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Tesla confessions: The Model Y is looking better and better the closer it is to production
Note: I don’t usually do personal op-eds, but I’m making an exception this time around. This story may be well worth the read, at least for those who have had the same experience.
I was at Porsche’s 2019 Annual Press Conference in Stuttgart when Tesla unveiled the Model Y. I was dead tired from the day’s activities, but considering that the all-important Model Y was being unveiled that day, I opted to just chuck an extra cup of coffee and pull an all-nighter instead. After all, the Model Y is arguably the EV that can very well make Tesla into a household name. It’s got the price, it’s competing in the crossover segment, and it’s coming at a time when Tesla wasn’t hanging by a thread anymore. And so, I waited, overdosed with caffeine, for the vehicle’s unveiling.
The event started off normal enough. I fired up my word processor and prepared to write. Elon Musk provided a compelling narrative about Tesla’s journey from the Roadster to the present, even bringing out the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 onstage. Then, at the end of the unveiling event, almost seemingly as an afterthought, Musk brought out the Model Y. Out then comes a vehicle that looks nearly identical to a Model 3. In the darkened stage the two were almost indistinguishable from each other. It’s slightly taller, and it was chrome deleted, but that’s about it. Then, following a very brief discussion of its specs and its estimated release date, the Model Y’s unveiling event was done.
Needless to say, I was a bit underwhelmed. I’ve been following the Model Y story for years, and amidst all this excitement for the vehicle, it turned out to be this chunkier Model 3. Other journalists on my bus who also attended the Porsche press conference the following morning felt the same. Jokes were thrown around. “It’s a fat Model 3.” “Why, Model Y?” Even I, the conference’s token reporter from the “obviously pro-Tesla website,” couldn’t really “defend” the Y’s design that much. It’s not like I could say a much. It’s really just a bigger Model 3.
That was months ago. Since then, there have been an increasing number of Model Y sightings across the United States. Bob Lutz has called the Y a “terminally ugly” vehicle, even adding that he doesn’t really know how anyone can buy the Model Y. Yet, amidst all these sightings, and as reports from Tesla indicated that the Model Y might be starting production earlier than expected, something happened. Little by little, the Model Y started to look good — really good. And it doesn’t seem to be just me either. Comments on YouTube videos, Twitter posts, and Reddit threads showed that the Tesla community was warming up to the Y’s very Model 3-esque design.
This became even more evident when the size of the Y became evident. As it turns out, the Model Y seems to be a good deal larger than the Model 3, with some Tesla community members who have personally seen the vehicle stating that the crossover is actually pretty close in size to the Model X, Tesla’s largest vehicle before the massive Cybertruck. The Model Y also looked very attractive with its Gemini Wheels, which appear to be installed in release candidates of its Performance variant. A recent sighting of a white Performance Model Y from StevenMConroy depicts this very well.
Elon Musk has stated that the Model Y has the potential to outsell the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 combined. That’s a statement that sounds hyper-ambitious in a classic Elon Musk kind of way, but it’s feasible. The crossover market is vast, and it’s growing by the year. Combined with its trademark Tesla performance and its reasonable price, the Model Y has a ton of potential. It may have been an acquired taste for the Tesla community or people like me, but for the everyday car buyer, the Model Y may simply be this futuristic crossover that’s cheap to run, blazingly quick, spacious, and surprisingly reasonable in price. That’s a pretty difficult combination to beat.
There were a lot of criticisms that were thrown at the Model Y when it was unveiled, and a lot of it was due to its design. The TSLAQ group on Twitter actually insisted that there was no Model Y at all, and that the vehicle that Tesla unveiled was just a raised Model 3. But then, as the Model Y closes in on its first production, and as more and more release candidates start getting spotted on the road, it is starting to appear that perhaps, just perhaps, Tesla knew what it was doing when it decided on the crossover’s design. The Model Y may not incite the same excitement as the next-gen Roadster or have the same shock value as the Cybertruck, but perhaps, it doesn’t really need to.
It just needs to be. And for all-electric crossovers that are designed to be disruptive, that’s potentially enough. It certainly is for me.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
SpaceX joins the Golden Dome software group, deepening its role in America’s most expensive defense program.
SpaceX has joined a nine-company group developing the core operating software for the Golden Dome, America’s next-generation missile defense system. According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX is focused on integrating satellite communications for military operations and is working alongside eight other defense and artificial intelligence companies, including Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, and Aalyria Technologies, to build software connecting missile defense capabilities.
The Golden Dome concept dates back to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Armed Forces to construct the system before the end of his term. The system is planned to employ a constellation of thousands of satellites equipped with interceptors, with data centers in space providing automated control through an AI network.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome initiative, has described the software layer as a “glue layer” that would enable officers to manage and control radars, sensors, and missile batteries across services. The consortium is aiming to test the platform this summer.
Trump selected a design in May 2025 with a $175 billion price tag, expected to be operational by the end of his term in 2029, though the Congressional Budget Office projected the cost could reach $831 billion over two decades.
The Golden Dome role is only the latest in a string of military wins for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million task order on April 1, 2026 to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, covering two Falcon 9 launches beginning in Q3 2027. That came on top of more than $22 billion in government contracts held by SpaceX as of 2024, per CEO Gwynne Shotwell, spanning NASA resupply missions, classified intelligence satellites through its Starshield program, and military broadband.
The accumulation of defense contracts, now including a seat at the table on the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history, positions SpaceX as the dominant infrastructure provider for American national security in space. With a SpaceX IPO still on the horizon, each new contract adds weight to what is already one of the most consequential companies in aerospace history, raising real questions about how much of America’s defense architecture will depend on a single private operator before it ever trades publicly.
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Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
