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The Boring Company San Antonio Loop’s net revenue expected to be $25M per year, fares to start at $10

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On Wednesday, May 18, The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (RMA) board was briefed on more details about The Boring Company’s (TBC) proposed tunnel from the San Antonio International Airport to downtown.

Bexar County Public Works director and county engineer Renee Green briefed the Alamo RMA board on The Boring Company tunnel project before the members went into executive session.

Green’s presentation noted that 10 million out of 30 million people who visit the city pass through the San Antonio International Airport. As such, the San Antonio tunnel project is expected to generate a net revenue of up to $25 million per year, with fares between $10 to $12. 

“These revenue projections would require, obviously, more detailed study for reasonableness and accuracy. That’s what the ridership and revenue study will tell us,” said Green.

According to Green, all funding for the tunneling project would come from Elon Musk’s tunneling company. She emphasized that taxpayers would not spend a cent on the project. TBC offered a “turn-key lump sum construction price where they assume all the risks.” The Boring Company project is estimated to cost between $241 million and $298 million. 

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TBC plans to build a one-way tunnel 7.6 miles long that would possibly run parallel U.S. 281. However, the route of the tunnel will not be settled until a feasibility study is performed. An examination of potential environmental risks must be done as well. 

The San Antonio tunnel would have exit shafts located every half-mile for safety purposes. The number of stations the tunnel would have is still unknown. 

The presentation stated that 100 Tesla vehicles could transport about 32,000 passengers through the San Antonio tunnel daily on average. It would have a maximum capacity of transporting 4,500 passengers per hour with 100 vehicles. If the tunnel’s Tesla fleet increased to 350 vehicles, it would be able to accommodate 112,000 commuters daily and 15,750 passengers per hour from the airport to downtown. 

“This is an extremely efficient system. You don’t have any cross traffic, you’re not stopping at each location, you’re either pulling in or pulling out of the tunnel system,” said Green. 

She emphasized that each trip would have little to zero wait time. However, Green also highlighted that The Boring Company tunnel would work alongside traditional transit systems and would not be competing for the same ridership.

“The project can provide an equivalent capacity to both bus and rapid transit for a fraction of the operating costs that we’re talking about, while providing reliability and solving a lot of the last-mile difficulties that you see with traditional transit systems by utilizing underground rides where the system will supplement any plan for ongoing transit type projects and is not expected to replace them,” she added.

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Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Elon Musk

Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD

As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.” 

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Credit: @BLKMDL3/X

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has provided an updated estimate for the training data needed to achieve truly safe unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD). 

As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.” 

10 billion miles of training data

Musk comment came as a reply to Apple and Rivian alum Paul Beisel, who posted an analysis on X about the gap between tech demonstrations and real-world products. In his post, Beisel highlighted Tesla’s data-driven lead in autonomy, and he also argued that it would not be easy for rivals to become a legitimate competitor to FSD quickly. 

“The notion that someone can ‘catch up’ to this problem primarily through simulation and limited on-road exposure strikes me as deeply naive. This is not a demo problem. It is a scale, data, and iteration problem— and Tesla is already far, far down that road while others are just getting started,” Beisel wrote. 

Musk responded to Beisel’s post, stating that “Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. Reality has a super long tail of complexity.” This is quite interesting considering that in his Master Plan Part Deux, Elon Musk estimated that worldwide regulatory approval for autonomous driving would require around 6 billion miles. 

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FSD’s total training miles

As 2025 came to a close, Tesla community members observed that FSD was already nearing 7 billion miles driven, with over 2.5 billion miles being from inner city roads. The 7-billion-mile mark was passed just a few days later. This suggests that Tesla is likely the company today with the most training data for its autonomous driving program. 

The difficulties of achieving autonomy were referenced by Elon Musk recently, when he commented on Nvidia’s Alpamayo program. As per Musk, “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.” These sentiments were echoed by Tesla VP for AI software Ashok Elluswamy, who also noted on X that “the long tail is sooo long, that most people can’t grasp it.”

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Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards

MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.

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Credit: Tesla China

Tesla emerged as one of the most recognized automakers at MotorTrend’s 2026 Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.

As could be seen in a press release from the publication, two key Tesla employees were honored for their work on AI, autonomy, and vehicle software. MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.

Tesla leaders and engineers recognized

The fourth annual SDV Innovator Awards celebrate pioneers and experts who are pushing the automotive industry deeper into software-driven development. Among the most notable honorees for this year was Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, who received a Pioneer Award for his role in advancing artificial intelligence and autonomy across the company’s vehicle lineup.

Tesla also secured recognition in the Expert category, with Lawson Fulton, a staff Autopilot machine learning engineer, honored for his contributions to Tesla’s driver-assistance and autonomous systems.

Tesla’s software-first strategy

While automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Rivian also received recognition, Tesla’s multiple awards stood out given the company’s outsized role in popularizing software-defined vehicles over the past decade. From frequent OTA updates to its data-driven approach to autonomy, Tesla has consistently treated vehicles as evolving software platforms rather than static products.

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This has made Tesla’s vehicles very unique in their respective sectors, as they are arguably the only cars that objectively get better over time. This is especially true for vehicles that are loaded with the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which are getting progressively more intelligent and autonomous over time. The majority of Tesla’s updates to its vehicles are free as well, which is very much appreciated by customers worldwide.

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Elon Musk

Judge clears path for Elon Musk’s OpenAI lawsuit to go before a jury

The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

A U.S. judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding nonprofit mission can proceed to a jury trial. 

The decision maintains Musk’s claims that OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit structure violated early assurances made to him as a co-founder. These claims are directly opposed by OpenAI.

Judge says disputed facts warrant a trial

At a hearing in Oakland, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that there was “plenty of evidence” suggesting that OpenAI leaders had promised that the organization’s original nonprofit structure would be maintained. She ruled that those disputed facts should be evaluated by a jury at a trial in March rather than decided by the court at this stage, as noted in a Reuters report.

Musk helped co-found OpenAI in 2015 but left the organization in 2018. In his lawsuit, he argued that he contributed roughly $38 million, or about 60% of OpenAI’s early funding, based on assurances that the company would remain a nonprofit dedicated to the public benefit. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages tied to what he describes as “ill-gotten gains.”

OpenAI, however, has repeatedly rejected Musk’s allegations. The company has stated that Musk’s claims were baseless and part of a pattern of harassment.

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Rivalries and Microsoft ties

The case unfolds against the backdrop of intensifying competition in generative artificial intelligence. Musk now runs xAI, whose Grok chatbot competes directly with OpenAI’s flagship ChatGPT. OpenAI has argued that Musk is a frustrated commercial rival who is simply attempting to slow down a market leader.

The lawsuit also names Microsoft as a defendant, citing its multibillion-dollar partnerships with OpenAI. Microsoft has urged the court to dismiss the claims against it, arguing there is no evidence it aided or abetted any alleged misconduct. Lawyers for OpenAI have also pushed for the case to be thrown out, claiming that Musk failed to show sufficient factual basis for claims such as fraud and breach of contract.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers, however, declined to end the case at this stage, noting that a jury would also need to consider whether Musk filed the lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. Still, the dispute between Elon Musk and OpenAI is now headed for a high-profile jury trial in the coming months.

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