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Tesla Model 3 makes way for Jaguar as I-PACE secures World Car of the Year Award
The Jaguar I-PACE swept a new round of awards recently at the 2019 New York Auto Show. After a long deliberation, over 80 judges from 24 different countries dubbed the all-electric premium crossover SUV as the 2019 World Car of the Year, beating the Audi e-tron and the Volvo S60/V60 in the process. The I-PACE was also the winner of the World Car Design of the Year and World Green Car of the Year awards, adding to the vehicle’s ever-growing list of accolades.
The judges of the World Car of the Year award were notably impressed by the Jaguar I-PACE’s looks and its capability to mix a range of 292 miles WLTP (234 miles EPA) and a brisk 0-62 mph time of 4.5-seconds. Prof. Dr. Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover, received the award for the I-PACE, noting that the all-electric crossover is but the first step in the automaker’s journey towards a zero-emissions future.
“It is an honor that the Jaguar I-PACE has received such an accolade from the prestigious World Car jurors. We started with an ideal, to move towards our Destination Zero vision; zero emissions, zero accidents, and zero congestion. I-PACE is our first step to achieving this, and it was conceived when EVs were little more than a niche choice,” he said.
Notably absent in the World Car of the Year nominees for 2019 was an electric sedan that is disrupting the US and international market today: the Tesla Model 3. The World Car of the Year title requires nominated vehicles to be sold in at least five countries to be considered, and this is a requirement that the Model 3 did not meet.
It is then quite interesting to see the Audi e-tron qualifying for the award despite the vehicle’s status when nominees were being listed. The e-tron was listed as a nominee by AutoExpress.uk on September 14, 2018, a few days before the SUV was unveiled on September 18, 2018. Ars Technica, whose auto journalist Jonathan Gitlin was among this year’s judges, explained the Model 3’s absence in the 2019 World Car of the Year nominees, stating that the vehicle “went on sale too long ago to be considered for this year’s awards.”
The absence of the Model 3 in the nominees for the 2019 World Car of the Year does not mean that the awards program is biased against Tesla. Back in 2013, the Tesla Model S walked away with the World Green Car title, and in 2017, the Tesla Model X was a finalist in the same category, before losing to the Toyota Prius Prime.
With Tesla now focusing its Model 3 deliveries to the international markets, it will not be surprising if the electric sedan will make it as a nominee for 2020’s World Car of the Year awards. Perhaps, just like the Jaguar I-PACE, the Model 3 could even go further than its more expensive siblings, earning not only the World Green Car title, but the World Car of the Year trophy as well. With the Tesla Model 3’s shadow hovering over the international market’s electric car industry, next year’s awards will likely be very compelling.
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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.
Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.
🚨 Tesla is releasing v14 Lite for AI3 owners who are in early-access
This will give AI3 cars the ability to experience new FSD features like parking preferences. https://t.co/pp6Q5FOKoz pic.twitter.com/tqexMB8SVy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 29, 2026
It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:
- Start Self-Driving from Park
- Arrival and Parking Options
- Speed Profiles
The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.
Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.
Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.