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The recent headlines about Dyson’s abandoned efforts at making an electric car were probably music to the EV-doubter crowd’s ears. I assume this not so much because the Rolls Royce of vacuum companies had difficulty transitioning into a completely different industry, but because of the reason given for the shut down:
“However, though we have tried very hard throughout the development process we simply can no longer see a way to make it commercially viable.”
Sure, the jokes are funny. (“I guess they ‘sucked’ at making cars,” etc.) But the dissenters will point to this as yet another example of why the long-term prospects of EVs are overestimated by a long shot. No amount of regulations can fix the business-case and economic fact that there’s a huge cost obstacle to manufacturing battery-electric vehicles that can only bring the price down so much. Even Elon Musk has commented about this, saying something along the lines of how he doesn’t hate cheaper cars; they’re just not possible to make right now.
Quite possibly the biggest obstacles to widespread EV adoption is the affordability factor (the other being supply chain limiting production capability). While Tesla is obviously working on this aspect and some might argue they’re already there with a $35k Standard Range Model 3 (downgraded post-purchase), it really seems like it’s going to be an issue for a long time for companies other than Tesla. In other words, Tesla will probably figure out mass market, cheap cars way quicker than their competitors and stay ahead of the game for years if not decades. Is that a win for the movement, though?
To be perfectly honest, I’m a market principles person. My favorite part about Tesla (and SpaceX) was how a customer-driven approach was taken to revolutionize an industry (or two) after the government-driven approach had been wanting at best. The myths about EV ownership don’t exist in a vacuum (sorry, I had to). They came from a history of compliance EVs that were produced to merely meet requirements and not a bit of innovation more. For people that can’t afford a Tesla, it doesn’t matter that the company has achieved amazing things with their product. Their perspective is somewhat like scrolling through various celebrity Instagram accounts: How nice for them!
If Tesla wants to lead a movement of battery-powered vehicles on a global scale, someone has to be able to keep up. Right? Porsche seems to be on the right track, but they’re even less affordable than a Tesla and have always only sought to appeal to a niche luxury market. It seems to me that the issue is something beyond the tech itself, considering Tesla has “open sourced” its patents. What is it? What is driving huge companies with huge resources to fail at even creating a Tesla-level vehicle circa 2012?
I do think it’s a bit lazy to blame it on oil profits. If EVs made as much business sense for those “gasoline/diesel-centered” companies as it does for Tesla, they’d convert in a heartbeat. That’s the bit about markets that you can usually rely on. If there’s money to gain, there are players waiting to cash in. Also, there will be a market for oil companies for a long time due to manufacturing needs, and their investors are perfectly willing to diversify their portfolios with other things that make good money.
Or maybe that’s it in itself? Once Tesla has the cost-ratio figured out, the other players will follow along and start investing serious money in repeating that success. But what if that’s not it? How committed can Tesla be to its own movement if no one can catch up? Do others need to catch up? Will “good enough” be enough for global EV adoption with Tesla always representing the luxury segment of the market?
Elon Musk
Tesla’s golden era is no longer a tagline
Tesla “golden era” teaser video highlights the future of transportation and why car ownership itself may be the next thing to change.
The golden age of autonomous ridesharing is arriving, and Tesla is making sure we can all picture a future that looks like the future. A recent teaser posted to X shows a Cybercab parked outside a home, and with a clear message that your everyday life may soon look like this when the driverless vehicles shows up at your door.
Tesla has begun the rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the production of its dedicated, fully-autonomous Cybercab vehicle. The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas assembly line on February 17, 2026, with volume production now targeted for this month. Additionally, the Robotaxi service built around it is already running, without human drivers, in US cities.
Tesla Cybercab production ignites with 60 units spotted at Giga Texas
The Cybercab is built without a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors, designed from the ground up for unsupervised autonomous operation. Musk described the manufacturing approach as closer to consumer electronics than traditional car production, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds at full scale.
Drone footage from April 13, 2026 captured over 50 Cybercab units on the Giga Texas campus, with several clustered near the crash testing facility. Musk has noted that Tesla plans to sell the Cybercab to consumers for under $30,000, and owners will be able to add their vehicles to the Tesla robotaxi network when not in personal use, potentially generating income to offset the vehicle’s purchase cost. That model changes the math on vehicle ownership in a meaningful way, making a car something closer to a depreciating asset that can also earn by paying itself off and generate a profit.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call, the company confirmed plans to expand the Robotaxi program to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. The service already runs without safety drivers in Austin, and public road testing of the Cybercab has expanded to five states, including California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
Golden era pic.twitter.com/AS6pX2dK8N
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) April 16, 2026
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Tesla is pushing Robotaxi features to owner cars with Spring Update
