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The Boring Co. secures land in major LA corridor for upcoming Loop station

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The Boring Company has secured a parcel of land in West Los Angeles for a future Loop station along its first LA-route. As could be seen in recent sale records and filings with the office of the Secretary of State of the State of California, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup under the entity name “TBC – The Boring Company” secured a commercial-zoned property located at 2352-2356 S Sepulveda Boulevard in April of this year.  

The property lies along the path of the Boring Company’s proposed 6.5-mile long proof-of-concept tunnel that would run from northeast Westchester to Brentwood, one of the most traffic-congested sections in the West Los Angeles area. The tunnel system, a section of which seems to be nearing completion based on recent social media teasers from The Boring Company, would run under Sepulveda Blvd. and right across Culver City.

The location of the land purchased by the company was initially tipped off to us by Robert of the Talking Tesla podcast, who posted a photo of the site as a response to a tweet from the tunneling startup. The location, which could be seen on Google Maps, appears to have been used previously as a wood storage area. The land itself was sold through Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real estate brokerage firm. Marcus & Millichap was offering the land for $4.7 million, and as public records show, on February 1, 2018, it was purchased for a price of $4.6 million.

Note: “The Boring Company” logo added to the Google Maps Streetview for emphasis

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The Sepulveda Blvd. lots were purchased by Jadejams Property LLC, which was newly incorporated in January 2018. On February 1, Jadejams purchased the land from Marcus & Millichap. Filings submitted to the office of the Secretary of State of the State of CA reveal that Jadejams Property LLC is listed with a business address of 12200 Crenshaw Blvd., which is the street adjacent to SpaceX’s headquarters and right above the Boring Company’s test tunnel. Furthermore, Jadejams Property LLC’s filings also list The Boring Company as its sole manager. Jared Birchall, who is linked to Elon Musk through Neuralink, is listed as the person who completed Jadejams Property LLC’s filing.

The Boring Company’s Loop stations are designed to be small loading zones and exits where passengers could use for access to the company’s underground tunnel system. Passengers in the Loop system would be carried from one destination to another in an electric-powered pod, which would be manufactured by Tesla and be capable of transporting up to 16 passengers at a time. The Loop system will not use vacuum sealed tunnels and hence, will not support hyperloop transport. Nevertheless, the pods in the Loop would still be able to reach speeds of up to 150 mph, thanks to an eight-wheel design that would be fitted on the sides of the vehicle. The Loop system is set to be used by the Boring Company in the Chicago-O’Hare high-speed transport system, which is set to begin in the near future.

According to Elon Musk, The Boring Company would be offering free demo rides on the Hawthorne test tunnel soon. If the company’s recent social media uploads from the tunneling startup are any indication, test rides in the test tunnel would be both an exhilarating and colorful experience for passengers.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.

Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.

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It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.

Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.

The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.

Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.

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The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.

SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.

There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.

The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

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It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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