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Tesla Model 3 faces Porsche 911 Carrera S in a gauntlet of intense races and tests

Credit: YouTube/carwow

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Teslas have been matched up with their high-performance gas-powered counterparts for a long time. In the latest test, the Model 3 Performance was pegged against the Porsche 911 Carrera S in three different quarter-mile drag races, a pair of “rolling start” races, and a brake test.

Comparing the two as far as specifications show, they should be pretty evenly matched on paper. The Model 3 Dual-Motor All-Wheel Drive Performance sports two electric motors and a 3.2 second 0-60 MPH time. The Rear-Wheel Drive 911 Carrera S, on the other hand, packs a 450hp, 3.0-liter 6-cylinder engine with a 0-60 MPH time of 3.5 seconds.

The test was performed by automotive YouTube channel carwow. It began with the three separate quarter-mile drag races, where the Model 3 won the first by completing the race in 11.8 seconds. The 911 Carerra S took 12.1 seconds to complete the race, narrowly losing to its electric counterpart.

However, the following two races would be won by the Porsche that completed the quarter-mile in 11.5 and 11.7 seconds. The Model 3 hit the 11.8-second mark in all three races, showing consistency in its performance.

The next two races required both vehicles to be rolling at 50 MPH and the first to reach 110 MPH would be considered the victor. The Model 3 Performance managed to win both of these races due to its exceptional acceleration rate. The Porsche was only able to surpass the Tesla when the vehicles were reaching speeds that were exceeding 125 MPH because the 911 Carrera S simply holds a higher top speed of 200 MPH. The Model 3 tops out at 162 MPH.

Finally, the two vehicles competed in a brake test to determine the car that could stop the quickest when traveling fast. The two drivers agreed to drive at 70 MPH and when each car crossed the finish line, the drivers would show the vehicles down until they reached a complete stop.

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The results of this test were the toughest to judge as both cars stopped at almost identical distances. This indicates the Model 3’s braking system performs as well as a flagship high-performance vehicle. Interestingly enough, the Model 3’s braking performance was criticized by Consumer Reports in 2018. Tesla has evidently improved in the past two years as the car stopped in a safe and controlled fashion.

The six tests showed the two vehicles were pretty similar in performance measurements. With the braking assessment being a tie, the Tesla won 3-2 in the six tests and proved to be the superior vehicle. The Tesla Model 3 Performance is also half of the cost, only setting customers back $56,990, while the Coupe variant of the 911 Carrera S runs for $113,300.

The Model 3 has regularly outperformed some of the most notable performance cars in the world, including the Lamborghini Huracan and the Ferrari F12. The winning track record of the Model 3 shows great performance does not have to cost six-figures, nor does it have to come from an internal combustion engine.

You can watch carwow‘s tests between the Model 3 Performance and 911 Carrera S below.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion

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Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.

Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”

The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.


The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.

Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.

Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15

Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.

Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig

Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”


The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.

This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.

What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.

That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.

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Elon Musk

Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production

Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.

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Concept rendering of Tesla Optimus in mass production

Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.

Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.

Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.

New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point

Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.

Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.

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