Elon Musk
I took a Tesla Model Y weekend-long Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
I had a weekend with the new Tesla Model Y, and it truly solidified that EVs are the future, if we didn’t know that already.
Tesla offered me a weekend-long Demo Drive in the new Model Y, a new program the company is offering to people as a way to taste what it is like to own an EV. For me, it was a great look into owning an EV while renting a townhouse without charging infrastructure, but it gave me a lot more insight as well.
A Sales Advisor at a local showroom texted me several weeks back to see if I would want to take the new Model Y from the showroom to my house for a weekend. I immediately said yes, scheduled a weekend when family and friends would be nearby to experience things like Full Self-Driving, and booked it.
I picked it up on Saturday at 6 p.m. as the showroom closed, and I was on my way back home within ten minutes.
First Things First
My first order of business was getting some Full Self-Driving demos in, taking my Fiancè for a hands-free — but supervised — journey first. It was not her first time experiencing FSD, as we had taken a Demo Drive a few months back and experienced Hardware 3 and the past iteration of the Model Y.
However, we only used FSD for about ten minutes while checking out a Model Y to buy back in February.
The next morning, we picked my parents up for breakfast and took them on their first-ever FSD experience. They live in a rural part of my hometown in Southern Pennsylvania, where there are no lines on the road, potholes everywhere, deer constantly crossing the road, and sharp turns that can be dangerous during the daytime, as you cannot see oncoming headlights.
🚨 First order of business: Took my parents on an FSD journey.
“Wow!”
“This is crazy!”
You could hear the skepticism in my Dad’s voice as I started the drive. By the end of it, he couldn’t believe how it navigated non-lined backroads to his house! https://t.co/qisRxDlY5O
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 4, 2025
It was really something to see how my Dad changed his belief on FSD in the matter of just a few minutes. The night before, I took my Mom and Step Dad on a drive, and they felt the same way. My Dad is just more vocal about his skepticism, so I was happy to hear the reversal of his perspective.
Living without Charging and How It Changed My Mindset
One of the biggest things that kept me from buying the Model Y we looked at in February was the lack of charging in my neighborhood. I do not get to park directly in front of my front door, and my neighborhood is still considering some minor infrastructure for residents.
With the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive version of the new Model Y, Tesla boasts a range of 327 miles. We picked it up from the Showroom at 98 percent state-of-charge.
We ran our usual errands, went out to dinner, drove around for leisure to enjoy the car, and after all that, we still returned the car with 40 percent left. This truly eliminated any concerns I would have about charging at home, at least in the near term.
Realistically, I would like to have charging at home. The experience made me realize I would probably be driving to a Supercharger once a week to get range, which is about as frequent as I visit a gas pump now. It would not be a tremendous change, and it made me realize that when I do eventually make the jump, if I am still living in our townhome that we rent, I would get through it without any real issues.
Take my words as a bit of advice: If you’re overly concerned about not having charging at your apartment or home, don’t stress too much about it.
The Good and Bad with Full Self-Driving
Overall, our Full Self-Driving experience was incredibly valuable. My plan was to drive the car manually most of the time, but I truly only did that for roughly 5 percent of the miles we traveled together.
I planned for a big stress test on Sunday evening, and that’s what we did. We had to run out and get some things for a wedding we’re attending this coming weekend, and it required us to travel all over York from the East end to the West end, much of which was spent traveling on the Lincoln Highway. In West York, this stretch of highway is incredibly dysfunctional, busy, and is one of the drives I rue the most in the area.
Full Self-Driving made it very easy, as I just set the destination on several occasions and let the car do all the work.
Our first drive took us from our house to our local Target. It did everything flawlessly. I took over once we got into the parking lot just to find a parking space on my own:
🚨 Tesla Full Self-Driving takes my Fiancé and I to Target
Flawless drive! We’ll document the rest of our errands today! pic.twitter.com/TAx3mWmVgh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 4, 2025
I didn’t record the trip from Target to the Burlington Coat Factory, just a mile away, but I did record the next leg of the trip, which was from Burlington in East York to Burlington in West York. This was when I had my first complaint with FSD, and it dealt with the operation in parking lots.
You’ll see at the beginning of this video that there was an instance where the car waited for one cross-traffic warning to stop before proceeding, but ignored another cross-traffic warning from the other direction. The car pulled out on this person, you’ll see me wave to apologize, then I take control of the car, as it was too close to that other car for my liking. This was the only issue we experienced on this drive:
🚨 On this drive, FSD pulled out of this spot while there was a car approaching from our right (you’ll see the Red cross-traffic warning on the screen)
It also approached that vehicle a little too close for my liking, so to be safe I took over.
A great drive across town… pic.twitter.com/ANuZ4QcZB6
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 4, 2025
I found that parking lots were a weak point of FSD. It is not that I did not feel confident in its abilities to make it through these lots safely, but it reminded me a lot of what I think a 16-year-old who just got their license would drive through a busy parking area: hesitant, not confident, tentative.
Several of our X followers said the same thing:
This is such a problem… To the point I don’t even use start FSD from Park anymore
— ProjectRCC (@Project_RCC) May 5, 2025
Parking lots are little bit of a weakness. But I believe this will be solved in the next update we get 💯
— Overly Optimistic Future (@OOpFuture) May 4, 2025
Leaving the West York Burlington and heading to a Walgreens to pick up some pictures we had printed was the next leg of our journey. This was where we got to test a difficult off-ramp on I-83 south and Autopark in the Walgreens parking lot.
