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Tesla’s more experienced rivals are strangely making way for the Model Y
Something strange is happening in the crossover EV segment. Despite beating the Tesla Model Y to the market, European all-electric SUVs appear to be making way for the Silicon Valley-made disruptor. This shows that while Tesla may be entering the lucrative crossover segment later than its rivals, it will be doing so with a vehicle that does not seem to have a lot of willing challengers.
It should be noted that the Model Y is designed to compete in the auto industry’s most cutthroat segment. Dominated by iconic, hyper-reliable vehicles like the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV-4, the crossover market is as lucrative as it is competitive. In a way, crossovers are usually bang-for-the-buck cars: larger and more spacious than sedans, and at a price point that does not break the bank.
The Model Y is all these things. With 75% of the vehicle being the same as the Model 3 sedan, the Model Y is coming to the market with all of Tesla’s experience in production and tech that it learned over the past years. Its performance is second to none, with its quickest variant hitting 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds. It’s also quite larger than its Model 3 siblings, as it’s capable of seating seven passengers instead of five (provided that the two people on the rear seats are small, of course).
There is no doubt that the Model Y will likely capture a lot of the EV market. Tesla is such a strong force in the EV segment that its entry in the crossover market may be embraced just as well, if not better, than the Model 3. If one were to prepare for the arrival of a competitor then, it would be a great idea to get the jump on the Model Y, beating it to the market and saturating Tesla’s target demographic before the vehicle gets released.
In this sense, Tesla’s rivals somewhat succeeded. Jaguar unveiled the I-PACE way before the wraps were taken off the Model Y. The same was true for the Audi e-tron 55. Each vehicle was released to the market before sightings of Model Y release candidates became the norm. Yet, despite the hype generated for each vehicle and their actual merits, none of these all-electric SUVs put a dent on the US’ all-electric market.
And it’s not for lack of recognition either. The Jaguar I-PACE was so well received that it literally got over 60 awards, making it one of the most highly-decorated production cars in history. The Audi e-tron got its own fair share of fans too. Consumer Reports’ initial impressions of the e-tron were highly-positive, with the organization praising the vehicle for its posh interior and its looks. CR Deputy Content Editor Jon Linkov even remarked that that contrary to the snap of acceleration in Tesla’s electric cars like the Model S, the Audi e-tron has “more of an elegant pull-away.”
Yet, despite these, both the I-PACE and the e-tron have seemingly hit a ceiling. Estimates point to Jaguar selling 2,418 I-Pace in the US this year through November, and Audi selling 4,623 e-tron SUVs. The Tesla Model 3? Around 111,650 in the same period, as per Bloomberg. These sales figures were so stark that recently, Mercedes-Benz announced that the EQC’s release in the US will be delayed by a year. In a way, it appears that two Model Y challengers failed against the Model 3, and one seemed to be all-too-willing to give way for the upcoming vehicle.
This may end up being a costly mistake, especially on Mercedes-Benz’s part. By the time the EQC arrives in the US, the Model Y will likely be on the roads. And if the Model 3’s dominance of the electric car segment is any indication, Tesla might very well be poised to come out on top once more. With Elon Musk and Tesla seemingly being more cautious, understated vehicles like the Model Y, which have so much potential but seemingly receive so little attention, are the most dangerous for competitors.
Granted, one could argue that the I-PACE, the e-tron, and the EQC are more of the more expensive Model X’s competitors considering their prices. While this is true, all three vehicles are actually closer in size to the Model Y than the Model X. Even their interior space are smaller than the X, making them more of a Model Y rival in terms of features and spaciousness.
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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big
SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.
SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.
The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.
The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.
SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.
Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.
Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.
The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.
Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.
Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.
Starlink just unveiled Mini 2, its next-gen portable dish.
Quick-swap battery, up to 4.5 hrs per charge
USB-C power
Built-in Wi-Fi
Online in about 60 secondsPreorders are open now. https://t.co/QawqgbswrQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 10, 2026
The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.
The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.
Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.
Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.
For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.
While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.
SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
