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Nissan Leaf owner looks to buy Tesla Model 3 after battery invoice nightmare
A longtime Nissan Leaf owner and electric car enthusiast from Australia is looking to purchase a Tesla Model 3 for his next vehicle, following an unpleasant experience surrounding his present EV and a painfully large invoice for a battery replacement.
Canberra engineer Phillip Carlson has been a supporter of electric cars for a long time. This is why in August 2012, he took delivery of a first-generation 24 kWh Nissan Leaf, which he purchased for AU$53,500 (around $35,800). He enjoyed the vehicle and its electric propulsion, though he noticed that he was not getting the range advertised by the Japanese carmaker. Such was expected during winters, but even with regular use, it proved difficult to hit the vehicle’s rated 135 km (84 miles) of range.
Carlson submitted a series of complaints about his vehicle to his dealership over the Leaf’s warranty period, though he was periodically informed that there was nothing wrong with his car. Still, the range issues remained. By 2017, five years after the vehicle was bought, the Leaf was struggling to reach 60 km (37 miles) per charge. The EV enthusiast persisted in his complaints, and earlier this year, it appeared that the dealership finally looked into the issue seriously. “That was the first time they bothered looking at it after I complained so much,” he said in a statement to The Daily Mail Australia.
As it turned out, Carlson’s Leaf actually needed a battery replacement. The Nissan dealership then opted to address the issue, but for a very hefty price. The electric car advocate received an invoice for AU$33,385 (around $22,300) for a full battery replacement for his 7-year-old Leaf. The charge was quite cruel, especially since a 24 kWh first-generation Leaf could be acquired for just about AU$12,000 (around $8,000) in the second-hand Australian auto market.
In a statement to the Australian publication, a Nissan spokesperson stated that it is currently working with the Leaf owner to resolve his vehicle’s issues. As for Carlson, he believes that he should not be charged since his Leaf’s problems were not his fault. The EV enthusiast argued that much of his vehicle’s battery issues were due to Nissan’s design, which lacks ample cooling systems.
Yet, despite his unpleasant experience with his Leaf, Carlson stated that he has no intention of buying a non-electric vehicle. The engineer noted that his next car will definitely be all-electric — it just won’t be a Leaf. Instead, he is looking to purchase a Tesla Model 3, which has more range and has ample cooling for its hefty battery pack. Carlson is also more optimistic about Tesla as the company has extensive experience with electric cars and how they are evaluated and handled.
“Given my time again I’d prefer to hold off buying the Nissan and buy the new Tesla Model 3. Much better range, better support and built by a company that seems to actually care about customers and design their batteries to be (liquid)-cooled. That was the biggest problem with Nissan, even the new model Nissan Leaf still doesn’t water cool the battery,” Carlson said.
Nissan’s treatment of his vehicle’s issues might have been a nightmare, but ultimately, Carlson still considers the small, humble Leaf as a “fantastic” car. “Even as terrible as Nissan has treated me, the Nissan Leaf is still a fantastic car; it’s just that I can’t drive it very far anymore. Just to be clear, I am still a fan of electric vehicles but Nissan has done a terrible thing here,” he said.
H/T Glen Keating.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
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Tesla AI team burns the Christmas midnight oil by releasing FSD v14.2.2.1
The update was released just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla is burning the midnight oil this Christmas, with the Tesla AI team quietly rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2.1 just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla owner shares insights on FSD v14.2.2.1
Longtime Tesla owner and FSD tester @BLKMDL3 shared some insights following several drives with FSD v14.2.2.1 in rainy Los Angeles conditions with standing water and faded lane lines. He reported zero steering hesitation or stutter, confident lane changes, and maneuvers executed with precision that evoked the performance of Tesla’s driverless Robotaxis in Austin.
Parking performance impressed, with most spots nailed perfectly, including tight, sharp turns, in single attempts without shaky steering. One minor offset happened only due to another vehicle that was parked over the line, which FSD accommodated by a few extra inches. In rain that typically erases road markings, FSD visualized lanes and turn lines better than humans, positioning itself flawlessly when entering new streets as well.
“Took it up a dark, wet, and twisty canyon road up and down the hill tonight and it went very well as to be expected. Stayed centered in the lane, kept speed well and gives a confidence inspiring steering feel where it handles these curvy roads better than the majority of human drivers,” the Tesla owner wrote in a post on X.
Tesla’s FSD v14.2.2 update
Just a day before FSD v14.2.2.1’s release, Tesla rolled out FSD v14.2.2, which was focused on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing. According to the update’s release notes, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures.
New Arrival Options also allowed users to select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the ideal spot. Other refinements include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and Speed Profiles for customized driving styles.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
