Lora Kolodny

@lorak

reporter at . email: lora.kolodny@ - ex-wsj, techcrunch & all over. i cover: elon musk cos. mostly tesla & spacex (some climate tech). my posts here are my own. optimistic on the inside. dm me on signal: lorakolodny.55

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Lora Kolodny@lorak· 26d

Thatcham Research tested the latest version of Tesla Autopilot available in a Model 3 that it leased anonymously. It conducted the tests in fair weather conditions on a track in England.

Tesla scored in the middle of the pack in the Euro NCAP ratings, because they found that it over-sells Autopilot capabilities, doesn’t have a sophisticated driver monitoring system and because Autopilot disengages completely when a driver turns the wheel strongly.

“Tesla’s system name Autopilot is inappropriate as it suggests full automation,” Euro NCAP wrote in a statement. “The promotional material suggests automation where the handbook correctly indicates the limitations of the system capabilities, which could lead to confusion.”

cnbc.com
Thatcham's Matthew Avery also explained to CNBC that, when a driver moves the steering wheel on a Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot activated, the car initially resists their steering. When driver input is stronger, the car disconnects Autopilot entirely.
"You have to really twist and yank the wheel, and that turns the system off," Avery said. "Tesla will say they do that to make it clear to the driver when the system is turned off and they are no longer being supported. But this is wrong —it encourages the driver to think the car is capable of driving without them. It dis-incentivizes them from making appropriate course corrections."

Lora Kolodny@lorak· 26d

AND yet the marketing messaging is such… and the videos on their site show a dude making & drinking espresso while over relying on fsd supervised etc.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jul 4

Elon Musk posts on July 4th that he has “wised up” about “classic liberalism,” & “suffrage.” His co. Tesla posts about its “most American-made” cars. Btw Tesla is the only US automaker that operates a factory in China without a jv with a Chinese partner. Special status. Musk never criticizes China.

$“미 x.com Post Devon Erik... • @Devon_Eriks... • 14h S ... Elon, this is the moment where you're supposed to wise up and abandon classical liberalism. If you let takers vote, they will not only take more and more, they will make it more and more rewarding to be a taker, and they will convert more and more makers into takers, forever. Show more Elon Musk @elonmusk • 20h Replying to @FoxNews Mamdani has built nothing. He is a taker, never a maker. • 2217 {7 415 7.7K ill 561K Elon Musk & @elonmusk Subscribe I have wised up 1:47 AM • Jul 4, 2026 • 587.6K Views G... Q$

x.com
Post
T
Tesla V
@Tesla
Teslas are the most American-made cars
...
• Happy 250th birthday, America
11:12 AM • Jul 4, 2026 • 116.7K Views
217
L] 596
4.2K
61

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jul 2

In the second quarter deliveries report,
Tesla did not disclose whether related-party transactions contributed to the strong
numbers. Last year, Space X spent $131 million purchasing Tesla Cybertrucks. That dollar amount represented a large portion of the 20,237 Cybertrucks Tesla sold in 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Tesla plans to report second-quarter financial results on Wednesday, July 22, after the market's close.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 29

anyone wanna help with a snake ID? seen in pacifica, california today near rockaway beach

light brown tanbark (mulch)with orange california poppy flowers & a snake winding through

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 28

happy pride - have fun out there

betsy dare holographic sticker showing a shining disco ball with pink, red, silver, yellow & gold details

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 27

here's the other screenshot showing Musk endorse this directly not just boost its visibility by sharing the post to his zillions of followers.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 27

Over on X - Elon Musk boosting Rupert Lowe tweet calling immmigrants "third world savages" - so another day ending in Y. Musk also replied "yes" to this in another post reply to Lowe.

Twitter / X screenshot showing a post Elon Musk re-shared on Jun. 27 (he also replied "Yes" below it, in another post not shown here) The tweet said:
Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
It has now reached the point where I truly believe that public officials and politicians who continue to knowingly import third world savages into our communities should be prosecuted.

