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Tesla Model X fleet offering free rides to FIU students

Credit: FIU News

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Florida International University (FIU) students are riding in style, and for free too. As noted by the university in a recent post on its official website, FIU has partnered with transport company Freebee to provide its students with free rides in a Tesla Model X. 

Under the FIU and Freebee’s partnership, students would be able to take no-cost short-distance runs to and from MMC. The rides should help students who do not own vehicles, or at least those who wish to use their gas-guzzling cars less frequently. With the service in place, students could go grocery shopping, visit friends, or get back to the main campus very easily. 

The free Model X rides represent an improvement for FIU students. The university had previously provided a similar service, but it involved the use of open-air shuttles. The open-air shuttles did the job, but they also resulted in the students being exposed to unpredictable weather. With the Tesla Model X fleet, the students are better shielded from the weather.

Freebee would be operating a fleet of six Tesla Model Xs to serve FIU’s students. An image of some of the Model X used by the service shared by FIU suggests that the flagship all-electric crossovers were pre-refresh variants. 

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Tom Hartley, assistant vice president of Parking & Transportation at FIU, expressed his appreciation of the program. “The Tesla Freebee rides are great for our students. Not everybody has a car, and car ownership is expensive, especially in Miami. It is critical for us to help provide a community where you can live and work and not have to have a car,” Hartley said. 

The FIU’s free Model X rides are among the latest efforts that the university has adopted to promote clean transportation. The FIU Parking & Transportation team currently plans to replace some of its existing bus fleet with newer, greener vehicles. The university also installed a total of 16 electric vehicle charging stations available for the nominal fee of $1 per hour, as well as 11 cost-free tire inflation stations. 

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

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Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla analyst says Full Self-Driving is about to have its iPhone moment

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Credit: Tesla

A Tesla analyst believes the company’s Full Self-Driving suite is close to an “inflection point,” where people will finally realize that it is more than what it appears, similar to how many view the iPhone.

Pierre Ferragu, an analyst who has covered Tesla for many years at New Street Research, says the Full Self-Driving suite is one piece of evidence supporting the view that a Tesla is more than a car. He compared it to the iPhone and noted that the high price tag seemed like a lot for a phone early on. Then people realized the iPhone was more than just something you make calls with. It made their lives simpler.

Suddenly, that price tag was justified.

Tesla offers several models under the average transaction price for a new vehicle, which was above $49,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. However, that does not take into account that many people can still not afford a $35,000 vehicle. Ferragu offers his thoughts:

“Remember when the addressable market of the iPhone was 10 million units? Then people realized how good it was, and now, nearly 250m are sold every year.

A similar evolution for Tesla is still on the table. A Tesla is not a car, the same way an iPhone was not a phone.

A model 3 at $35k + $100 per month is too expensive for most, but only as a car, the same way a $600 iPhone was too expensive for most, until most realized it was much more than a phone.

As a tool that gets you to work peacefully every morning, it is not expensive.”

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This point is valid, especially considering the iPhone’s impact on the cell phone market. There are still a handful of players, but most people you know have an iPhone. The iPhone ties into Apple’s other ecosystem of products.

This is how Tesla plans to infiltrate the automotive market, and once the company offers a fully autonomous suite, or something that can allow for unsupervised self-driving, more and more people will flock to Tesla.

Ferragu believes Tesla needs two additional quarters of development before things will truly change. He didn’t elaborate on what will happen in two quarters, but he said it will give us all time to “see where this is heading.”

It is really quite interesting to see people’s reactions when they find out what a Tesla is capable of. Full Self-Driving is a great tool for taking stress out of travel; I use it daily, and it has made it really difficult to consider taking any other car on a drive of practically any length.

To me, it is really hard to believe that people will not at least seriously consider a Tesla as their next car if they experience Full Self-Driving. This is a major point for those who argue that Tesla should advertise in some way.

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Investor's Corner

NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope heads to orbit this August aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with massive scientific ambitions.

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SpaceX is set to play a central role in one of NASA’s most anticipated science missions in years. The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful operational launch vehicle in the world, will carry the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on August 30 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roman is now in final preparations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where on June 26 technicians used a crane to lift the observatory into a specialized stand for fueling and pre-launch testing.

