Lifestyle
Top 5 Reasons Why My Child’s Next Car will be an EV
The trusty old family Acura MDX living in the ICE age
Part of my justification for purchasing a Tesla Model S was because my daily driver an Acura MDX SUV was at 190,000 miles and was soon to become the starter car for my daughter that was about to turn of driving age. As an electric vehicle (EV) convert who’s logged nearly 50,000 miles of emissions free driving, and watching my child experience the tribulations with driving a gasoline powered internal combustion engine (ICE) car, I’ve come up with my top 5 reasons why my child’s next car will be an EV.
5. ICE cars emit poisonous gases
As EV drivers we inevitably morph into these sensitive creatures revolted by the sheer visualization of exhaust fumes spewing from ICE cars, which is still more common place than not. It’s not a character trait that you consciously make an effort to adopt, but rather you’re so far removed from any exposure to emissions when driving electric, that you often lose sight of the fact that there’s even such a thing as poisonous gas spewing freely into the atmosphere. Therefore your Spidey senses are on high alert when you do come across it.
Kids on the other hand are seeing the world of cars for the first time. They pay very little attention to anything other than their mission to get from point A to point B. How to fill the car with gas, what things, whether inanimate or not, to look out for, etc. all come as an afterthought.
This week my daughter scared the heck out of me when she went out to the garage to warm up the car before heading to school. I was in the process of putting some things away in the house so I didn’t come into the garage until 5-10 minutes later, but when I finally did, I could hardly breathe. My daughter was sitting in the big SUV while the engine was running and with all the garage doors closed. I immediately opened all the doors to ventilate the space and counted my blessings. Thankfully she was fine but it sure made for a frightening experience.
When I spoke to her about it, she said, “But Dad, you have your car running in the garage all the time without the doors open.” It’s true, I do. I fiddle with with my car for blog posts or just for fun, I clean it with the music running, and generally don’t worry about emissions. She’s been watching me this entire time and figured she could do the same. Needless to say, we had a long chat about the dangers of poisonous fumes that gets emitted as a byproduct of gasoline burning engines.
4. ICE cars burn fossil fuels which can be dangerous to handle
The big SUV gets a measly 20 mpg and with my daughter’s commute to school and after school activities, she’s hitting the gas stations quite a bit.
Here in the wonderful state of Massachusetts you have to pump your own gas at most gas stations. My daughter hadn’t experienced pumping gas before and had no idea where gas goes or where the process of filling flammable liquid into the vehicle even begins. That may sound strange to some, but the fact of the matter is, she hasn’t seen me use a gas station in over 18 months, and literally had no point of reference for the procedure.
I showed her the process of squeezing a trigger on a pump that would allow the flow of gasoline into the car’s gas tank. And like any teenager these days when encountered with a 20 second lapse of inactivity, she pulled out her cell phone to see what’s going on in her digital life. That concerned me.
I know there’s little chance that a cell phone may spark an explosion, but it’s still not recommended to be using electronics while you’re surrounded by highly flammable liquids. I went on to explain that gas fumes can ignite through sparks and that electronics could be a catalyst to it. And of course, like any good Dad, I had to warn her that she could blow herself up. She reluctantly put the phone away.
As we finished filling up the gas tank and began hanging the nozzle back on the pump, a trail of gas dripped across the car and to the ground. I told her that this stuff was not only bad for the environment, bad for the car’s paint, but also that it’s carcinogenic and bad for your health. At that point I think she started to understand that ownership of an ICE car could be dangerous, even when not started.
3. ICE cars require regular maintenance
Since my daughter will be driving the car very regularly and logging a good amount of miles on it, she will need to maintain a regular service interval. The Acura has a service indicator that lights up when it’s time for service.
The “A” service light indicates that an oil change is needed while the “B” service light represents the need for an oil change plus a tire rotation. There are additional indicators to alert you of more major services such as belt changes, fluid flushes and transmission plus brake maintenance.
