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Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot

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Tesla Model 3 takes a 45-minute joyride on Autopilot with no intervention

Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot (Credit: Cf Tesla via YouTube)

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The current iterations of Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot hint that the company’s plans for a Full-Self Driving Robotaxi future may not be that far away.

As Model 3 owner and YouTube channel host Cf Tesla shows, Autopilot doesn’t have a lot of trouble driving through 8 miles of city streets and three highways with zero intervention from the driver. Autopilot took over the steering wheel for a whole 45 minutes and 20 seconds before the driver had to take over. Cf Tesla’s Model 3 comes with the Full Self-Driving package and was in Mad Max mode during testing.

A closer look at the video shows the car drove smoothly through city streets for the first 16 minutes. During the time, the driver used the turn signal, telling the car to make a lane change, which it did on its own. Later, 22 minutes in, the car made a sharp 90-degree into the highway and had no problems navigating the freeway and taking the off-ramp as it exited into a second highway with Tesla’s driving-assist feature.

The experience was similar during the drive through the second and third highways. He noticed a few minor glitches, none of which made a difference in the driving experience. Cf Tesla says the car sometimes makes a lane change even if there’s no car in front of it and then goes back to the previous lane. The car also turns its blinker on when passing an exit, which may be attributed to a flaw in the mapping system.

Although it was not full self-driving since the car didn’t have to navigate a roundabout or stop at a stoplight, going 45 minutes on Autopilot without the driver having to do anything except for making a command to change lanes signifies that Tesla may be another step closer to a real autonomous driving experience.

“There’s so much to go in terms of actually being full self-driving, but come on, 45 minutes? That’s a long time to go without having to actually steer or use the brake or the accelerator myself, blinkers, all of that. That’s pretty cool. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to a full self-driving car,” says Cf Tesla.

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At Tesla’s Q3 2019 earnings call, Elon Musk predicted that Tesla will be releasing a feature-complete FSD suite to members of its early access program by the end of 2019. Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD will be able to recognize stop signs, stoplights, and other road markings encountered during city driving. Musk clarified that while a feature-complete FSD will be able to drive the car from one destination to the other without the driver having to intervene, the driver will still be required to keep a close eye on the car.

“So it will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive—it will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy—low-speed autonomy with Summon,” Musk said. “You’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway and intermediate speed autonomy, which really just means traffic lights and stop signs.”

When asked earlier this year when a feature-complete FSD is coming out, the Tesla chief only had one word to say: “Soon.”

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Cybertruck

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

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“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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EVgo taps Tesla Superchargers for mass charging expansion

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Credit: EVgo

EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.

EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.

The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.

The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.

Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.

Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.

The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.

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