It is that reckless, that irresponsible, that dangerous.

People need to go to prison.
6:11 AM · Jun 27, 2026
·
805.6K
Views"

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 18

^oops. here's the machine-generated transcript from the video for the closer to verbatim:

Ashley St. Clair on Elon Musk: He just wants white people to be oppressed so he can tweet about more elections that are going awry because of brown people. Don Lemon: Do you think he really believes that... Ashley St. Clair: I don't know that he knows what he believes. I think he oscillates like with the wind...

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 18

friend reads my biz & tech reporting on musk & knows i studied & love poetry, sent this… good workshop assignment, really:

A Lesson in Thermodynamics for the Pundit Who Said
Trillionaires Are a Part of Nature

Every second, every second
the sun releases
380 trillion trillion
Joules of energy.
Because death is real.
Because only what wholly flows can live.
When Einstein learned his equations predicted the existence of black holes, he shook his head and muttered, unbearable, unbearable.
There are the laws of being and the laws of becoming.
The rubble, the children's bellies swelling with hunger.
We are cast out into this world of burning furies
with warmth and hands and one great, one great command: remember
the late great fires that made you-if you have a trillion of something, give.
-Joseph Fasano

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 17

icymi trillionaire elon musk continues to whip up anti immigrant sentiment with his posts on x and is again endorsing anti immigrant extremists AfD in Germany along the way…

x.com
Mark Gustav @MarcusGustavus • 8h
Hey @elonmusk I'm not taking it down.
...
Mark Gustav
@MarcusGustavus
250K White girls raped.
800K Pakistani males in the UK.
Do the math.
Every single one either did it or knew about it.
Visibility limited: this Post may violate X's rules against Hateful Conduct.
Learn more
7:25 PM • Jun 16, 2026 • 527.9K Views
G...
80
L7 865
7.7K
ill 70K
贝
Elon Musk
X
@elonmusk • 25m
Should not be limited. Looking into it.
138
{> 75
1K
ill 13K
• ••
贝

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 17

rockaway beach near the taco bell cantina yea that one

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 17

Post the best picture you have ever taken of your pet (if you feel like it):

an old, white-faced brown dog with a red leash orders up one kosher beef frank at a hot dog stand in san francisco…

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 13

sometimes you gotta give yourself the flowers

bouquet of farmers’ market flowers with hot pink sweet williams, coral pink carnations, orange and yellow roses…

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 12

Sasja Beslik:
“
More than $70 billion from retail investors is pouring into SpaceX, in what may be the perfect symbol of our age. Politicians have largely abandoned the idea of providing citizens with economic security, so people are left chasing wealth through markets they neither understand nor control.
Retail investors are promised participation, but not power. They will have virtually no say over the company, no influence over its decisions, and little protection if things go wrong.
Their role is simple: provide liquidity.
And if all goes according to plan, the biggest beneficiary will be Elon Musk. Once upon a time governments taxed billionaires to build public goods.
Now citizens are expected to help make billionaires even richer and call it financial empowerment.
The old social contract has been replaced by something far more efficient: privatize the gains, socialize the risks, and convince everyone that buying a few shares is the same thing as having a stake in the future.”

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 10

elon musk posts before & after anti immigrant violence in belfast…

x.com - Private
Post
t7 Elon Musk reposted (image of black man violently attacking a white man)
Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
Millions must go.
Follow
S ...
11:03 PM • Jun 9, 2026 • 343.5K Views
• 761
L7 3.3K
30K
320

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 8

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 8

pacifica

beach mallow & a view of sharp park beach

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 5

american flag, california flag, pride flag blowin in the breeze on a flag pole against a pale evening sky just at sunset

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 5

sf bay area not that bad really

an orange sky over a dark and steely grey-blue ocean. sun setting out on the horizon. a tiny line of birds can be seen on the horizon, too with wispy, pale orange clouds.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 3

2/ Apple gets discovery. Elon's emails, messages, etc. from across his several inboxes.

