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Tesla’s near-obsessive efforts to improve efficiency shown in new ventilated seat patent
It is no secret that Tesla’s electric vehicles are among the most efficient in the auto industry. This is shown in the gap between Tesla and its competitors when it comes to battery tech and just how far the company’s vehicles can last between charges.
The Model X, for example, is Tesla’s largest vehicle available today, yet it is far more efficient than competitors from veteran automakers such as the Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-PACE, both of which are smaller and newer than the Silicon Valley-based company’s flagship crossover. Part of this is likely due to Tesla’s proprietary battery chemistry, as well as the design and components of its vehicles themselves.
Tesla optimizes its vehicles’ efficiency in several ways, from equipping its cars with software that optimizes the battery pack to using materials that simply consume less power. The less power is consumed by the car’s systems, after all, the more power there is that could be used to turn the wheels of the vehicle.
An example of this is described in a recently-published patent titled “Vehicle Seat with Integrated Temperature-Control System.” Tesla notes in its patent that heated seats could easily be very inefficient, as they require heat to travel through multiple layers of material.
“Attempts to provide air ventilation through the seat foam are typically insufficient to remove excess heat and provide a comfortable environment for the occupant. Further, conventional heating systems are bulky, occupy space in the seat which typically requires the seat to be thicker, and are inefficient in heating the seat as the heat typically must travel through multiple layers and heats regions of the seat that the occupant does not contact. Hence, there is a need for an improved temperature-control system for vehicle seats,” Tesla noted.
The electric car maker describes how its ventilated seat patent works as follows.
“The temperature-control system is associated with at least one of a seating portion and a backrest portion of the seat. The temperature control system includes a base layer. The temperature-control system includes an intermediate layer disposed adjacent to the base layer. The intermediate layer allows fluid to flow through it. The temperature-control system includes a cover layer disposed adjacent to the intermediate layer. The temperature-control system also includes at least one heating element disposed between the intermediate layer and the cover layer. The temperature-control system further includes a fluid pump to provide the flow of fluid through the intermediate layer,” the company wrote.
Tesla explains that the design outlined in its patent provides a low-cost, low-noise, power-efficient, and effective way of cooling or heating a vehicle’s seats. The company also explained that its patent could be incorporated in any seat, regardless of size and shape.
Tesla’s patent for its “Vehicle Seat with Integrated Temperature-Control System” could be accessed in full here.
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Being a patent application, it is unknown if Tesla has or will utilize the design it described in the recently published document. Yet, regardless of this, it is difficult to not acknowledge the electric car maker’s constant efforts to improve its vehicles’ efficiency. In a way, the publication of this patent comes at a rather appropriate time for Tesla too, as the company is preparing to unveil its next vehicle, a pickup truck, later this year.
Pickup trucks are by tradition not the most efficient cars on the road, and even the Rivian R1T, a vehicle designed from the ground up to be all-electric, requires a massive 180 kWh battery pack to hit 400 miles of range. That’s a range that the Raven Tesla Model S is already approaching with its 100 kWh battery pack.
At this point in the EV race, it’s evident that the efficiency of Tesla’s electric cars is top-notch, and it will likely take a while before competitors can come close. Rivals will come for the company from several fronts, including veteran automakers and young, upstart manufacturers. But by being a moving target, it will likely be a very challenging task to catch up to Tesla. Very few companies out there could be just as dedicated and near-obsessive with improvement and innovation, after all.
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
