Lifestyle
The Tesla and the Porsche: How much does EV driveability matter?
Welcome to a FREE preview of our weekly exclusive! Each week our team goes ‘Beyond the News’ and handcrafts a special edition that includes our thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
You can receive this newsletter along with all of our other members-exclusive newsletters, become a premium member for just $3/month. Your support goes a long way for us behind the scenes! Thank you.
—
After reading some of the Porsche Taycan reviews that came out yesterday, I suddenly recalled a “conversation” I’d had with someone on Twitter a few years back about self-driving technology. Now, this was a bit before the site became quite the current-day cesspool, and I wasn’t yet accustomed to strangers yelling at me when they disagreed with something I’d said, so it stood out at the time.
If memory serves me well, I’d tweet-commented some sarcasm about how dangerous driving was to begin with in response to Autopilot criticism making the rounds, and this person replied with ALL CAPS about how the whole thing was wrong-headed because lots of people actually enjoy driving. Specifically, they said that enjoyment was part of what makes us human, and it was even hashtagged.
#whatmakesushuman
I politely replied that I’d been in too many accidents as a passenger and victim to not welcome the advent of self-driving with open arms. What does the new Taycan have to do with this, you ask? I promise to connect the dots, but bear with me a bit longer…
After that little flashback, I had another thought related to some personal plans of mine. One of the pieces of land my husband and I considered building our future home on had dozens of acres, so we dreamt for a moment about having a hobby garage for EV conversion projects with small test tracks and the like alongside chickens and tomatoes. Shortly after, though, it really became clear to me that the future of auto wasn’t just electric. Its drivers will have motherboards instead of flesh and blood.
I still don’t really know what to think about all that. I mean, I love microcontrollers and have a collection of stuff I’d like to solder together and write scripts for, but tinkering with neural networks is a few more calculus classes away for me to even meet the pre-reqs of learning anything useful to implement in a hobby garage. (And so forth.) Of course, my husband is all for anything that involves cars, even just legacy ICE models, but my interest was directly tied to Elon Musk & Company, and they’re pretty set on self-driving. I just couldn’t see myself retrofitting a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado with Tesla-type tech for an AI-powered vintage chauffeur. I suppose an electric tractor might be a worthy endeavor, but I digress.
Musk has said a few times now that buying anything other than a Tesla is like buying a horse and buggy, not because of their 0-60 mph times, Track Mode, or amazing safety ratings. Other brands are behind because of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving progress.
So, let’s circle this discussion back around to the Taycan.
Over at The Drive, Alex Roy had some harsh words for anyone comparing Porsche’s new EV to anything Tesla: If you’re comparing the brands, you’ve missed the point. The Taycan isn’t about winning a drag race or waving around one’s testosterone (or heightened estrogen) from stoplight to stoplight. It’s about driving. Period.
“The specs almost don’t matter. It’s designed to be driven,” Roy argues. “The Taycan is for people who want to drive, and continue doing so. That’s why Porsche exists as a company. If you don’t understand that, no Porsche ever made was made for you, and the company might as well not exist.”
The Taycan’s lack of a Tesla-style Autopilot is almost a feature, he essentially says. The car driving you would take away from your experience driving the car. My Twitter troll wasn’t as elegant as Roy in making a similar point, but I suppose not every messenger has a talent for communication.
These dueling concepts have left me a bit…distraught(?)…about where to put my enthusiasm. Do I root for better EV designs or better self-driving software? Will the car matter in the end when your attention is either on the scenery or on cabin entertainment? Personally, I like newer-looking taxis, but I can’t say I’ve ever hailed one with any thought about its particular make and model. I imagine my personal self-driving vehicle purchasing decision would be similarly practical. In such a world, some basics like comfort and a smooth ride will be valued, but the experience will no longer factor in the driver or driver-initiated capabilities.
This probably seems like a silly thing to get caught up in when Level 4 and 5 autonomy still feel like eons away, but I’m also the kind of person that gets bummed about rockets being “old” and “inefficient” for long-distance space travel. Where’s my warp drive already??
(I will note that I don’t like Star Trek episodes with too much plot over tech showcases. I’m also told I’m great fun at parties. Not sure if the two are related.)
So, while the Porsche Taycan looks like it’s going to make Porsche-type people happy, is it just the latest display of legacy auto still not “getting” where EVs are headed? Or, perhaps there will always be a “manual” lane on highways and some streets in the future for those wanting to live dangerously?
This issue might not mean much for decades to come yet, but when my grandkids are looking for something to ferry me to doctor appointments, I can honestly tell them I’ve been thinking about what I want for a very long time. Perhaps I may even have made up my mind by then.
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
Lifestyle
Tesla saves its passengers again – This time after a 300-foot cliff fall in Malibu
A Tesla Model 3 fell 300 feet off a Malibu cliff and both passengers survived.
A Tesla Model 3 plunged roughly 300 feet off a cliff on Mulholland Highway in Malibu on Friday morning, May 29, 2026, and both occupants survived. The crash was reported at approximately 7:30 a.m. near the 2500 block of Mulholland Highway, triggering a multi-agency rescue operation involving Malibu Search and Rescue, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the California Highway Patrol, and McCormick Ambulance.
When first responders arrived, the male driver was outside the vehicle shouting for help while the female passenger remained pinned inside the Tesla. Rescue crews rappelled down the cliffside on ropes to reach the wreckage. A flight medic was lowered by helicopter to begin treating both victims, and the driver was hoisted up to the roadway before crews used the Jaws of Life to free the trapped passenger. Both were airlifted to a local trauma center with moderate injuries despite a remarkable result for a fall that steep.
The outcome is not surprising, considering Model 3 earned an overall 5-star rating from NHTSA in every category and sub-category, and recorded the lowest probability of injury of any car ever evaluated by the U.S. New Car Assessment Program. The absence of a traditional engine in the front of the vehicle creates a longer crumple zone that absorbs impact energy before it reaches occupants, and the battery pack running along the floor gives the car an unusually low center of gravity that reinforces structural rigidity.
This is not the first time a Tesla has kept passengers alive after going off a cliff. A Tesla Model Y carrying a family of four survived a plunge off a cliff at Devil’s Slide near San Francisco in January 2023, with two adults and two children walking away from a 250-foot fall. That incident drew widespread attention to how the structural integrity of Tesla’s electric platform performs in extreme crash scenarios that most vehicles would not survive.
Tesla Model Y driver who drove off cliff with family attempts to avoid criminal conviction
Elon Musk just put a $1 Trillion revenue number on SpaceX
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
