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Tesla Model Y wins another award, this time for its utility for families

Credit: Tesla

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Tesla’s Model Y has won the AutoTrader award as the “Best Car for Families” for 2023, highlighting its utility as a great car for those with kids while also being an ideal choice for parents who want the latest and greatest in tech.

The Model Y boasts “everything that’s good about the hugely popular Model 3 and builds on it to make a fantastic family car.” A sibling of the Model 3 sedan, Tesla developed the Model Y with the mass-market mindset overwhelmingly present in the design.

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Taking advantage of the popular crossover market across several markets globally, the Model Y offered everything that the Model 3 had, just more cargo space, more utility, and a more ideal design for what consumers want.

AutoTrader highlights the Model Y’s best qualities, including its “minimalistic cabin, the show-stopping central touchscreen, the quirky and fun tech integration, the impressive battery range and the ‘effortless acceleration.’”

Tesla Model Y & Model 3 are popular choices for first-time EV buyers

Consumers seem to agree with the Model Y’s impressive sentiment and versatility as the vehicle has continued to climb up the ranks of the world’s best-selling vehicles since its introduction in 2020. As CEO Elon Musk said years ago, he expects the Model Y to be the best-selling car in the world.

This was accomplished in Q1, as sales figures showed Tesla sold 267,200 units of the Model Y through the first three months of the year. This was enough to best the mainstays on the list, like the Toyota RAV-4 and Corolla, which bested the Model Y last year.

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Tesla Model Y seemingly becomes world’s best-selling car in Q1 2023

Tesla Model Y vehicles start at $47,740 for the based version, while Long Range and Performance configurations start at $50,490 and $54,490, respectively. These prices are before any federal incentives are applied, which can take up to $7,500 off of the initial purchase price.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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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Tesla all but confirms that affordable Model Y is coming Tuesday

It does appear that October 7 would be the date when the world sees Tesla’s actual idea of what an affordable vehicle would be like.

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Tesla has released a cryptic teaser of a product that would be announced on Tuesday, October 7, 2025. Based on the company’s hint, it does appear that the product would be the affordable Model Y that has been spotted doing road tests across the country over the past months.

Affordable Model Y sightings

Last week, news emerged that a number of key Tesla influencers visited Gigafactory Texas for a private event. These included veteran Tesla YouTubers, car reviewers, influencers on X, and even a teardown expert who provided the initial insights on how to improve the original Model 3 sedan. At the same time, an uncovered unit of the apparent affordable Model Y was posted online. The vehicle was reportedly sighted close to Giga Texas. 

The new Model Y variant had some notable changes from the standard Model Y. Its fascia seemed inspired by the Model 3 sedan instead of the Cybertruck, and its roof seemed blacked out. Overall, it looked like a simpler Model Y designed to be offered at an affordable price. 

The weekend teasers

Teasers about an upcoming product were posted by Tesla’s official account on social media platform X, though the electric vehicle maker made it a point to keep things very vague. Initially, a closeup video of what appeared to be an aero wheel was posted, though it was vague enough that some speculated that it could be Elon Musk’s long-announced HVAC system instead. 

On Sunday, another teaser video was posted featuring the headlights of a new car. This brought speculations that the new Roadster might finally be announced. Inasmuch as a new Roadster unveiling would be exciting, however, it was evident that the headlights in the new teaser were a match to the uncovered affordable Model Y unit that was spotted close to Giga Texas a few days ago. With this in mind, it does appear that October 7 would be the date when the world sees Tesla’s actual idea of what an affordable vehicle would be like.

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Tesla releases cryptic teaser for something massive and it’s coming this week

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has released a cryptic teaser for something massive, and it will release details on it this week. With many different projects in the works, there is a lot of speculation going on about what it could potentially be, but we have a few ideas.

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

It then ends with “10/7,” meaning it will announce something on October 7, which is this Tuesday:

Given that Tesla has been working on a handful of pretty notable projects that are set for unveiling at the end of this year, and there are some clues that seem to point in their direction with this short teaser video.

There are two projects that come to mind almost immediately: the Tesla Roadster is one, and the “E41” or affordable model is the other. Here’s what we know about both:

Tesla Roadster Demo Event

Tesla said earlier this year that it would have a demo event for the Roadster to unveil some new technologies and show off what it has been working on over the past few years.

There have been a lot of crazy things in the works for the Roadster, including a SpaceX package that would use cold-gas thrusters for an insane 1.1-second 0-60 MPH acceleration rate. This package was also supposed to help it hover, something CEO Elon Musk has teased for the past few years.

The Roadster was ready for release earlier this year, but after Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and VP of Powertrain Lars Moravy showed Musk what they had come up with, he wanted more.

Moravy said on the Ride the Lightning podcast earlier this year:

“What we had come up with exceeded what we originally planned. So, Elon was like, ‘Wow, great. Let’s do more!'”

The Roadster event was coined as “the most epic demo,” and since it was planned for the end of 2025, it is totally feasible to believe this could be it.

Elon Musk teases Tesla’s “most epic demo” by end of year

Tesla ‘E41’ Affordable Model

Some believe the teaser could be the official launch of Tesla’s affordable model, which Musk said earlier this year is simply a stripped down Model Y.

There have been some sightings of this vehicle in the past few weeks, including one on Friday that showed the vehicle completely uncovered for the first time:

The launch of the affordable model makes sense, especially from a timing perspective. With the $7,500 EV tax credit officially coming to a close on September 30, many are wondering how Tesla will spark growth in its deliveries. A more affordable EV would be the perfect response, and it is something that Tesla has been working on for some time.

Other Potential Ideas

There are some pretty interesting ideas as to what the teaser could be apart from the Roadster or affordable model. Some believe it could be a cooling fan for a GPU cluster, which would make sense considering Tesla’s prowess in data.

Grok also made an interesting guess, stating it could be a propeller for a secret air taxi Tesla is developing. This seems sort of our of left field.

We do know Tesla hosted a handful of influencers at Gigafactory Texas this past week, so whatever the company showed them is likely what will be unveiled on Tuesday.

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Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts in new video teasing capabilities

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet.

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Credit: Elon Musk | X

Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts, a new video released by CEO Elon Musk shows, a crazy development and advancement in the robotics project the company has been working on for a few years.

Optimus has been a major focus of Tesla for the past several years, especially as Musk has said he believes it will be the biggest product of all time and could be the biggest contributor to the company’s valuation.

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet:

The video shows Optimus working with a Kung Fu teacher, known as a Shifu, going through what appears to be some sort of routine of combinations. It’s quite impressive to see the fluidity of the movements and Optimus’s ability to keep up with Shifu.

Tesla has been “working hard” to scale Optimus production, Musk said last week, a project that has obviously confronted both AI and manufacturing teams with a variety of challenges.

The plan is to have an annual production run-rate of one million units by 2030, and there were plans to build 5,000 units this year.

Elon Musk gives update on Tesla Optimus progress

Musk still believes Optimus will make up roughly 80 percent of Tesla’s value. In January, he said it would be “overwhelmingly the value of the company.”

Tesla plans to launch the Gen 3 version of Optimus soon, and although a video of a new-look prototype was released by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, the company’s frontman stated that this was not what the next-generation prototype would look like.

Elon Musk confirms Tesla has never shown Optimus V3 design yet

This video seems to show there is still significant progress being made on the Optimus project, and it will be perhaps one of the most impressive humanoid robots available to consumers in the coming years.

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