Tesla, welcome back.
I don’t know if others see it as a big deal or not, but Tesla made its appearance at Sensors Converge 2025 on Wednesday with several vehicles, including two Cybertrucks and a white X-1 with seven seats for passengers.
Tesla was granting visitors test drives and so naturally I drove a Cybertruck on city streets in Santa Clara, CA, both on my own and in Full Self Driving mode. There was plenty of traffic. I prefer driving myself based on that brief experience, just because the torque is amazing for a vehicle weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds.
Both torque and handling are amazing, as shown with an extremely tight U-turn. I have done many test drives but had not used FSD on city streets and frankly felt out of control, and a little lost for what to do. I’ve also experienced the Waymo cybertaxi in Pheonix and am eager to see how testing goes for Tesla of its cybertaxi approach in Austin, Texas. The more competition, the better. (The Austin tests have faced controversy, but Tesla and Musk seem pretty accustomed to controversy.)
I took the self-drive of the Cybertruck with a young Tesla staffer who showed me a few pointers, but was mostly quiet and polite. I could have gone alone, but it was a wake-up call to see the anticipation on his face, clearly glad to be there and employed by a visionary company.
He and his colleagues all declined to comment on Tesla founder Elon Musk’s recent work in the Trump administration as the DOGE administrator, although one blurted out an enthusiastic “Yes!” when I asked how it felt to have Musk more or less back in the saddle at Tesla.
Musk might or might not work much more for Trump and he might or might not give millions of dollars to the campaigns of future politicians, but it’s just this one man’s opinion that it would be better for Musk to stay in his lane, as arguably the most important guy in technology today (roughly how Bill Gates once described Musk). We in tech all would like to see where autonomous vehicles go, and how quickly SpaceX can ramp up testing.
Based on my experience at Sensors Converge 2025 with Tesla, I’d say Elon Musk appears to be back, at least with the tech guys who generally hold politics and politicians in disdain.
And oh, I almost forgot: the X-1 seven-seater is pretty cool looking. Of course, I tried to fit my long legs in the third back row and found my feet too long to fit unless I sat sideways. Clearly it’s meant as a space for kids, but there are five- and six-seat versions that could work better for adults, I was told.
The all-wheel drive Cybertruck starts at nearly $80,000, while the rear-wheel drive version starts at nearly $61,000. Range is 325 miles on a charge. The Model X-1 starts at $86,000 and increases to $101,000 depending on the trim package. I won’t be buying either, even though I believe in EVs, and not because of some ill-will regarding Musk. Both are just way out of my price range and whenever I see a Cybertruck driving by, I wonder: who can afford it and why don’t I know any of those people?
And yes, I think Cybertrucks are butt ugly, but the handling experience more than makes up for it.