Roman is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief of astronomy, whose career helped shape how the agency approaches space science.

NASA chose SpaceX Falcon Heavy because of Roman’s needs to reach a specific orbit far from Earth, well beyond where a standard Falcon 9 can deliver it. The Falcon Heavy, which first flew in 2018, has since become NASA’s go-to option for missions that need serious muscle without the cost and complexity of older launch systems.

Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)

Roman will carry a field of view at least 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning it can photograph enormous swaths of the universe in a single shot rather than the narrow slices Hubble captures. That difference in scale is significant. While Hubble reshaped our understanding of the cosmos over 30 years, Roman is built to work faster and wider, surveying hundreds of millions of galaxies at once.

One of Roman’s most compelling capabilities is its potential to discover and photograph planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, and with enough precision to directly image planets that would otherwise be lost. That means scientists could study the atmosphere and surface characteristics of distant worlds rather than simply confirming they exist. Combined with Roman’s sweeping field of view, the telescope could detect thousands of exoplanets, and some of those planets may be in habitable zones where liquid water could exist. No telescope currently in operation has this level of power and capability. That capability alone could change what we know about other worlds, and perhaps finally answer the question: are we the only intelligent lifeforms in existence? 

What Roman actually finds once it reaches orbit is an open question, and that is exactly what makes this launch worth watching.

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Tesla confirms crucial detail of Miami Robotaxi launch

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has confirmed a crucial detail of its Miami Robotaxi launch, stating that the fleet is operating on an Unsupervised basis, joining a few other cities where company employees do not watch over the vehicles from inside.

Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, confirmed the detail on X, answering a highly speculated question about the Robotaxi Service in Miami, which was launched on June 3:

The first launch of Robotaxi in Florida, Miami presents a unique opportunity for Tesla as it is operating the Unsupervised Robotaxi ride-hailing service in a major tourist hotspot in the Sunshine State. It also signals the suite will expand to other cities soon; many have requested Orlando, a heavy tourist spot with Disney and other resorts nearby, get access to the program soon as well.

Miami is getting a conservative rollout as well, just as Tesla has done with other cities. The initial geofence covers a compact 10–14 square mile zone in western Miami-Dade County, primarily West Miami extending toward Doral and Sweetwater. It is bounded roughly by SR-826 (Palmetto Expressway) to the north and US-41 (Tamiami Trail) to the south, excluding downtown Miami, Miami Beach, the airport, and most of Coral Gables.

Tesla has also been pretty slim on other details. For example, Tesla has not disclosed the exact fleet size, but field reports and license plate tracking indicate just two unsupervised Model Y vehicles were active on launch day, increasing to three within 48 hours.

According to The Road to Autonomy, a nearby staging lot near Miami International Airport holds dozens of Cybercabs alongside additional Model Y units, suggesting capacity for rapid scaling as demand and data collection grow.

The confirmation of Robotaxi being Unsupervised carries immense weight. It establishes that Tesla’s Miami Robotaxi operations run without human safety drivers or remote supervision, relying entirely on the company’s Full Self-Driving technology. Miami becomes the second major U.S. city after Austin to offer unsupervised Robotaxi rides from day one.

The move reflects rapid progress in Tesla’s AI efforts. Neural networks trained on vast real-world data now handle complex urban environments, including South Florida’s heavy traffic, pedestrians, and rainy conditions. Industry observers see it as validation of Tesla’s vision-centric, data-driven approach versus traditional rule-based systems; a truly unorthodox approach in this day and age.

Challenges remain, including regulatory oversight, public trust, and scaling the fleet to match geofence ambitions. Miami’s small initial footprint and limited vehicles highlight a deliberate, measured expansion strategy focused on safety and data gathering.

Nevertheless, the unsupervised confirmation marks a pivotal milestone. It showcases technical readiness and advances Tesla’s vision of transforming vehicles into autonomous revenue generators while reshaping urban mobility. For Miami users, driverless transportation has moved from concept to reality.

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