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Tesla White House Petition Response Falls on Deaf Ears
Tesla Motors direct sales proponents sent a “We the People Petition on Tesla Motors” petition to the White House asking the government to let the company sell directly to consumers. In typical modern politics, the Tesla White House response was vague, slippery and off-topic, showing once more how disconnected modern politics are from the constituent’s wishes.
Tesla White House petition response
Sometimes, the modern state of politics is enough to discourage even the most ardent liberty defender. The We the People Petition on Tesla Motors petition gathered only a few signatures, 138,469. The Tesla White House response seems to pass the bucket down. You can read the We the People Petition on Tesla Motors below. More than a year after its filing, according to ArsTechnica, the official White House response was signed by Dan Utech, Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. The answer boils down to, it’s up to Congress to answer this matter. The call for Tesla to sell direct is now part of the left and right political maneuvers, unfortunately.
What the Tesla White House petition response asks
The Tesla White House response clearly asks to allow Tesla Motors to sell directly to consumers in all 50 states. It bases the premise on the fact most people ask for freedom of choice and that the 60 years old dealership association requirement are woefully out of date and do not represent our fast changing landscape. People want more choice and certainly, very little people can claim very positive experiences walking out of car dealerships.
What the Tesla White House petition response doesn’t answer
Utech’s Tesla White House response, goes into tangents about how the current administration has done a great job improving the choice in America and saving the environment. But it still views EV drivers as environmentalists. It’s fair to say that most Tesla drivers are more tech savvy than environmentalists. The spin Meisters response further dives and twists, avoiding to answer the petition directly. The answer hits rock bottom when it mentions: “significant progress in promoting vehicle efficiency”, talking about gasoline car, completely unrelated to the pure electric car Tesla Motors sells. To drive the point further, it states something every Tesla Motors loyalist knows by now, that the company repaid its loan nine years ahead of schedule.
This leaves us to wonder two things. Does democracy still have a place where lobbies command more decision making than what the constituents demand from their representatives, or was this befuddling answer because only 138,469 signed the petition? In the meantime, the Tesla White House response to selling directly just puts pressure on Congress.
The We the People Petition on Tesla Motors petition response
“Thanks for your We the People petition. We’re excited about the next generation of transportation choices, including the kind of electric vehicles that Tesla and others have developed. These companies are taking steps to help spur innovation in the promising area of advanced batteries and electric automobiles. Vehicle electrification and other advanced technologies are vital components of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, and his commitment to addressing climate change and reducing carbon pollution, in addition to reducing our dependence on oil.
But as you know, laws regulating auto sales are issues that have traditionally sat with lawmakers at the state level.
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We believe in the goal of improving consumer choice for American families, including more vehicles that provide savings at the pump for consumers. However, we understand that pre-empting current state laws on direct-to-consumer auto sales would require an act of Congress.
We are already making significant progress in promoting vehicle efficiency: new vehicle fuel economy has increased by 12% since 2008 and consumers now can choose from five times more car models with a combined city/highway fuel economy of 30 mpg or more, compared to just five years ago. In December 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that model year 2012 vehicles achieved an all-time high fuel economy, after increasing seven of the last eight years.
The President has taken historic action to spur more consumer choice — saving consumers money at the pump and reducing our dependence on oil. Here are some of the ways we’re helping to encourage the future generation of energy-efficient cars:
In 2012, the Obama Administration finalized groundbreaking standards that will increase fuel economy to the equivalent of 54.5 mpg for cars and light-duty trucks by Model Year 2025. These standards will save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the gas pump and reduce U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels. And this spring, we also released standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, a move that will save vehicle owners and operators an estimated $50 billion in fuel, and save a projected 530 million barrels of oil. You can learn more about that here.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has a loan program to help spur the kinds of innovation needed to create the future of transportation. In fact, Tesla’s electric car won the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year while repaying its DOE loan 9 years early and earning the taxpayers about $17 million in profit. And DOE’s loan to Ford Motor Company to upgrade 13 factories across six states and to upgrade the fuel efficiency of a dozen popular vehicles has supported 33,000 jobs across the United States.
