News
Tesla-owning Officer convinces Sheriff’s Office a Model Y would be perfect fit
Sergeant Clay Leak of the Boulder, Colorado Sheriff’s Office has several Teslas in his garage, but one at his job would have been a cherry on top. After a few months of diligence, Sgt. Leak has a Model Y in his Boulder Sheriff’s Office fleet, making it the latest force to introduce all-electric power into its law enforcement efforts.
It was a long process, Leak told Teslarati in an interview earlier this month. It took a lot of work, and it took a lot of phone calls, but eventually, things worked out as they should have. “I did a bunch of research by reading a bunch of articles, then reaching out to talk to agencies that I could get ahold of who had Teslas in their fleet,” Leak told us. He started with the Fremont, Westport, Bargersville, and Hastings-on-Hudson Departments, all of which have welcomed Tesla vehicles into their fleets. Fremont has a Model S, Westport and Bargersville a Model 3, and Hastings-on-Hudson would operate that same model as Boulder: a Model Y Long Range.
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- Credit: Sgt. Clay Leak of Boulder PD
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- Credit: Sgt. Clay Leak of Boulder PD
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- Credit: Sgt. Clay Leak of Boulder PD
The process then seemed to make sense as the financial figures lined up nicely for a presentation to local commissioners who would ultimately have the final say. “I talked to our in-house fleet manager and pulled the mileage, fueling, maintenance, and service records for our fleet,” Leak said. He did not think it would be a very difficult convincing process as cutting costs of fueling and maintenance swayed in the direction of the Model Y. After calculating Wh/mi for the Tesla and comparing it to the cost of operating a gas-powered Ford Police Interceptor, it was no match. The Model Y was around five times as cost-effective than the typical Police Cruiser. Plus, the sustainability factor was another big positive in the way of purchasing the Model Y.
“Boulder County has always strived to be eco-friendly in all our operations, and we continue that commitment by being one of the first, if not the first law enforcement agency in the State of Colorado to bring a Tesla Model Y into our patrol fleet,” the department wrote.
Within six months, the Model Y could already begin saving the Department money, according to a Media Release the department published earlier this week. After the Command Officers agreed with Leak’s calculations and ideas for a sustainable member of the fleet to be added, it went to Boulder County Commissioners, who ultimately approved the project and authorized the purchase.
“I think taxpayers will be happy to hear that this new vehicle will save money,” Leak said. “It will take time, but it will be less expensive than the gas-powered vehicles we have now.”
Then came the fun part, installing the necessary police equipment on the inside of the car, and outfitting the Model Y with decals. “We worked with Tesla, because there were some things that just didn’t line up,” Leak stated. He detailed how the programs the Boulder Sheriff’s Office uses are Windows-based, while the Model Y’s center dash screen is HTML-based. This made it necessary to install a patrol laptop, which is in normal cruisers as well.
The Department said in its release:
“The vehicle has been outfitted with official Boulder County Sheriff’s Office decals as well as a full suite of emergency equipment like that used in many of our other vehicles. It will primarily be assigned for traffic enforcement, though it will be rigorously tested to examine its potential for other applications within the Sheriff’s Office. Our research included examining EV offerings from other manufacturers, but they were ultimately eliminated from consideration due to significantly higher price points, lack of availability, and/or specifications that did not meet our needs. We are open to reconsidering them in the future as the EV market expands.”
Credit: Sgt. Clay Leak of Boulder PD
The Department expects the vehicle to make it 200,000 miles at minimum. However, Leak is looking to increase the sustainability of the Model Y Cruiser by offsetting electricity costs with solar panels.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
Elon Musk says Grok Bot can manage your finances through linked bank and investment accounts.
Grok Bot now wants access to your wallet, with SpaceXAI rolling out a new Finance integration for its agent platform that lets users link bank, credit card and investment accounts thereby letting their Bots help manage spending, investments and more. Elon Musk amplified the announcement on X with a short endorsement, “Grok Bot can manage your finances.”
The feature builds on two earlier steps. In early September, Grok gained the ability to answer questions about spending, savings, investments and cash flow using accounts connected through Plaid, starting with users in the U.S. Before that, on August 28, SpaceXAI let Grok Bot buy things online through Link, with users approving every spend request and the Bot receiving a single use card for each payment.
Musk has already shown how far he wants users to push it. In late August, when Tesla investor account Teslaconomics said he was weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, Musk replied, “Try it out. If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole.” That promise goes beyond SpaceXAI’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap the company’s liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. SpaceXAI’s own documentation recommends requiring approval for purchases and financial transfers.
For Tesla owners, the update lands five days after Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles, letting drivers hand off errands by voice while FSD (Supervised) handles the road. Bot access inside the car is currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, though Connectors are open to anyone signed into Grok. With Finance linked, a driver could ask for a spending summary or a check on upcoming bills during the commute.
Grok’s role in the car has grown quickly since Tesla’s Summer Update let it control cabin features by voice. We have been using Grok Bot in our own Tesla for several weeks, and here’s how our latest test went.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.
SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.
The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.
The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.
Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.
The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.
News
SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout
SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.
SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.
Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.
Watch Falcon 9 launch the USSF-385 mission from pad 4E in California https://t.co/CAdbx85Ydy
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 26, 2026
USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.
The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.
Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.
The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
