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Tesla rolls out red carpet delivery for cancer-ridden Cybertruck customer

Credit: @Mrp11/Cybertruck Owners Club

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Sometimes, it’s the little gestures that truly show that a company cares about its customers. This is especially true if a company has already grown to such a level that it has become the world’s most valuable automaker by market cap. This was highlighted by Tesla earlier this month when the electric vehicle maker rolled out the red carpet for a Cybertruck reservation holder who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. 

Last month, a Cybertruck Owners Club member who goes by the username Mrp11 shared his situation to the forum’s other members. As per the Tesla customer, who already owns a Model 3, Tesla Solar, and Powerwall 2 batteries for his home, he has a reservation for a Foundation Series Cyberbeast, but he is not sure if he will be around long enough for his delivery. He then asked if there was a way to move up his reservation so he could take delivery of his Cyberbeast earlier. 

Other members of the Cybertruck Owners Club forum responded positively to the Tesla customer’s story, with some even offering their spot in the Cybertruck delivery queue. Others also suggested that the Tesla customer reach out to Tesla with his request. In a later update, Mrp11 shared that Tesla has stepped up, and it would not be long before he takes delivery of his very own Cybertruck. “Without sharing too much, I will soon have a purchased delivery of my own. Well beyond expectations and for me significance I cannot really explain the worth,” the Tesla customer wrote in a post. 

Midway through the month, the Tesla owner shared the efforts of the electric vehicle maker to make his Cyberbeast delivery more special. As per the Cybertruck Owners Club forum member, Tesla did a home delivery for his Cyberbeast, but his vehicle was not alone. It was accompanied by several other Cybertrucks, some of which were wrapped in Tesla’s OEM Paint Color Film. Following is the Tesla owners’ post. 

“Today, I received my Cyberbeast via a very cool home delivery. Some of you may have seen my post about being a Cancer patient with a wish. Today was delivery day and Tesla made it very special. Far beyond what we could have imagined. Great people and Great Companies Do Great things. They don’t have to but they do.

“Here is how the home delivery went. Our new beast arrived plus support from a Rose Gold, a Black and another Stainless Cybertruck. They made a grand entrance, filled the driveway, and were there to address any new needs or concerns questions for as long as we wished.

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“It made for an incredible event for which I will remember and cherish today forever. Thank you, Tesla, for making today so special,” the Tesla owner wrote. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the story, which was also posted on X. As per Musk, he was glad that things worked out during the special Cyberbeast delivery.

Tesla may attract a steady team of negativity, but the company has a long history of recognizing its most passionate fans. In 2017, the Tesla community rallied around a terminally ill Model 3 reservation holder. Veteran Tesla owners championed his cause, making it known that experiencing the new electric sedan was one of his final wishes. 

Tesla responded by moving him up the reservation line, ensuring he received his Model 3 early. The delivery itself was a special event, with a large group of Tesla staff present to celebrate this emotional moment. This heartwarming story made him one of the first publicly known non-employee recipients of the Model 3, solidifying his place in Tesla lore.

The following year, the Tesla community came together again to support another superfan. This time, a Model X owner battling stage 4 colon cancer expressed a desire to meet Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s Design Chief. The superfan was treated to a personalized tour of the Fremont Factory, followed by an hourlong conversation with von Holzhausen. Elon Musk himself joined them for a brief chat, even amidst the intense “production hell” Tesla was facing at the time. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Lifestyle

Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion

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Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.

Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”

The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.


The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.

Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.

Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15

Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.

Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig

Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”


The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.

This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.

What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.

That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.

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Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production

Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.

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Concept rendering of Tesla Optimus in mass production

Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.

Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.

Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.

New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point

Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.

Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.

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