The off-ramp for the Market Street exit and the on-ramp use the same lane, so merging traffic can be a bit of a nightmare for those trying to get off of the highway, which is what we were trying to do. FSD managed it cleanly, as several cars were merging onto I-83, the car found a soft spot in the traffic and got off without any issue. This impressed me because I know it can be stressful at times, especially during rush hour.
Autopark worked well and backed into a spot with no issues:
🚨 The final leg of our trip here: FSD did a great job of navigating through this parking lot and getting us onto a highway with a very short on-ramp (a very typical part of living and driving in Pennsylvania).
Also, Autopark did a great job! I would like to see it improve by… pic.twitter.com/OBefKZKDCo
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 5, 2025
Our final trip with FSD was from our home to the showroom. This would be our longest single-trip using FSD, and it was the most impressive yet.
The first thing it was tasked with was merging onto the highway with a very short lane to do so. FSD recognized this, saw an oncoming car that did not get over into the passing lane to make space (despite it having the room to do so as a courtesy), and sped up to take the slot it was given. It overtook slower cars, stayed in the right lane near on-ramps to make merging for others easier, and got us through the Harrisburg split with no issues.
As we turned onto the Carlisle Pike, the right lane was closed about a quarter-mile after we merged onto it. We had a vehicle beside us that did not want to let us over, so FSD waited, allowed the car to pass, and quickly took the three-car-length gap, safely getting on. This was a funny one because I noticed my Fiancè’s hand grab the handle on her door as a reactionary response.
She realized after it was unnecessary, and it did a better job than many people we know would have done:
🚨 The new Tesla Model Y drove my Fiancé and me back to the Tesla Showroom today to part ways 🥺
It was awesome to have an entire weekend with this awesome car. This 45-minute drive is condensed to just 36 seconds.
One portion of this drive included an impressive merge into a… pic.twitter.com/TjCXcpRUXG
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 5, 2025
This finished our experience with the Model Y for the weekend, and it was hard to say goodbye.
Conclusion
It seems that a trade-in will be happening in the coming months. My biggest reservation was residential charging, and I learned it really was not something I needed to be overly concerned about.
Full Self-Driving was truly the big thing that sold me on this car. The new Model Y is obviously a great vehicle to begin with, but FSD was the number one thing that I will miss because it made driving such a breeze.
More novelty things I will miss are being able to watch YouTube while I wait in the car, and pranking people with the Fart on Contact/Sit Happens feature, something that gave us all a good laugh.
It was a great weekend with the new Model Y! In the coming months, I hope to get my hands on another vehicle for a weekend.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a photo of himself standing with the Optimus production team inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, arms crossed amid workers in hard hats and safety vests. The image captures a pivotal industrial shift: the same facility space once dedicated to building Tesla’s flagship Model S sedan and Model X SUV is now home to the company’s humanoid robot manufacturing line.
Walking the Optimus production line in Fremont pic.twitter.com/ABS0tuRibW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2026
Tesla’s Fremont Factory, acquired in 2010 from the former NUMMI joint venture between Toyota and GM, has been the company’s original U.S. manufacturing hub since Model S production began in 2012.
The Model X followed soon thereafter. These premium vehicles offered lower annual volumes, recently around 30,000 combined, compared to the high-volume Model 3 and Model Y lines that continue around the site. Over their combined run, the S and X accounted for roughly 610,000 units.
In late January 2026, during Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Elon Musk announced the end of Model S and Model X production in Q2 2026. The final vehicles rolled off the line in early May. Rather than retooling for another vehicle, Tesla chose to convert the dedicated S/X assembly area into a dedicated Optimus Gen 3 production line.
Model 3 and Y manufacturing remains unaffected. Tesla’s official Fremont Factory page now lists Optimus alongside the 3 and Y as core products.
The conversion was executed with remarkable speed. After production stopped, crews dismantled the existing vehicle line and installed entirely new modular equipment—including lines sourced from Germany and dozens of sub-lines for actuators, batteries, and other components—in roughly four months.
Musk described the timeline as “insanely fast,” noting it would be unprecedented for any other manufacturer. Initial Optimus output is expected to ramp slowly due to the robot’s roughly 10,000 unique parts and the brand-new production processes involved. The Fremont line targets an eventual capacity of 1 million Optimus units per year.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Optimus Development Timeline
- August 19, 2021: Optimus (then called Tesla Bot) formally announced at Tesla’s first AI Day. A concept video showed a person in a suit demonstrating the vision for a general-purpose humanoid capable of dangerous, repetitive, or boring tasks using the same AI architecture as Full Self-Driving.
- 2022: Early prototypes displayed. At the second AI Day in September, semi-functional units demonstrated walking across a stage and basic arm movements
- 2023: September videos showed improved capabilities, including sorting colored blocks, precise limb awareness, and holding a Yoda pose.
- 2024-early 2025: Factory integration videos showed Optimus navigating workspaces and handling objects like battery cells.
- January 2026: Gen 3 mass-production activities began at Fremont, with reports of over 1,000 Gen 3 units already operating inside the factory for real-world learning and AI training
- April 2026: Musk confirms Optimus production on converted Fremont line would begin in late July or August 2026. The Gen 3 reveal, originally eyed for Q1, was pushed closer to production start. A second, much larger Optimus factory at Giga Texas is under construction, with volume production targeted for Summer 2027 and long-term capacity of 10 million units annually
- July 1, 2026: Musk’s on-site visit and team photo confirm the Optimus line is operational and the transition is actively progressing
Tesla positions Optimus as potentially its largest project ever, leveraging vertical integration, AI expertise, and car-like manufacturing know-how to scale humanoid robots first for its own factories and later for broader industrial and consumer use.
The Fremont conversion serves as a critical proving ground for this ambitious new chapter in Tesla’s already-rich history.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
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