In September 2013, DOE awarded $45 million in funding for 38 new projects that to improve fuel efficiency, lower transportation costs, and protect the environment. The 38 new projects support the goals of the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, a public-private initiative to make EVs as affordable and convenient to own and drive as gasoline-powered vehicles within 10 years. Also as part of EV Everywhere, DOE has launched the Workplace Charging Challenge, with a goal of achieving a tenfold increase in the number of U.S. employers offering workplace charging for plug-in electric vehicles in the next five years.
As these initiatives show, the Administration is in favor of fostering competition in the market to help spur the kinds of innovation needed to support ongoing U.S. leadership in vehicle manufacturing and a potential range of new technologies.
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Again, thank you for your petition.
Dan Utech is Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change”
Tesla released Full Self-Driving version 14.3.6 last week, and after what was potentially one of the best FSD releases in v14.3.5, there has been a bit of a regression. While there are some bright spots, the changes made to v14.3.6 seem to have backtracked some behaviors.
Overall, it is hard to really complain about FSD in any sense; it has revolutionized how I travel literally anywhere. According to my self-driving app, the last time I went a day without using it was 59 days ago.
However, I think it’s also important to recognize when things are just plain bad with FSD. There are times it does truly mind-boggling things, and I’ll dive into those here. Additionally, I only had these issues on local roads, not on highways. Highway operation, generally, is always incredible other than the occasional complaint about speed or left lane camping.
With those things being said, my personal experience may not represent others’ experiences. A handful of people have said they have had a similar experience on v14.3.6, while others have said it is more than normal.
Turning Hesitancy, Inaccuracy
I’ve noticed more inaccuracy turning into multi-lane stretches of road than in any version I can remember. I’ve had at least three instances of FSD turning into a stretch of roadway that has two or more lanes, and not selecting a lane confidently as it has in past versions.
I think Tesla FSD v14.3.6 is a regression from previous .3 branches
This version in particular has been incredibly hesitant, jerky, and indecisive at times. There’s actually been two drives that I have decided to not used FSD for the remainder of the trip. These were local trips… pic.twitter.com/YobHDOKRS6
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 26, 2026
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Instead, the car will drive over one of the dashed road lines, and the steering wheel will jerk back and forth before picking the lane. It should be said that it has always picked the correct lane when choosing based on the navigation, but it is still very indecisive. The steering wheel jerking is reminiscent of some of the later versions of v13.
I admit I really hate to see the steering wheel jerking come back. However, I think when Tesla releases v14.3.7, it won’t be present. When there are occurrences of it in FSD versions, it is usually resolved by the following release.
FSD Disregards Manual Turn Signals
This is my biggest bone to pick with FSD other than Navigation issues, but this one seems like it would be such an easy fix.
If Tesla is going to put the word “Supervised” on the end of “Full Self-Driving,” then when I tell the car to do something, it should do it. If I input an increase in speed by pressing the accelerator, the car will immediately respond. It does not disregard my input because it feels it is traveling at the right speed.
FSD should never disobey and turn off turn signals that the driver inputs. Trying to direct the car into the correct lane, I had initiated the left turn signal not once, not twice, but three times, with the car turning it off all three times and continuing in a lane that would end in just one block. The only solution at this point would be to zipper merge.
This goes back to the fact that self-driving’s biggest bottleneck might be rider preference. A zipper merge might have been more than reasonable, might have saved me time that I spent sitting through an additional light cycle, and might be something many drivers would do. I was in no hurry, I traditionally do not try to zipper merge because it feels inconsiderate, and lastly, the car should have just followed my input.
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This caused me to disengage and drive manually the rest of the way home. Sometimes I just do not need FSD to try to pass every car it can at intersections.
