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Tesla Model 3 travels longest but deemed ‘least efficient’ in Polestar-backed study
The battle for the top of the midsize electric vehicle segment just got a bit spicier, as a Polestar-backed study recently deemed the Tesla Model 3 as the “least efficient” vehicle following a “real-world” test against two variants of the Polestar 2, the Audi e-tron, and the Jaguar I-PACE. The study came to this conclusion despite the Model 3 going the farthest distance while having the smallest battery pack.
The tests were conducted by FT Techno, an independent automotive research group based in Michigan whose services include vehicle evaluation like IIHS and NCAP standardization. As noted in a Jalopnik report, Polestar was actually the source of the study.
Polestar’s test aimed to determine the efficiency of five electric vehicles that are currently on sale in a setting that is equivalent to a “real-world” environment. This allowed FT Techno of America, LLC to examine and evaluate how much of a vehicle’s claimed range could be achieved during sustained highway speeds. The vehicles included a standard Polestar 2, a Polestar 2 with Performance Package, a Jaguar I-PACE, an Audi e-tron, and a Tesla Model 3 Performance.
The “real-world” test conducted by FT Techno involved the vehicles traveling at 70 mph on an oval track to mimic a road trip. Climate control was set at 72 degrees, and outside temperatures were at 85 degrees. Regenerative braking was disabled or changed to its least-aggressive setting for the purposes of the test, and each car was pushed until its battery was completely depleted.
As noted in a Roadshow report, the Audi e-tron was deemed “most efficient,” since the SUV was able to travel 187 miles before running out of charge, or 92% of its EPA range of 204 miles. Next in line was the standard Polestar 2, which was able to achieve 82% of its estimated EPA range of 250 miles by traveling 205 miles. Following was the Jaguar I-PACE, which was able to travel 188 miles before running out of battery, achieving 80% of its EPA range of 234 miles.
The Polestar 2 with Performance Package was able to achieve 79% of its estimated 250-mile EPA range, traveling 197 miles before running out of charge. At the bottom of the pile was the Tesla Model 3 Performance, which ran out of battery after 234 miles, or just 75% of its EPA range of 310 miles. With this in mind, the Polestar-backed study deemed the Model 3 the least efficient EV among the cars it evaluated.
Interestingly enough, FT Techno has not highlighted the miles per kWh for each vehicle, nor did the firm emphasize the distance traveled by the vehicles compared to the respective sizes of their battery packs. Both these factors could have skewed the test a bit towards the Model 3’s favor, considering that it has the smallest battery pack and it was still able to reach the farthest distance before its battery was fully drained.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Downdetector reports
Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.
As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.
Previous disruptions
Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.
In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.
News
Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards
The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.
Tesla emerged as one of the standout winners in the 2025 S&P Global Mobility Automotive Loyalty Awards, capturing top honors for customer retention and market conquest.
The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.
Tesla claims loyalty crown
According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla secured its 2025 “Overall Loyalty to Make” award following a late-year shift in consumer buying patterns. This marked the fourth consecutive year Tesla has received the honor. S&P Global Mobility’s annual analysis reviewed 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025, as noted in a press release.
In addition to overall loyalty, Tesla also earned the “Highest Conquest Percentage” award for the sixth consecutive year, highlighting the company’s continued ability to attract customers away from competing brands. This achievement is particularly notable given Tesla’s relatively small vehicle lineup, which is largely dominated by just two models: the Model 3 and Model Y.
Ethnic market strength and conquest
Tesla also captured top honors for “Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make,” a category that highlighted especially strong retention among Asian and Hispanic households. According to the analysis, Tesla achieved loyalty rates of 63.6% among Asian households and 61.9% among Hispanic households. These figures exceeded national averages.
S&P Global Mobility executives noted that loyalty margins across categories were exceptionally narrow in 2025, underscoring the significance of Tesla’s wins in an increasingly competitive market. Joe LaFeir, President of Mobility Business Solutions at S&P Global Mobility, shared his perspective on this year’s results.
“For 30 years, this analysis has provided a fact-based measure of brand health, and this year’s results are particularly telling. The data shows the market is not rewarding just one type of strategy. Instead, we see sustained, high-level performance from manufacturers with broad portfolios. In the current market, retaining customers remains a critical performance indicator for the industry,” LaFeir said.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is heading to jury trial
The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.
OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft will face a jury trial this spring after a federal judge rejected their efforts to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit, which accuses the artificial intelligence startup of abandoning its original nonprofit mission. The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.
As noted in a report from Bloomberg News, a federal judge in Oakland, California, ruled that OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft failed to show that Musk’s claims should be dismissed. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that while the evidence remains unclear, Musk has maintained that OpenAI “had a specific charitable purpose and that he attached two fundamental terms to it: that OpenAI be open source and that it would remain a nonprofit — purposes consistent with OpenAI’s charter and mission.”
Judge Gonzalez Rogers also rejected an argument by OpenAI suggesting that Musk’s use of an intermediary to donate $38 million in seed money to the company stripped him of legal standing. “Holding otherwise would significantly reduce the enforcement of a large swath of charitable trusts, contrary to the modern trend,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote.
The judge also declined to dismiss Musk’s fraud allegations, citing internal OpenAI communications from 2017 involving co-founder Greg Brockman. In an email cited by the judge, fellow OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis informed Musk that Brockman would “like to continue with the non-profit structure.”
Just two months later, however, Brockman wrote in a private note that he “cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t want to say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.”
Marc Toberoff, a member of Musk’s legal team, said Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling confirms that “there is substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Mr. Musk about its charitable mission that they never honored in favor of their personal self-enrichment.”
OpenAI, for its part, maintained that Musk’s legal efforts are baseless. In a statement, the AI startup said it is looking forward to the upcoming trial. “Mr. Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever,” OpenAI stated.
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards
