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Tesla Top 5 Week in Review: Utah Bans Tesla Sales, Controversy Over Drivers Data, Model 3 Sensors, and More
What a week it was for Tesla! Reaching all-time trading highs was certainly an achievement to celebrate. So, too, was the 2017 Q1 earnings report, in which Tesla excelled in deliveries versus same month, previous year. Teslarati gets the first scoop a Model 3 release candidate in the wild, with reports of new sensors being spotted. Tesla’s company practice of divulging individual driver data became a contested topic, as did the Utah Supreme Court’s decision to prohibit Tesla direct sales to customers. Here are those stories and more on our Teslarati Top 5 Week in Review.
Tesla steamrolls US automakers to become #1 by market cap
Source: Courtesy Yahoo Finance
Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) stock, which had previously traded at $280 in February, achieved its all-time high this week, up from the March 31, 2017 close of market mark of $291.74. Tesla’s performance pushed the company’s market capitalization past that of Ford for the first time ever. Ford’s market capitalization at about $44.8 billion stood just about $3 billion under Tesla’s. Next in line for Tesla is GM’s $51.4 billion market cap. Tesla sold only a fraction of Ford’s 6.7 million cars and GM’s 10 million cars in 2016; both offer investors the comfort of healthy balance sheets and steady profits. However, Tesla investors seem willing to hold out for the company’s future potential for still higher growth ahead. Historical malaise over missed delivery targets may be dissipating.
Tesla delivers a record 25,000 Model S, X in Q1 2017, 69% increase over Q1 2016
With Model S deliveries at 3,450 and Model X deliveries at 11,550, Tesla achieved a new quarterly record to start 2017. Selling just over 25,000 vehicles in Q1 represented a 69% increase over the same month, Q1 2016. Tesla argues that vehicle deliveries symbolize only one measure of the company’s financial performance; quarterly financial results, they say, depend on a variety of factors, including the cost of sales, foreign exchange movements, and mix of directly leased vehicles.
New sensors spotted on Tesla Model 3: Autopilot 2.0 could have 10 cameras
Up until Tuesday, the Model 3 was assumed to have eight cameras: three facing forwards, two in the B-pillar between the front and rear doors, two in the front fenders, and one in the rear by the hatch latch. (Radar and ultrasonic sensors will also provide the computer with contextual data.) The recent sighting indicates that two additional sensors are located by the C-pillars between the rear door and back. This is significant because Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly stated that the Model 3 design is meant to include autonomous driving. With a dashboard that lacks a speedometer on the driver’s side and, instead, will fade in and out of opacity on the central control screen, the Model 3 technology evolution will be fascinating. Its sensors and cameras will provide crucial data about the vehicle’s surroundings, bringing the future to today.
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Tesla defends its right to release individual driver data to disprove claims
Tesla’s company policies about owner privacy has been under scrutiny this week, with accusations that it divulges drivers’ performance information in order to protect its self-driving car technology. Unlike other research institutions, Tesla does not acquire permission from its drivers, who are supplying data about self-driving technology system responses. Moreover, while the company has disseminated specific driver information to the media following crashes, it has refused thus far to share that same data with the drivers. Some accidents involving Tesla all-electric vehicles have involved the Tesla Autopilot system, but in 2016 the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cleared Tesla of any wrong-doing in a fatal crash in which Autopilot was engaged.
Tesla loses 5-0 battle in Utah over right to sell direct to consumers
The Utah Supreme Court this week has upheld a previous ruling which prohibits Tesla and other automakers from selling directly to customers. Tesla contested Utah’s claim of manufacturers and dealer owners being one and the same, saying its direct sales to customers distinguish it from independent dealerships. In essence, the Utah Supreme Court justices chose not to address when Utah law does or does not block an automaker from direct sales.
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SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
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Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
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Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
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- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
SpaceX’s biggest test yet arrives this week and it’s not a rocket launch
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
