Tesla has officially launched its design-refreshed Model Y “Juniper” for the Chinese market, and as many wonder when the electric vehicle (EV) will launch in North America, another has been spotted driving in California.
As captured in a video from X user Teslaconomics on Sunday, a covered Tesla Model Y “Juniper” was spotted driving in Santa Clara, California, following the company’s official launch of the EV in China on Thursday. In the video, you can see the vehicle’s front and rear bumpers covered with a wrap to hide the newly redesigned headlights and taillights, despite them having gone public with the recent launch.
The sighting comes as the latest U.S. sighting of the new Model Y, and the first since the newly refreshed vehicle went on sale in China. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to see the EV driving around the Bay Area, especially given Tesla’s engineering headquarters located in Palo Alto and its factory in Fremont, though it does add to speculation as to when the company will launch the vehicle in the U.S.
Some users also noted that it was interesting that Tesla continued to cover the vehicle up, since the design has already been revealed, though it likely would have created pretty substantial buzz if it had been spotted in the U.S. without any covering.
You can see the full video below, as posted by Teslaconomics.
BREAKING: I found the new Tesla Model Y in Silicon Valley, CA! pic.twitter.com/Xsf5DEk5M5
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) January 12, 2025
READ MORE ON TESLA’S REFRESHED MODEL Y: The Model Y ‘Juniper’ is not stalkless like the Model 3
Other Tesla Model Y ‘Juniper’ sightings in recent weeks
Multiple other covered Model Y vehicles were spotted in the Bay Area in the weeks leading up to the China launch, most recently including a sighting in Hayward, California, just days before the new year began. From the photos and video shared in that sighting, we were able to see the red light bar across the rear that had previously been rumored, along with hints as to the front light bar, both of which have now been revealed.
Credit: suppalatte | X
About a week prior to that, another covered version of the new Tesla Model Y was seen driving in San Mateo, again with the typical covering. In both appearances, the vehicles’ windows were heavily tinted, so we weren’t at the time able to see what the interior looked like. Yet another refreshed Model Y was seen driving in San Jose a little over a week earlier, initially giving viewers the idea that it may include the red light bar.
Others were spotted as far back as August, though they’ve definitely been seen with increasing frequency in the last several weeks.
Credit: zoomich_usa | X Credit: Y2KColin | X
When will Tesla launch the new Model Y in the U.S. and Canada?
It’s not yet clear when Tesla plans to launch the newly refreshed Model Y “Juniper” in the U.S., Canada or other markets, but the company could follow a similar pattern to its release of the refreshed Model 3 in late 2023 through last year. For that launch, Tesla first debuted the new Model 3—then dubbed the “Highland”— in European and Asian markets in 2023, before launching the redesign in the U.S. last January.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
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Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
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