Tesla’s next four years could be decided during Election Day as voters make their way to the polls. Both Presidential candidates have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages in terms of what they could offer Tesla and the entire EV manufacturing sector as a whole within the next few years. However, it comes down to which candidate is more believable. We all know that politicians are a lot of talk and relatively abysmal amounts of what they say actually happens.
For starters, I am completely undecided about this year’s election. Personally, I wouldn’t say I like talking about politics because I feel that people get incredibly ugly when talking about this subject in particular. However, I also think it is essential as a writer who focuses on electric vehicles to highlight what each candidate could offer Tesla. It is not a cookie-cutter scenario here, and quite frankly, both candidates offer substantial benefits.
It seems that Donald Trump’s advantages lean more toward Tesla’s growth in the United States through manufacturing and job creation. Everyone knows “Make America Great Again” and how Trump wanted to recreate the American manufacturing surge that was so dominant in the 20th century. With Tesla planning Giga Texas and what seems to be a few more production plants in the United States within the next few years, there is a chance that Tesla could widely benefit from the views of the current president. While that may be a stretch for some, it is the truth.
FactCheck.com estimates that the Trump campaign has created 6,688,000 jobs so far through his term. That’s a lot of new employment opportunities for people. However, in terms of sustainability, Trump lost 62,000 jobs because of solar tariffs, which is a significant loss for the Earth-friendly energy sector, and it has been a needle in my side in terms of giving him my vote. You can’t say you’re going to create jobs, then lose 62,000 of them because of a Chinese tariff. On top of it, he’s a big supporter of “clean coal,” which isn’t real, because coal isn’t clean.
Additionally, I’m not wholly convinced that Trump would be a great benefactor to the movement of sustainable energy. While I know he’s supported Tesla and Musk in the past, and he also pushed for the Fremont facility to reopen amid the pandemic, which is arguable, there are a lot of jobs in Natural Gas, Coal, and Oil. They bring a lot of money in, and they create employment opportunities. However, they’re not great for the environment, and that’s something that I have a big problem with, personally.
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Biden, indeed, is the more environmentally-friendly choice between the two candidates. He has a laid-out plan for climate change, and he is a supporter of clean energy. One thing I like about him is that he is not denying that climate change is a threat to human existence, and I feel that whoever gets into office over the next two terms is going to have a real problem on their hands if they do not confront this issue head-on. I like that Biden has a specific plan to penalize the big polluters and hold them accountable for the environmental issues they have laid upon the Earth for revenue.
Biden also has a net-zero carbon goal by 2050, which many automotive companies have adopted in 2020. The big key with this is holding companies accountable and doing annual or even bi-annual check-ins to make sure they’re taking steps to work toward becoming cleaner.
Biden also has a plan to create 10 million clean energy jobs in the U.S. over the course of his term. This is an astounding number, but it will take a lot of work to create that many jobs in one sector in four years. So I have a little bit of trouble believing it.
One thing I found sort of humorous about Biden is the video clip he uploaded to Twitter in early August. While sitting in a Stingray, he says that EVs are the future of transportation and that he hopes they make an all-electric version of the Corvette variant. I found this sort of counterproductive, and I got a good chuckle out of it. Nothing says you love sustainability like sitting in a car that gets 12 MPG!
Either way the cookie crumbles in November, both candidates have their own advantages in terms of what they can do for EVs. Tesla being an American-based EV maker, holds to gain, or lose, the most from the election in terms of the potential of the sector in the coming years. Depending on who you ask, both candidates are the “best” for the job. Still, whichever party really ends up helping Tesla and sustainability could hold the Presidency for years to come, as environmentalism is growing and becoming a more critical issue every year.
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Elon Musk
Tesla’s golden era is no longer a tagline
Tesla “golden era” teaser video highlights the future of transportation and why car ownership itself may be the next thing to change.
The golden age of autonomous ridesharing is arriving, and Tesla is making sure we can all picture a future that looks like the future. A recent teaser posted to X shows a Cybercab parked outside a home, and with a clear message that your everyday life may soon look like this when the driverless vehicles shows up at your door.
Tesla has begun the rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the production of its dedicated, fully-autonomous Cybercab vehicle. The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas assembly line on February 17, 2026, with volume production now targeted for this month. Additionally, the Robotaxi service built around it is already running, without human drivers, in US cities.
Tesla Cybercab production ignites with 60 units spotted at Giga Texas
The Cybercab is built without a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors, designed from the ground up for unsupervised autonomous operation. Musk described the manufacturing approach as closer to consumer electronics than traditional car production, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds at full scale.
Drone footage from April 13, 2026 captured over 50 Cybercab units on the Giga Texas campus, with several clustered near the crash testing facility. Musk has noted that Tesla plans to sell the Cybercab to consumers for under $30,000, and owners will be able to add their vehicles to the Tesla robotaxi network when not in personal use, potentially generating income to offset the vehicle’s purchase cost. That model changes the math on vehicle ownership in a meaningful way, making a car something closer to a depreciating asset that can also earn by paying itself off and generate a profit.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call, the company confirmed plans to expand the Robotaxi program to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. The service already runs without safety drivers in Austin, and public road testing of the Cybercab has expanded to five states, including California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
Golden era pic.twitter.com/AS6pX2dK8N
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) April 16, 2026
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Tesla is pushing Robotaxi features to owner cars with Spring Update
