Lifestyle
Why do people compare Fisker to Tesla?
On my way back from a great Memorial Day weekend trip to Mystic, CT for some “lobstah”, we played tag with a Fisker Karma with NY plates. We got to see the front, back and sides of the car in all it’s glory, and I must say it’s a pretty smart looking car aside from the plain backside. I knew that Fisker had gone bankrupt and the defunct battery startup A123 which supplies batteries to the car had been bought by a Chinese billionaire, but other than that I didn’t know much about the car or the company. So, while driving back my wife started started googling and reading the information to me. 
The Fisker
The first question we had while peering at the car through our peripheral visions was how the Fisker driver managed to make its way up here from NY? The answer is that while wikipedia calls the Fisker Karma an electric vehicle, it’s really a hybrid. There’s a whole area of research and writing on hybrids that I won’t get into. The interesting part is around terminology. If you run only on electric and use gas to power an electric generator, then how can you get by calling the vehicle an EV when you’re burning gas most of the time. Who are they fooling?
Sometimes EVs are actually hybrids.
There are two “fill” ports on the Fisker, one for electric and one for gas which we saw on both sides of the car. With gas the Karma gets about 20 MPG, and with electric the EPA rates it at a relatively-low 52 MPGe. The electric range according to the EPA is a paltry 32 miles (the Model S EPA rating is almost 10x that at 300 miles). Also, unless you’re a a bit nuts you can’t achieve EPA ranges which require driving on perfectly flat roads at 55 MPH. With these kinds of specs I’d call the Fisker “barely electric”. When you combine both the gas and electric range of the car the full range was 230 miles. So even though you’re burning gas you’re going to have to stop every 100 miles or so to fill up. The Karma is neither a very efficient gas car, nor a particularly good “EV”. What ultimately turned me off from purchasing a hybrid is the fact that the cargo/interior room is compromised by having to support two power systems. On the Fisker this was so pronounced that it got rated as a subcompact by the EPA. The Fisker’s interior was modern and different but more alone the lines of an evolution rather than a radical departure of technological advances and innovation like the Model S.
ASLO SEE: Is Tesla Motors disruptive or disturbing?
The Fisker had a solar panel on its roof which they claimed could gain up to 4-5 miles of extra range a week (if it was really sunny, all the time). Of course they gave up things like a panoramic sunroof for that benefit and the Tesla forums are full of people doing math showing that adding solar to the roof of a car just doesn’t make sense given the small return you can get. But, when you only have 32 miles of EV range, 4-5 extra miles is a huge percentage improvement.
I think the solar roof was really just a sales gimmick to make people think the car was green.
The Fisker had a sound generator that triggered automatically at speeds less than 25 MPH when running in pure EV mode to warn pedestrians of its approach. There are times in the Model S where it would be great to have some button you could trigger to make an obvious-but-not-rude sound. I’ve already been stranded behind slowly walking pedestrians that didn’t know I was following them in my Model S with the only option being a rude horn. Reports say the Fisker Karma can go from 0-60 in 5.9 seconds putting it in the same performance category as the Tesla Model S 60 and slower than the 85 and P85 versions. The Karma was also expensive with a starting price around $102K and going up to $116K, putting it in the class of the Porsche Panamera and the Tesla Model S.
Fisker The Company
Fisker, like Tesla, was a high tech startup company, but unlike Tesla, they chose to use another startup’s battery technology to power the vehicle instead of going with a dominant brand in battery technology.
MUST SEE: Panasonic and Tesla Reach Agreement to Expand Supply of Automotive-Grade Battery Cells
Tesla chose to put 7,000+ time-proven Panasonic batteries in their Model S and upcoming Model X. I’m a big believer in startup companies that innovate and don’t bet their success on the success of another startup. That rarely ever works out well. It should be mentioned that early in the life of Tesla Motors the founder of Fisker actually worked for Tesla and later split off to start Fisker Automative amid lawsuits and controversy. Both Fisker and Tesla took green-energy loans from the government. Fisker borrowed $529M and never paid it back. Tesla borrowed $465M and repaid it in full and ahead of schedule. Fisker started shipping cars to customers in 2011 and got to just south of 2,500 cars before going out of business in 2013. During that time they were plagued with battery problems, reports of car fires and other issues. Tesla has shipped over 40,000 cars so far, admittedly not without their own exciting events along the way. Both Fisker and A123 have been purchased by a Chinese billionaire who hopes to revive the two companies, but given all the compromises above it seems unlikely that it will go well, but alas, there’s no stock to short there.
