Tesla is reportedly revamping the Model 3 in a new project code-named “Highland.” In all honesty, it’s about time.
The Model 3 is arguably the most crucial vehicle in Tesla’s history. Before the Model 3, Tesla was confined to expensive, luxury vehicles with the Model S and Model X. While every day, and “average” people wanted to embark on the journey of owning and driving an electric car, very few in this category could ideally and logically afford Tesla’s first two commercial releases.
In mid-2017, the Model 3 rolled off Fremont production lines for the first time, and by 2019, the Model 3 was a regularly spotted EV in areas where EVs were few and far between. I am in York County, PA, and here, before the Model 3, the BMW i3 was all I really saw. Sometimes an e-Golf or Bolt EV would appear, but EVs didn’t become a regular sighting in South Central Pennsylvania until 2019 or 2020.
Small-town America is what truly encapsulates this country. I may be biased, but after spending time in big cities and small towns, there is no doubt, to me at least, that low-population towns are where true humankind is observed. Here is where tech tends to arrive much later than the hubs of American ingenuity. iPhones were rare in my high school of 1,000 people until 2011. Everyone drove a car from the 90s, for the most part. When I started writing about electric cars in 2019, many people I told didn’t realize EVs were truly in existence. Many believed they still needed gas to operate.
The Model 3 truly changed that narrative in my area. Since then, I’ve seen more EVs in general in my area, and it is not uncommon to see 5-6 different EV manufacturers in a 20-minute drive to the store.
Tesla truly catapulted EVs to what they are today, hate them or love them, they cannot be discredited. The Model 3 made EVs such a mainstream idea, that it may be somewhat of a sentimental design to some. However, feelings aside, it is time the car gets an upgrade.
According to a report from Reuters earlier today, Tesla is planning to revamp the Model 3’s most crucial features, including its interior and infotainment system. In my opinion, these things deserve upgrades because, simply put, they’re old.
Interior Update
Internally, Tesla’s infotainment is always up-to-date. However, an improved center screen with more intuitive designs, a high-quality and crystal-clear 5K monitor that could support gaming is the first idea. The center screen is oriented differently than the Model S and Model 3. It is a good size, but it is definitely time for Tesla to increase the quality of this monitor.
Interiors are a completely subjective topic, but I have personally felt minimalistic interiors are not a better option. Personally, I have found that touchscreens are not a less distracting option than knobs or buttons. Yes, knobs and buttons are clanky and can become invasive when they are placed too prominently on a dashboard. However, scrolling through a series of different screens to turn the air conditioning up or down a few degrees is more of a task than it should be.
Credit: Tesla
What about the exterior?
Tesla hasn’t done much to change the look of the Model 3 from the outside for several years. Some might call chrome delete a major change, but it truly wasn’t monumental. To me, it only helped me recognize which Model 3s were newer than others in my area.
How much can you truly change the design of a vehicle before it becomes something else entirely? Honda has made the Civic for decades, and the 2022 versions are vastly different from even the models of ten years ago. I’m not sure how the Tesla community would take significant changes in the Model 3 design; it might be too mainstream of an idea. Tesla hasn’t done much to the Model S other than modernizing its front bumper and moving away from the old nose cone. For the most part, that car has stayed the same too.
(Photo: Ma. Claribelle Deveza)
Why the Model 3 deserves an update
The Model 3 was more than a catalyst for Tesla’s domination in the EV sector. It deserves to be updated and kept fresh for new owners, and it will only increase the possibility that people will return to Tesla for their next vehicle. I don’t know if I would ever drive a vehicle for a few years and then want to buy something that looks exactly the same on the inside and out.
Although the Model Y has overtaken the Model 3 as Tesla’s best-seller, some consumers may enjoy driving a sedan but will want an entirely new look in their next car. An update to the Model 3 is just what Tesla can do to keep things moving and fresh within the company’s most important product.
News
Lucid unveils Lunar Robotaxi in bid to challenge Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race
Lucid’s Lunar robotaxi is gunning for Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race
![Lucid Lunar robotaxi concept [Credit: Rendering by TESLARATI]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/lucid-lunar-robotaxi-concept-teslarati-rendering.jpg)
Lucid Group pulled back the curtain on its purpose-built autonomous robotaxi platform dubbed the Lunar Concept. Announced at its New York investor day event, Lunar is arguably the company’s most ambitious concept yet, and a direct line of sight toward the autonomous ride haling market that Tesla looks to control.
At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.
A comparison to Tesla’s Cybercab is unavoidable. The concept of a Tesla robotaxi was first introduced by Elon Musk back in April 2019 during an event dubbed “Autonomy Day,” where he envisioned a network of self-driving Tesla vehicles transporting passengers while not in use by their owners. That vision took another major step in October 2024 when, Musk unveiled the Cybercab at the Tesla “We, Robot” event held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 concept Cybercabs autonomously drove around the studio lot giving rides to attendees.
Fast forward to today, and Tesla’s ambitions are finally materializing, but not without friction. As we recently reported, the Cybercab is being spotted with increasing frequency on public roads and across the grounds of Gigafactory Texas, suggesting that the company’s road testing and validation program is ramping meaningfully ahead of mass production. Tesla already operates a small scale robotaxi service in Austin using supervised Model Ys, but the Cybercab is designed from the ground up for high-volume, low-cost production, with Musk stating an eventual goal of producing one vehicle every 10 seconds.
At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.
Into this landscape steps Lucid’s Lunar. Built on the company’s all-new Midsize EV platform, which will also underpin consumer SUVs starting below $50,000. The Lunar mirrors the Cybercab’s core philosophy of having two seats, no driver controls, and a focus on fleet economics. The platform introduces Lucid’s redesigned Atlas electric drive unit, engineered to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper to manufacture at scale.
Unlike Tesla’s strategy of building its own ride hailing network from scratch, Lucid is partnering with Uber. The companies are said to be in advanced discussions to deploy Midsize platform vehicles at large scale, with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi publicly backing Lucid’s engineering credentials and autonomous-ready architecture.
In the investor day event, Lucid also outlined a recurring software revenue model, with an in-vehicle AI assistant and monthly autonomous driving subscriptions priced between $69 and $199. This can be seen as a nod to the software revenue stream that Tesla has long championed with its Full Self-Driving subscription.
Tesla’s Cybercab is targeting a price point below $30k and with operating costs as low as 20 cents per mile. But with regulatory hurdles still ahead, the window for competition is open. Lucid’s Lunar may not have a launch date yet, but it arrives at a pivotal moment, and when the robotaxi race is no longer viewed as hypothetical. Rather, every serious EV player needs to come to bat on the same plate that Tesla has had countless practice swings on over the last seven years.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
![Lucid Lunar robotaxi concept [Credit: Rendering by TESLARATI]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/lucid-lunar-robotaxi-concept-teslarati-rendering-80x80.jpg)
Lucid unveils Lunar Robotaxi in bid to challenge Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
