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Tesla who? Bill Gates refuses to mention EV leader in blog post

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Tesla has done more than any other company to accelerate the transportation movement toward electrification. By introducing the Model S in 2012, Tesla proved electric cars could be fast and exciting and sustainable at the same time. However, Tesla’s notable surge in popularity over the past few years wasn’t enough to convince Bill Gates to mention the company in his most recent blog post. Instead, he chose to credit legacy carmakers GM and Ford, and new kids on the block Rivian and Bollinger, leaving Tesla as a forgotten and unmentioned despite its much-deserved notoriety when talking about electric vehicles.

In a blog post on GatesNotes.com, the former Microsoft frontman talked about the struggle between traveling and contributing to global climate change. While moving and exploring is a part of life, the use of cars that are powered by petrol are contributing to the influx of emissions that are poisoning the Earth’s atmosphere.

Gates, who is a known supporter of electric vehicles, drives Porsche Taycan. The product of a prestigious private college in Massachusetts, known as Harvard, was more than willing to express his gratitude for the companies that are assisting in the surge toward cleaner transportation.

While electric sedans have been available for several years across a variety of car companies, pickup truck designs are rare. While the sustained focus on small passenger vehicles has subsided slightly in favor of crossovers and SUVs, other car companies are working on all-electric pickups, which would be a valuable contribution to the American automotive market.

“You’ll even be able to buy an all-electric pickup truck soon thanks to legacy companies like GM and Ford and new carmakers like Rivian and Bollinger,” Gates said. However, he left out the one company that has a sizeable lead in the EV sector, according to some of its competitors: Tesla.

Interestingly enough, Gates even talked about the widespread availability of EV batteries, which is a much-improved topic compared to 2010. Gates said that the price of battery cells has dropped 85% since that year, “so they’re getting more affordable to purchase,” he added.

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However, the most bang for your buck in terms of EVs and battery quality is Tesla, which makes it interesting that Gates would leave out such a large contributor to the very subject his blog post was focused on.

The reason for leaving Tesla out of the conversation is unknown. However, Gates has been vocally critical of Musk in the past, especially when concerning the Tesla CEO’s comments about the coronavirus. Gates said that he hoped Musk would not “confuse areas he’s not involved in too much,” in an interview with CNBC.

However, Musk is involved in the fight against the pandemic, as he has donated ventilators, developed his own in-house breathing system using Tesla auto parts, and has worked with pharmaceutical companies to build RNA printers that could assist in the development of a vaccine.

Leaving Tesla out of the conversation when talking about electric vehicles is like leaving out Microsoft when talking about computers. Tesla is the company that has made electric cars mainstream and has convinced other car companies that it is time to move away from gas-powered automobiles. Some of the largest companies in the world admit that Tesla is years ahead of everyone else, and for a good reason. The company was building EVs before the public widely accepted it.

Gates’ full blog post is available here.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla Full Self-Driving will now overtake manual driving to avoid disaster

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is beginning to roll out Full Self-Driving Supervised v14.3.9 with a new active safety layer that can take control even when the driver is operating the car manually.

Tesla AI said the software can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when an imminent collision is detected and Automatic Emergency Braking may not be enough. It may also engage if the system detects heavy distraction or an accidental FSD disengagement.

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The capability is essentially Automatic Collision Evasion. However, unlike conventional AEB, which mainly applies the brakes in a straight line, this feature can use steering, braking, and acceleration together if the car calculates that stopping alone will not prevent impact and a safer path exists. The system may change lanes or move toward a shoulder when conditions allow, then continue driving after the immediate threat is handled rather than simply coming to a stop.

The intervention is meant as a last-resort safety net, not a replacement for attentive driving.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 early review: FSD saved me from an accident

Tesla’s own description still frames FSD as supervised assistance. Secondary reports on internal release notes say the feature can fire while the car is being driven manually if cabin-camera monitoring suggests the driver is not sufficiently attentive, such as reaching toward the back seat, or if FSD appears to have been turned off unintentionally.

After the emergency maneuver, the car is expected to alert the driver and request a return to manual control.

The safety case is straightforward. Many collisions happen in the last second because a driver is looking away, fumbles a control, or faces an obstacle that braking cannot fully solve. A system that can both recognize that AEB is insufficient and execute a coordinated evasive path can reduce those remaining high-severity events.

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Re-engaging after accidental disengagement also addresses a practical failure mode: a small steering nudge that drops FSD at the worst moment. The advantage is a background safety net that uses the same vision stack already running in v14, instead of leaving the car solely to emergency braking once the driver is no longer in command.

The feature still depends on FSD being enabled and, according to reports, an active FSD purchase or subscription. It does not make the vehicle unsupervised. Drivers remain responsible, and Tesla has not published how often the system is expected to intervene or how it will handle false positives.

If the rollout is conservative and the false-alarm rate stays low, the update is a meaningful step: FSD is no longer only a feature the driver turns on. In the rare moments when disaster is already forming, it can step in.

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Tesla Cybercab launch catches NHTSA’s attention who wants to know more

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(Credit: Teslarati)

Tesla launched the all-electric, steering wheel-less, and pedal-less Cybercab last night at a quiet and small event in downtown Austin, Texas.

The launch, which marked the beginning of unsupervised ride-hailing for Tesla’s Robotaxi platform with Cybercab, has already caught the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) who has more questions.

NHTSA opened an Audit Query (AQ) into the Cybercab’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) certification that Tesla gave the vehicle. Manufacturers self-certify vehicles much of the time to avoid excessive regulatory delays.

Tesla Cybercab interior, note the lack of steering wheel and pedals. (Credit: @niccruzpatane/X< /a>)

However, the agency needs more information; it said in a summary:

“On September 3, 2026, Tesla began commercial deployment with a small number of its Cybercab vehicles in Austin, Texas. Tesla notified the Agency that it certified those Cybercab vehicles as compliant with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Tesla also notified the Agency that it plans to gradually expand commercial deployment of the Cybercab to include additional vehicles and locations.”

It also went on to state that the Cybercab lacks traditional automotive controls, which is a groundbreaking move. The process is entirely new to the NHTSA, which gives the agency some leverage to put Tesla’s launch under a microscope:

“The vehicles lack permanently attached, conventional manual controls, such as a brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel, and mirrors. NHTSA is opening this AQ to examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues. Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the Cybercab.”

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Tesla has added 45 Cybercab units to its fleet of Robotaxi-enabled cars in Austin, according to public documents the company submitted to the State of Texas over the past week. Enabling this level of self-driving is something Tesla has worked toward for many years, and now that it is finally here, it seems more than reasonable that regulatory agencies will have some questions.

Many outlets might try to frame this as a negative, but it is truly an agency looking to gain more information about groundbreaking tech that Tesla has been developing for years.

In an effort to keep riders, pedestrians, and property safe, any and all data accumulated from these first days, weeks, and months of rides will likely be shared with the NHTSA to enable broader rollout strategies across the United States and more in the future.

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Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins

Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.

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Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok
Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok

Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.

Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.

The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.

Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.

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