"To the extent Plaintiffs claim that Defendants have failed to find a deficiency in the discovery already produced, that argument fails because there are only ten emails and two text message records from Musk on point. Musk's seemingly monumental concerns about Defendants' endeavors leads the Court to believe that relevant records and communications are missing from discovery. SO ORDERED on this 2nd day of June 2026. Mark T. Pittman (signature) United States District Judge."

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 2

THE ARROWHEAD
The arrowhead,
which I found beside the river, was glittering and pointed.
I picked it up, and said,
"Now, it's mine."
I thought of showing it to friends.
I thought of putting it—such an imposing trinket— in a little box, on my desk.
Halfway home, past the cut fields, the old ghost stood under the hickories.
"I would rather drink the wind," he said,
"I would rather eat mud and die than steal as you still steal, than lie as you still lie. —- Mary Oliver

Lora Kolodny@lorak· Jun 2

foggy evenin walk somewhere south of sf i think we are still on mori point trail

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 31

Most of my readers are the best, but some are the worst.

a nasty gram from a pseudonynous sent to Lora Kolodny, CNBC reporter covering Tesla, SpaceX and other Elon Musk-involved business. The email says: "Old horse face at it again huh. Cant stand Elon so rip Space X. Do you think investors give a fuck about what you and Tally have to say? You're still a piece of shit who hates Elon and it shows" (all typos attributed to the sender of the email from "puppies.mixed51@icloud"

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 30

3/ This is what the Starfall looks like...

"Vehicle
May 2026
environmental impacts of Falcon 9 and Starship-Super Heavy launches are analyzed in separate NEPA
documents and are not part of the scope of operations in this EA.4,5,6,7
SpaceX would reenter Starfall through Earth’s atmosphere on a pre-planned trajectory and land (splash
down) the capsule in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 700 nautical miles (nm) off the U.S. west coast in
international waters (Figure 2). The reentry area excludes the 200 nm U.S. and Mexico Exclusive Economic
Zones (EEZs) and designated marine sanctuaries. SpaceX would normally recover Starfall. SpaceX would
recover vehicle components, including parachutes and heat shields, to the maximum extent practicable." Diagram shows a "capsule" that's almost like a hockey puck that's .75m tall and 3.1m across. The bottom has a slightly wider circumference than the top surface, though.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 25

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.” -
Arthur C. Clarke

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 25

over on xitter Elon Musk is promoting Restore Britain… previously he backed far right extremists & populist factions, including anti Muslim xenophobic extremist Tommy Robinson in UK, Spain’s Vox party and Germany’s AfD.

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 24

love is so short. forgetting is so long… (ws merwin translation of pablo neruda)

XX Tonight I Can Write ...
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, "The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance!
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
…

…The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.
[W.S.Merwin translation of Pablo Neruda poem]

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 21

andrew hudgins: we were simply talking

WE WERE SIMPLY TALKING
We were simply talking, probably work, or relatives or even Christmas presents, when the car slid
and I corrected, fishtailed and I corrected, then we were gone, sliding sideways, sliding backward on black ice and staring into the grill of a diesel tractor, also sliding, and in that instant I was ready to die.
I saw my wife and was overjoyed that I had married her, though our marriage was already falling apart, and I loved the car, a brown Toyota, loved being warm in the car while it was white, cold, bitter out in the world we'd lost control of. I loved every molecule of breath I wasn't taking, and for the moment I forgave myself every sin and failure of my life, including this ridiculous and undignified early death.
The car snapped backward into a frozen ditch.
I sat speechless, shaking, my wife speechless also, and a man pulled up, a salesman: You folks okay?
Suddenly the radio roared, and by the car a dog barked wildly and, yes, we were fine.
Fine. We were fine. But what was "fine," I wondered, and why do we always, always have to speak?

Lora Kolodny@lorak· May 18

The rare (as of today) “Elon Musk loses” headline…