Tesla and Fisker Similarities?
The Tesla Model S and the Fisker Karma were both built by high tech startups in California but the companies took very different paths to producing green vehicles. Fisker focussed on design with an award-winning exterior but joined it with a mediocre powertrain configuration plagued by supplier and design issues. Tesla focussed on the engineering aspects of the car, using proven technology and making it better while still holding to a clean exterior design. The Fisker Karma is overly complex. It’s also slower and more expensive than the Model S. It has less range than the Model S, even with a gas-powered generator onboard. It is full of compromises like interior space and is not surprisingly no longer produced. It does however have a noise maker and better cup holders.
Summary
As Toyota has proven, hybrid vehicles can be tremendously successful if done right. The challenge is understanding the mission and staying true to that mission. Toyota set out to improve MPG for the masses by using hybrid technology in reaction to rising gas prices. Fisker set out to make a great looking car and only really thought cleanly on aesthetics but made a lot of compromises in execution. Tesla set out to make a true electric vehicle with no compromises and they are accomplishing that mission. Tesla has yet to reach the mass-market level of their aspirations but they are well on their way and already have a true electric vehicle that makes no compromises. For what it’s worth we made the 150 mile round trip to Mystic, CT with 100 miles of range left at the end. While we passed the only Supercharger nearby on the way down and back in Rhode Island, there was no reason to stop and it’s a lot more convenient to charge at home. I’ve made no compromises with my Model S.
Elon Musk
Tesla FSD is about to know your specific house and neighborhood better than any map
Tesla confirmed it is building a feature that lets you teach your car where to go.
Tesla is building a feature that will let drivers talk to their car in plain language and teach it exactly what to do, with the vehicle remembering those instructions for every future trip. Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy confirmed it this week on X after a user pointed out one of FSD’s most persistent real-world limitations is that the system has no way to receive contextual instructions the way a human driver would.
“FSD would be twice as useful in neighborhoods if I could actually talk to the car and tell it which driveway to pull into, the same way I would with a person driving me home. Right now, there isn’t really an input for telling Tesla what color the house is or giving it specific context like that. Google Maps is also notorious for putting pins on houses that aren’t actually yours.” Tesla owner Chris further noted, “It would be so cool if I could talk to the car while going down my street and say something like, ‘It’s the white house on the left, just past that SUV,’ and then have FSD remember that for next time.”
FSD would be twice as useful in neighborhoods if I could actually talk to the car and tell it which driveway to pull into, the same way I would with a person driving me home.
Right now, there isn’t really an input for telling Tesla what color the house is or giving it specific…
— Chris (@ChrissGPT) July 8, 2026
This feature would carry more weight than it might seem. Grok has been available inside Tesla vehicles since July 2025, expanded to European vehicles in February 2026, and gained a hands-free “Hey Grok” wake word with location-based reminders and natural-language navigation in the Spring 2026 update. But up to this point, Grok has had no authority over how FSD actually drives. Lane changes, braking, speed, and parking maneuvers remain entirely within FSD’s autonomous decision-making loop. What Elluswamy confirmed is that the next step pushes Grok into a supervisor role, one that translates spoken intent directly into driving decisions.
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
Elluswamy acknowledged at a January 2026 conference that while fully integrated voice control is on Tesla’s roadmap, “it opens up an entire area of testing that we have to do. For example, you shouldn’t be able to tell the car to crash, and it shouldn’t crash.” Elon Musk subsequently confirmed on June 23 that Grok voice commands will pass to FSD’s planning layer by September 2026, a three month timeline from confirmation to deployment.
The deeper significance is what this does for Tesla’s AI training flywheel. Every time an owner corrects FSD with a spoken instruction and the car learns and remembers it, that interaction becomes a data point covering an edge case that no simulation or scripted test could have generated. A fleet of millions of Tesla vehicles crowdsourcing hyper-local contextual knowledge, which driveway, which gate entrance, which side of the street, builds a layer of geographic and behavioral intelligence that competitors without a comparable fleet simply cannot replicate at the same speed or scale.
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla’s Cybercab and robotaxi operations have expanded to Miami following the Austin launch, with rider profiles already collecting preference data. Voice-taught contextual instructions linked to individual rider profiles means a Cybercab could eventually know before it arrives exactly which entrance to use, where to wait, and how to navigate the final hundred feet of any trip it has made before.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
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.
Tesla FSD is about to know your specific house and neighborhood better than any map
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
