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Tesla is on a runaway freight train headed towards the utility industry
Tesla’s vision of the future is a world energized by solar and chaperoned by electric powered autonomous transportation, but the company’s overarching goal is to break our dirty fossil fuel habit. “The point of all this was, and remains, accelerating the advent of sustainable energy, so that we can imagine far into the future and life is still good. That’s what ‘sustainable’ means. It’s not some silly, hippy thing — it matters for everyone.
“By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.”
The new plan reminds us that #4 on the original Master Plan was to “Provide solar power. No kidding, this has literally been on our website for 10 years.”
And just how does the irrepressible Mr. Musk expect to do that? Simple. “Create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility (emphasis added), and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app.” A new development near Melbourne, Australia dubbed “Tesla Town” because it integrates solar panels with Tesla Powerwall battery storage units may offer a preview of the future.
Suburb dubbed “Tesla town” in Australia will have solar, Tesla’s Powerwall and EV charging in every home.
What Musk is proposing is nothing less than a complete reboot of how the world gets and uses electricity. That simple idea immediately puts in jeopardy trillions of dollars the world’s utility companies have invested in generating plants and grid infrastructure. They are not going to watch their investment evaporate without a fight.
In fact, the first skirmishes in the coming solar power war are already taking place. Warren Buffett’s NV Energy has gotten the Nevada Public Utilities Commission to impose draconian new fees on rooftop solar power. They are so onerous that they make rooftop solar no longer commercially viable within the state. SolarCity earlier this year ceased operations in Nevada — which has an abundance of solar energy available to it. More than 500 employees in Nevada were let go.
Switch, one of the world’s largest data center operators has recently filed suit in Nevada alleging fraud and collusion between the PUC and NV Energy. The local utility’s opposition to solar power is intense and is an indication of how far entrenched interests will go to hold on to their fiefdoms.
If Tesla thought it had a fight on its hands with franchise dealer groups, that is child’s play compared to the forces the utility industry is prepared to bring to bear against the idea of individuals making and using their own solar power. The desire to create one company that makes electric vehicles and the means to harvest the energy to operate them is behind Tesla’s recent proposal to purchase SolarCity in a $2.8 billion stock deal. Musk made explaining the need for the merger an important part of the new Master Plan.
“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies. That they are separate at all, despite similar origins and pursuit of the same overarching goal of sustainable energy, is largely an accident of history. Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together.”
Some quibble that Musk’s grand schemes take too long to mature. They sit back and feel secure in the knowledge that time is on their side. It’s not. Trying to resist his initiatives is like trying to hold back the tide. Just look at the havoc his tiny company that has never made more than 100,000 cars in a year has created in the boardrooms of companies that sell millions of vehicles. They are all scrambling to catch up with Tesla. The fact that the Model 3 has nearly 400,000 pre-orders is testament to the power of Musk’s vision.
The notion that utility companies need monopoly status to survive has been ingrained in our culture since the days when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were creating the first utility grids. It’s an idea that has served the industry well. But like franchise dealer laws, it is now out of date. If Musk gets his way, it will soon be little more than an anachronism — like the internal combustion engine.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
SpaceX has given Elon Musk the goal to put one million people on Mars.
SpaceX’s board approved a compensation plan for Elon Musk that ties his pay directly to colonizing Mars and building data centers in outer space. The details surfaced this week after Reuters reviewed SpaceX’s confidential registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making it one of the first concrete looks inside the company’s financials ahead of a public offering.
The pay package will reportedly award Musk 200 million super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market valuation milestone, with the most ambitious targets going further. To unlock the full award, SpaceX would need to reach a $7.5 trillion valuation and help establish a permanent human settlement on Mars with at least one million residents. Additional incentives are tied to developing space-based computing infrastructure capable of delivering at least 100 terawatts of processing power.
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
Long before SpaceX filed anything with the SEC, Elon Musk had already spent years framing Mars colonization as an insurance policy against human extinction. The philosophy traces back to at least 2001, when Musk first began researching Mars missions independently, before SpaceX even existed. By 2002 he had founded the company with Mars as the stated long-term goal.
In a 2017 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress, Musk outlined the specific vision that still underpins SpaceX’s architecture today. He described a self-sustaining city on Mars requiring roughly one million people to become viable, the same number now written into his compensation package.
SpaceX’s Starship, still in active development, was designed from the ground up to support the eventual colonization of Mars. Musk has stated publicly that getting the cost per ton to Mars below $100,000 is necessary to make mass migration economically feasible. Everything from Starship’s payload capacity to its full reusability targets flows from that single constraint. One can say that Musk’s latest compensation package has put a formal valuation on Mars for the first time.
SpaceX is targeting an IPO around June 28, Musk’s birthday, at a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion. Between the Mars rover contract, the Golden Dome software group, Space Force satellite launches, and now a pay structure built around interplanetary colonization, SpaceX has become the single most consequential contractor in American space and defense. The IPO will put a public price tag on all of it for the first time.
Earlier this week, we wrote a story on how Tesla is launching a new Supercharging Queue system to mitigate problems between drivers when there is a wait to charge.
Rather than potentially having people end up in a physical conflict, Tesla’s approach is to determine who is next to charge based on geographic data.
Tesla launches solution to end Supercharger fights once and for all
But some companies, notably Tesla’s biggest rival in China, BYD, are taking a different approach, focusing on charging speeds rather than how they will manage delays.
