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Tesla could face New York store ban under this legislation
A new bill could threaten Tesla’s ability to operate in-person, direct sales stores in New York.
Tesla could be subject to new legislation in New York that seeks to revoke permits for the company’s stores, as part of a bill introduced this week that sponsors say aims to “foster competition and innovation in the marketplace.”
Democratic State Senator Patricia Fahy and Assembly Member Gabriella Romero introduced S.B. S6894 on Thursday, effectively revoking direct sales permits from five existing Tesla stores in New York, as detailed in a press release. If passed, the New York bill would keep in place a five-store limit placed on direct sales locations, but would require the state’s DMV to re-evaluate existing permits and issue new ones, excluding Tesla, which currently holds all five of the available permits.
“This legislation provides controlled growth of New York’s ZEV market by not granting indefinite privileges to early entrants—currently, all five direct sales locations are located downstate and are operated by Tesla, Inc., which limits consumer choice and prevents other manufacturers from entering the market,” Fahy’s office writes in the release. “The bill would allow new manufacturers to enter the market and ensure that there is an opportunity to expand these locations geographically.”
Fahy also told Politico that the bill intentionally aims to target Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the wake of his efforts under the recently created government efficiency division under the Trump administration.
“No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk,” Fahy said. “He’s part of an effort to go backwards.”
“The bottom line is, Tesla has lost their right to promote these when they’re part of an administration that wants to go backwards. Elon Musk was handed a privilege here.”
🚨 You’ve got to be insane to think it’s better for consumers and car buyers to delegitimize direct sales
“I love going to a car dealership” -nobody ever https://t.co/GXEzktUjnG
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 10, 2025
READ MORE ON TESLA NEW YORK: Anti-Musk protests at Tesla store in New York lead to arrests
The release also highlights New York’s target of reaching 100-percent ZEV sales by 2035, as part of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The bill also says it hopes to bring zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) direct sales stores to other parts of New York, adding that limited access to direct sales models has prohibited more widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs).
“As New York moves toward a clean energy future, we must ensure that consumers have greater access to zero-emission vehicles while fostering competition and innovation in the marketplace,” Fahey says. “This legislation takes a measured approach to inducing the growth of direct sales and opening the door for new ZEV manufacturers to enter New York State’s market, while keeping us on track to meet our ambitious climate goals.”
Other automakers with direct sales models, such as Lucid and Rivian, would also be able to bid for the five permits, potentially giving smaller companies a chance to establish physical store locations.
New York is one of several states that have limits on how many non-dealership franchise stores, or direct sales model stores, are allowed to operate statewide. Still others include complete bans on direct sales, requiring automakers to sell vehicles through franchised dealerships, sometimes even including service locations.
At this time, New York joins eight other U.S. states that have a cap on the number of available direct sales sites, while 13 states — including Tesla’s home state of Texas — still have total or partial bans on direct sales.
Tesla has filed a petition with Wisconsin to allow direct car sales
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