Bird Braking is a Thing of the Past
The big complaint with recent versions of Full Self-Driving has been what we’ve coined as “bird braking,” which is when the car will brake suddenly as a bird flies past.
There have been zero issues with this so far in v14.3.6, which is an excellent improvement.
FSD Might Already Be Taking Note of Driver Preferences
Another thing I have noticed over the past few days is that v14.3.6 seems to already be taking my preferences with navigation into account.
This is something that is supposed to be rolling out with the Summer Update, but I have a hunch it’s already present and might have been included in this v14.3.6 build. On Friday, FSD pulled into an entrance to a local convenience store that it had never attempted to go into before.
Typically, I manually pull into this entrance because it avoids heavy cross traffic at the main entrance. FSD has always chosen that congested main entrance.
I don’t want to get anyone excited but my Tesla running FSD v14.3.6 just:
✅ Pulled into an entrance at my local Sheetz that I routinely pull into manually but FSD never has entered
-✅ Pulled into my assigned parking space at home despite many other spots being vacant https://t.co/ZUShvknTWO pic.twitter.com/83O5a2S0eh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
Additionally, FSD has pulled into my assigned parking spot at my townhouse community on multiple occasions with this release. This is something that used to happen ocassionally, but not consistently.
It also navigated back to the same convenience store last night, drove through crazy cars scrambling to gas pumps, navigated out of the parking lot correctly, drove me home, and, once again, parked in my assigned spot.
As previously stated, this release just seems to have a few things that need to be brought to Tesla’s attention, and also to make others who use FSD aware of some things that I’ve experienced. I look forward to the next release that will remedy these issues, just as Tesla has always done in the past.
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Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.
“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.
The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.
In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.
However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.
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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.
The sheer scale of TERAFAB is going to be insane.
Elon said it wouldn’t be suitable for anywhere on Giga Texas property because it’s too big:
“We couldn’t possibly fit the Terafab on the GigaTexas campus. It will be far bigger than everything else combined there.
Several… pic.twitter.com/79GbhNNuf4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 23, 2026
Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.
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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”
He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”
SpaceX performed a secret test on a specific portion of Starship with its recent 13th test flight last week, CEO Elon Musk revealed.
Starship’s 13th test flight took place last Friday, and in many aspects, it was one of the most overwhelmingly successful launches in the project’s history.
All of the mission objectives were met without incident, both the Super Heavy Booster and Ship managed to perform safe splashdowns in the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean, respectively, and the deployment of Starlink satellites came and went without any complications.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
However, there was more on the agenda for SpaceX with Flight 13. Musk revealed an internal test of the ship’s heat shield tiles, as the space exploration company wanted to push them to the limits after previous issues.
Many noticed that Starship’s initial launch seemed to be more accelerated than normal, and that was not a mistake. Musk revealed that SpaceX decided to give Flight 13 an intentionally aggressive acceleration rate in an effort to test how well the tiles would remain attached to the ship:
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This flight intentionally had much higher acceleration to test how well the heat shield tiles would remain attached at high dynamic pressure.
Test was successful.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
SpaceX had issues with some of the heat shield tiles remaining attached early on in the Starship program. The first six test flights presented some kind of anomaly with them, so the company’s big focus with them was to figure out a way to keep them intact through the duration of the flight.
Things truly improved as Flight 10 showed that ceramic tiles generally stayed attached to the ship far better due to refined attachment, as SpaceX utilized pins instead of adhesives. Flights 10 through 13 truly showed some clear progress with the heat shield tiles, and this latest test seems to be where some real progress was noticed, especially by Musk.
The 13th Starship launch last Friday was the second with Starship V3, SpaceX’s latest and greatest iteration of the spacecraft. Goals and ambitions are getting even grander as the project continues to progress. Musk has already hinted that SpaceX will likely try to catch Starship with Flight 14.
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