BYD’s approach, especially with its tests of ultra-fast “Flash Charging” technology, is to eliminate the length of a charging session. At the heart of this strategy is BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery paired with 1,500-kW Flash Chargers.
Real-world FLASH Charging in action.
⚡ 10% → 70% in 5 minutes
⚡ 10% → 97% in 9 minutesIntroducing BYD’s 2nd Generation Blade Battery + FLASH Charging Technology.
20,000 stations will bring faster, safer, and smarter EV charging across China by the end of 2026. pic.twitter.com/uzQC8q1xGf
— BYD (@BYDCompany) March 9, 2026
Unveiled earlier this year, the system charges compatible vehicles from 10 percent to 70 percent state of charge in just five minutes and from 10 percent to 97 percent in nine minutes.
Real-world demonstrations on models like the Yangwang U7 and Denza Z9 GT have shown the tech delivering roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) of range in just five minutes. This would essentially match or beat the time it takes to fill a gas tank.
Sometimes, gas pumps get congested, and there are lines. You rarely see conflicts at pumps because filling up a tank rarely takes more than five minutes.
Tesla’s fastest Supercharger build currently is the v4, which can deliver up to 325 kW for Cybertruck and 250 kW for other models, but there are “true” sites that are capable of up to 500 kW. This enables speeds of up to 1,000 miles per hour, or 1,400 miles for 350 kW-capable vehicles.
The breakthrough stems from BYD’s vertically integrated ecosystem: a new 1,000-volt architecture, 10C charging rates, and proprietary silicon-carbide chips that minimize internal resistance while protecting battery health.
The company plans to install 20,000 Flash Charging stations across China by the end of 2026, with thousands already operational and global expansion eyed for Europe and beyond later this year.
Early rollout targets popular models, including upgrades to high-volume sellers like the Seal and Sealion series, bringing five-minute charging to mainstream prices around 100,000 yuan (about $14,000).
This approach contrasts sharply with Tesla’s software solution. Tesla’s Virtual Queue uses geofencing and the app to assign turns at crowded sites, addressing driver disputes and idle time. It’s a clever fix for today’s network realities.
Yet, BYD’s philosophy is simpler: make charging so fast that waits barely exist. A five-minute stop becomes as convenient as a gas-station visit, reducing station dwell time, easing grid strain, and lowering range anxiety for long trips.
For consumers, the difference is potentially tangible. They’ll spend more time driving and less time parked. It is just another way Tesla and BYD are pushing one another to improve the overall experience of EV ownership.
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Tesla wins big as NHTSA drops three-year, 120k unit probe against Model Y
In all, 120,089 Model Ys were impacted, but in two cases, drivers reported the complete detachment of the steering wheel from the steering column while the vehicle was in motion. NHTSA’s initial review revealed that the vehicles had been delivered without the critical retaining bolt that secures the steering wheel to the splined steering column.
A probe into over 120,000 2023 Tesla Model Y units has been closed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The probe ends without the agency requiring any action from Tesla.
The probe, designated PE23-003, opened in March 2023 and stemmed from just two consumer complaints involving low-mileage Model Y SUVs.
In all, 120,089 Model Ys were impacted, but in two cases, drivers reported the complete detachment of the steering wheel from the steering column while the vehicle was in motion. NHTSA’s initial review revealed that the vehicles had been delivered without the critical retaining bolt that secures the steering wheel to the splined steering column.
NHTSA has ended a probe into over 120,000 Tesla Model Y vehicles after claims that the steering wheel could detach from the steering column due to a missing retaining bolt
There is no action needed by Tesla pic.twitter.com/YpAO3bKugA
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 28, 2026
Factory records showed each car had undergone an “end-of-line” repair at Tesla’s facility, during which the steering wheel was removed and reinstalled. The bolt was apparently omitted after the repair, leaving only a friction fit between the wheel and column to hold it in place temporarily.
According to NHTSA documents, this friction fit maintained the connection during initial low-mileage driving until forces during normal operation caused the wheel to detach. Both vehicles that were impacted were repaired under warranty with no injuries reported, and no additional incidents surfaced during the agency’s three-year review.
After analyzing manufacturing processes, complaint data, and field reports, NHTSA concluded the issue was isolated to those two post-repair vehicles rather than indicative of a systemic defect in Tesla’s production or quality control.
The closure means the agency has determined no recall or further enforcement is warranted for this specific missing-bolt condition.
This outcome marks the second NHTSA investigation into Tesla closed without action this month, as a recent probe into the company’s “Actually Smart Summon” feature was also resolved in April.
The two resolutions provide some relief for Tesla amid the continuous and somewhat unfair regulatory scrutiny of its vehicles, including open inquiries into driver assistance systems.
Importantly, the closed probe does not involve or affect Tesla’s separate May 2023 voluntary recall of certain 2022-2023 Model Y vehicles. That recall addressed a different issue—steering-wheel fasteners that were installed but not torqued to specification—prompted by a service technician’s observation of a loose wheel during unrelated repairs.
Tesla identified a small number of related warranty claims and proactively addressed the matter without NHTSA mandate.
The Model Y remains one of the world’s best-selling vehicles, and Tesla continues to refine its lineup, including the recent “Juniper” refresh. While federal oversight of the electric vehicle pioneer remains intense, this decision underscores that isolated manufacturing anomalies do not always translate into broader safety defects requiring recalls.
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
Tesla’s biggest rivals fights charging wait times with a modern approach
