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Elon Musk congratulates Norway on banning gas burning cars by 2025

Elon Musk congratulated Norway in a tweet for agreeing to make all passenger cars zero emissions by 2025. The agreement is not finalized at this point, but Norway is intent on lowering its carbon footprint in line with the COP21 agreement in Paris from last December.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to congratulate Norway for its decision to ban fossil fuel cars by 2025. Actually, Elon may have been a little optimistic in his praise. Norway is strongly considering such a proposal and all four major political parties have signed on to it in principal, but the policy has not yet received final approval.

No matter. Norway is a global leader when it comes to taking action on climate change. There is a strong likelihood that the sale of fossil fuel cars will in fact be outlawed by 2025. In the meantime, the country is moving forward aggressively on many fronts to lower its carbon footprint.

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Norway already gets more than 90% of its electrical energy from renewable sources. It has such an abundance of hydroelectric power, it supplies some of its surplus to Germany. It is also constructing an undersea transmission cable to send some of that electricity to the United Kingdom.

Norway is one of Tesla’s best markets, primarily because the incentives the government has put in place for electric vehicles make them price competitive with conventional cars. Ordinarily, a new car buyer pays a substantial amount of tax on the vehicle, but electric cars are exempt. EV drivers also get to use commuter lanes, have access to priority parking and free electric chargers in Norwegian cities, and are exempt from paying tolls on Norway’s numerous ferries, bridges, and tunnels.

Nor Lines transporting Tesla Model S into Norway [Photo courtesy of Anders Sandvik]

Nor Lines transporting Tesla Model S into Norway [Photo courtesy of Anders Sandvik]

Norway is also planning to invest nearly a billion dollars in improving its bicycle commuting infrastructure. The plan is to create separate bicycle highways between the cities and the suburbs so people and bike to work without competing with automobiles.

The government will meet again on Monday to try to hammer out the final terms of its zero emissions vehicle policies. In addition to passenger cars being zero emissions by 2025, the proposals seek to make 75% of intercity buses zero emissions by 2030 and 50% of cargo trucks as well. Norway is also pioneering the use of hybrid electric passenger and cargo ferries for coastal marine traffic.

Elon may have jumped the gun a little bit with his tweet, but Norway appears to be on the brink of becoming fossil fuel free sooner than any other industrialized country.

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Thanks to Leif Hansen for alerting us to local news reports from Norway. 

"I write about technology and the coming zero emissions revolution."

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Cybertruck

Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes

According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla’s new Cybertruck offering has had its delivery date pushed back once again. This is now the second time, and deliveries for the newest orders are now pushed well into 2027.

According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:

Just three days ago, the initial delivery date of June 2026 was pushed back to early Fall, and now, that date has officially moved to April 2027.

The fact that Tesla has had to push back deliveries once again proves one of two things: either Tesla has slow production plans for the new Cybertruck trim, or demand is off the charts.

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Judging by how Tesla is already planning to raise the price based on demand in just a few days, it seems like the company knows it is giving a tremendous deal on this spec of Cybertruck, and units are moving quickly.

That points more toward demand and not necessarily to slower production plans, but it is not confirmed.

Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim will undergo massive change in ten days, Musk says

Tesla is set to hike the price on March 1, so tomorrow will be the final day to grab the new Cybertruck trim for just $59,990.

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It features:

  • Dual Motor AWD w/ est. 325 mi of range
  • Powered tonneau cover
  • Bed outlets (2x 120V + 1x 240V) & Powershare capability
  • Coil springs w/ adaptive damping
  • Heated first-row seats w/ textile material that is easy to clean
  • Steer-by-wire & Four Wheel Steering
  • 6’ x 4’ composite bed
  • Towing capacity of up to 7,500 lbs
  • Powered frunk

Interestingly, the price offering is fairly close to what Tesla unveiled back in late 2019.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt

Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.

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Credit: SpaceX/X

Elon Musk has clarified when SpaceX will first attempt to catch Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower. The CEO’s update provides the clearest teaser yet for the spacecraft’s recovery roadmap.

Musk shared the details in recent posts on X. In his initial post, Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.

“Starship V3 SN1 headed for ground tests. I am highly confident that the V3 design will achieve full reusability,” Musk wrote.

In a follow-up post, Musk addressed when SpaceX would attempt to catch the upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms. 

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“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk clarified. 

His remarks suggest that SpaceX is deliberately reducing risk before attempting a tower catch of Starship’s upper stage. Such a milestone would mark a major step towards the full reuse of the Starship system.

SpaceX is currently targeting the first Starship V3 flight of 2026 this coming March. The spacecraft’s V3 iteration is widely viewed as a key milestone in SpaceX’s long-term strategy to make Starship fully reusable. 

Starship V3 features a number of key upgrades over its previous iterations. The vehicle is equipped with SpaceX’s Raptor V3 engines, which are designed to deliver significantly higher thrust than earlier versions while reducing cost and weight. 

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The V3 design is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability, a critical step if SpaceX intends to scale the spacecraft’s production toward frequent launches for Starlink, lunar missions, and eventually Mars. 

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Tesla FSD (Supervised) could be approved in the Netherlands next month: Musk

Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared that Full Self-Driving (FSD) could receive regulatory approval in the Netherlands as soon as March 20, potentially marking a major step forward for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance rollout in Europe.

Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin, noting that the date was provided by local authorities.

“Tesla has the most advanced real-world AI, and hopefully, it will be approved soon in Europe. We’re told by the authorities that March 20th, it’ll be approved in the Netherlands,’ what I was told,” Musk stated

“Hopefully, that date remains the same. But I think people in Europe are going to be pretty blown away by how good the Tesla car AI is in being able to drive.”

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Tesla’s FSD system relies on vision-based neural networks trained on real-world driving data, allowing vehicles to navigate using cameras and AI rather than traditional sensor-heavy solutions. 

The performance of FSD Supervised has so far been impressive. As per Tesla’s safety report, Full Self-Driving Supervised has already traveled 8.3 billion miles. So far, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles. 

In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.

If approval is granted on March 20, the Netherlands could become the first European market to greenlight Tesla’s latest supervised FSD (Supervised) software under updated regulatory frameworks. Tesla has been working to secure expanded FSD access across Europe, where regulatory standards differ significantly from those in the United States. Approval in the Netherlands would likely serve as a foundation for broader EU adoption, though additional country-level clearances may still be required.

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