An engine-less Model S “frunk”
My daughter was not thrilled by the mention of the type of services needed, likely because it was going to be a real inconvenience to maintain it, but also because there will be costs associated with each type of service. Once again this was new to her since we never experienced such a thing in the Model S.
2. ICE cars are expensive to drive
In addition to having to pay for costly services, filling up the Acura costs $55. Since that’s about a week’s worth of after school part-time pay, I’ll be paying for gas that’s needed to get her to school, sports practice and her other commitments. However I made it clear that trips to the mall were going to be on her dime.
Although gas prices have dropped recently and electricity is still crazy expensive in my area, driving an EV is still 1/3 to 1/5 the cost of an ICE car for the same distance travelled. And that doesn’t take into account the extra service and maintenance costs associated with owning a gas car. Our trusty old Acura SUV is safe and reliable but at 20MPG it isn’t all that efficient.
1. ICE cars need to be turned on and off
After 18 months of living with the Tesla Model S, the entire family has gotten used to pulling into a parking spot and walking away while the car takes care of shutting itself down and locking up. I’m sure every Model S owner can relate.
While my daughter hasn’t been driving my Model S, she’s been watching and learning from my behaviors since day one. I never use a key, I never lock and unlock the door, and probably the most obvious difference is that I never turn off the car. For that reason, there’s been several times during her early days of driving where she would just get out of the car and forget to turn off the engine, or lock the car. Usually one of us remembers before we get too far, but it’s crazy how quickly you become accustomed to a certain way of life.
As the automotive industry continues to shift towards plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles, not to mention introduce technologies where vehicles can drive themselves, there’s still a world of education that needs to be had before people eventually transition from the old ICE-age into this new form of transportation. But for now, I’ll start with my daughter.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The Boring Company’s Prufrock MB2 is commissioned and ready to mine beneath Nashville’s streets.
The Boring Company’s second tunnel boring machine, Prufrock MB2, is officially ready to dig in Nashville. The company confirmed the news on X, posting: “Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here. Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start? And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August!”
MB2 arrives with meaningful improvements over its predecessor. Lessons learned from the launch and operation of MB1 have already been applied to MB2 to improve efficiency and prepare the machine for launch.
Traditional tunnel boring machines operate in a stop-and-go cycle, digging roughly five feet, halt, erect precast concrete segments to line the tunnel wall, then resume. That repeated interruption is one of the main reasons conventional tunneling is slow and expensive. Prufrock is designed to install the tunnel liner simultaneously with mining, eliminating the need to stop every five feet. The machine also skips the need for excavated launch pits. Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and launches into the ground within 24 hours. And when the tunnel is complete, it emerges from the ground and drives to its next launch site on a trailer, eliminating the need for expensive cranes or pit excavation. The machine is also fully electric and runs with zero people in the tunnel during normal operations, controlled remotely from a surface operations center.
Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here.
Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start?
And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August! pic.twitter.com/TTrMql2aRg
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) June 17, 2026
It won’t be long before we hear of another major update on The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project – a planned underground transit network beneath Nashville that would move passengers in electric vehicles through a series of tunnels at highway speeds, and bypassing surface traffic entirely. Nashville was selected in part because of its strong rock conditions that suits the Prufrock machines well, and relatively less regulatory hurdles.
Progress has been steady on multiple fronts. All 37 permits and approvals required ahead of tunneling have been obtained, out of 45 total. Key wins include a fully executed TDOT tunnel permit authorizing 25 miles of tunnel, unanimous airport authority approval for a Nashville International Airport station, and the city’s first residential station agreement serving downtown tower residents.
With MB1 already tunneling, MB2 now commissioned, and MB3 shipping in August, Nashville is becoming something of a live proving ground for scaled tunnel boring. The broader ambition is not limited to one city. The Boring Company’s stated goal is to make underground transportation a practical alternative to surface roads across major metro areas. Nashville is one of many cities, including a successful Las Vegas tunnel system, where that idea is being put to the test at real speed.
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
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