained a hands-free “Hey Grok” wake word with location-based reminders and natural-language navigation in the Spring 2026 update. But up to this point, Grok has had no authority over how FSD actually drives. Lane changes, braking, speed, and parking maneuvers remain entirely within FSD’s autonomous decision-making loop. What Elluswamy confirmed is that the next step pushes Grok into a supervisor role, one that translates spoken intent directly into driving decisions.
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
Elluswamy acknowledged at a January 2026 conference that while fully integrated voice control is on Tesla’s roadmap, “it opens up an entire area of testing that we have to do. For example, you shouldn’t be able to tell the car to crash, and it shouldn’t crash.” Elon Musk subsequently confirmed on June 23 that Grok voice commands will pass to FSD’s planning layer by September 2026, a three month timeline from confirmation to deployment.
The deeper significance is what this does for Tesla’s AI training flywheel. Every time an owner corrects FSD with a spoken instruction and the car learns and remembers it, that interaction becomes a data point covering an edge case that no simulation or scripted test could have generated. A fleet of millions of Tesla vehicles crowdsourcing hyper-local contextual knowledge, which driveway, which gate entrance, which side of the street, builds a layer of geographic and behavioral intelligence that competitors without a comparable fleet simply cannot replicate at the same speed or scale.
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla’s Cybercab and robotaxi operations have expanded to Miami following the Austin launch, with rider profiles already collecting preference data. Voice-taught contextual instructions linked to individual rider profiles means a Cybercab could eventually know before it arrives exactly which entrance to use, where to wait, and how to navigate the final hundred feet of any trip it has made before.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The Boring Company’s Prufrock MB2 is commissioned and ready to mine beneath Nashville’s streets.
The Boring Company’s second tunnel boring machine, Prufrock MB2, is officially ready to dig in Nashville. The company confirmed the news on X, posting: “Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here. Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start? And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August!”
MB2 arrives with meaningful improvements over its predecessor. Lessons learned from the launch and operation of MB1 have already been applied to MB2 to improve efficiency and prepare the machine for launch.
Traditional tunnel boring machines operate in a stop-and-go cycle, digging roughly five feet, halt, erect precast concrete segments to line the tunnel wall, then resume. That repeated interruption is one of the main reasons conventional tunneling is slow and expensive. Prufrock is designed to install the tunnel liner simultaneously with mining, eliminating the need to stop every five feet. The machine also skips the need for excavated launch pits. Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and launches into the ground within 24 hours. And when the tunnel is complete, it emerges from the ground and drives to its next launch site on a trailer, eliminating the need for expensive cranes or pit excavation. The machine is also fully electric and runs with zero people in the tunnel during normal operations, controlled remotely from a surface operations center.
Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here.
Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start?
And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August! pic.twitter.com/TTrMql2aRg
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) June 17, 2026
It won’t be long before we hear of another major update on The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project – a planned underground transit network beneath Nashville that would move passengers in electric vehicles through a series of tunnels at highway speeds, and bypassing surface traffic entirely. Nashville was selected in part because of its strong rock conditions that suits the Prufrock machines well, and relatively less regulatory hurdles.
Progress has been steady on multiple fronts. All 37 permits and approvals required ahead of tunneling have been obtained, out of 45 total. Key wins include a fully executed TDOT tunnel permit authorizing 25 miles of tunnel, unanimous airport authority approval for a Nashville International Airport station, and the city’s first residential station agreement serving downtown tower residents.
With MB1 already tunneling, MB2 now commissioned, and MB3 shipping in August, Nashville is becoming something of a live proving ground for scaled tunnel boring. The broader ambition is not limited to one city. The Boring Company’s stated goal is to make underground transportation a practical alternative to surface roads across major metro areas. Nashville is one of many cities, including a successful Las Vegas tunnel system, where that idea is being put to the test at real speed.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
Tesla confirms crucial detail of Miami Robotaxi launch
