Tesla Model Y Dominates as Norway Sets New EV Sales Record

Tesla has once again flexed its muscles in the world’s most advanced electric vehicle market. New data for March 2026 shows that the American automaker dominated car sales in Norway, helping the country reach a staggering new milestone where nearly every single new car hitting the road was electric.

According to the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (OFV), Tesla was the top brand for the month, posting a 178% jump in sales from March 2025 and accounting for 34.8% of all new passenger cars. This performance carried significant momentum from the first week of March, when Tesla outsold every other car brand combined in the country. By the end of the month, the Model Y and Model 3 secured the first and second spots on the bestseller list, respectively.

A New Record for Electric Share

Norway is currently a glimpse into the future of the global automotive industry. In March, the share of electric cars reached 98.4%, a new monthly record. To put that into perspective, out of 17,685 new passenger cars registered, only 22 were gasoline-powered, and 126 were diesel. The Model Y and Model 3 made up 6,148 of those new car sales, boosting Tesla’s first-quarter sales in the country 95% year-over-year.

While Tesla’s 34.8% market share is dominant, it didn’t quite touch the brand’s all-time peak of 40.8% back in March 2023. However, the Model Y remains the undisputed king of the road, followed by the refreshed Model 3. Other notable performers included the Volvo EX40 and Toyota bZ4X, which rounded out the top of the leaderboard.

New Trims and the Push for Full Self-Driving

Tesla’s success in the region is likely bolstered by recent updates to its European lineup. Earlier this year, the company launched the Model Y Standard Long Range in Europe. This specific trim is a “range leader,” pairing a larger battery with a rear-wheel-drive setup to achieve an exceptional 657 km WLTP range. Additionally, the seven-seat Model Y recently returned to the European market, offering more flexibility for larger families.

Beyond hardware, Tesla is also working hard to secure regulatory approval for Full Self-Driving (FSD) in Europe. The company has even been running a public ride-along program across several countries to showcase the system’s safety and capabilities to locals and regulators alike. Tesla currently expects the first European approval for FSD to come in the Netherlands on April 10.

Looking Ahead

The March figures prove that the transition to electric transport in Norway is essentially complete for passenger vehicles. As interest rates and fuel costs continue to fluctuate, the predictable nature of EV ownership remains the preferred choice for Norwegian households. With Tesla leading the charge and Chinese brands like BYD and Zeekr quickly gaining ground, the competition in the region is only getting started. If Tesla can finally unlock FSD for European owners this year, its lead in this market could become even harder to challenge.

The dream of high-speed internet available at every single square inch of the planet is no longer a sci-fi concept. For decades, satellite internet was the “last resort” for those living in the middle of nowhere, plagued by agonizingly slow speeds and latency so high it made even basic web browsing feel like a chore. That changed when SpaceX began launching its Starlink constellation.

What started as a bold experiment by Elon Musk’s aerospace firm has matured into a global powerhouse. As of early 2026, Starlink has officially surpassed 10 million active users worldwide. It is no longer just a niche product for rural homeowners; it is an essential infrastructure tool used by governments, airlines, and even people walking down the street with a smartphone.

Starlink is connecting more than 10M active customers with high-speed internet across 160 countries, territories and many other markets.

Thank you to all our customers around the world! 🛰️🌎❤️ → https://t.co/frkXm70PTh pic.twitter.com/IeGewCassA

— Starlink (@Starlink) February 13, 2026 What is Starlink?

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX. Unlike traditional satellite providers that use large, bulky satellites orbiting 22,000 miles above Earth in geostationary orbit, Starlink uses a “low Earth orbit” (LEO) system. These satellites zip around the planet at an altitude of only about 300-340 miles (approximately 480-500 km).

The history of the project dates back to 2015 when development began in Redmond, Washington. The first experimental “Tintin” satellites launched in 2018, followed by the first major batch of operational satellites in 2019. By moving the satellites much closer to the ground, SpaceX drastically reduced latency — the time it takes for data to travel from your device to the satellite and back. This allows Starlink to offer an experience that feels much more like a fiber-optic or cable connection than a traditional satellite link.

Sending this tweet through space via Starlink satellite 🛰

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2019 A Massive Constellation in the Sky

To provide global coverage, you need a lot of hardware. In March 2026, SpaceX reached a historic milestone by surpassing 10,000 active satellites in orbit. To put that in perspective, SpaceX now owns roughly 67% of all active satellites currently orbiting our planet.

Deployment of 27 @Starlink satellites confirmed pic.twitter.com/3ZNICuEjIO

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 10, 2025

This massive “megaconstellation” is the backbone of the service. Because there are so many satellites, there is always one passing overhead, ensuring that the connection remains stable even as the satellites move at incredible speeds. SpaceX is constantly refreshing this fleet, de-orbiting older versions and replacing them with newer models that feature inter-satellite laser links. These lasers allow the satellites to talk to each other directly in the vacuum of space, reducing the need for ground stations and further boosting speeds. SpaceX hopes to unlock gigabit speeds with its next-generation V3 Starlink satellites, due to launch in late 2026 or early 2027.

Global Availability and Reach

As of February 2026, Starlink is available across more than 160 countries, territories, and markets. It has effectively achieved its goal of being available on land, in the air, and at sea. Whether you are in a remote village in Africa, a research station in Antarctica, or a yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Starlink can get you online.

The company has also made a massive push into rural areas through partnerships, including a notable collaboration with Microsoft to expand rural internet access. Starlink aims to bridge the digital divide by bringing high-speed connectivity to the farthest and most remote reaches of the planet, where laying physical cables would be too expensive or physically impossible.

Speeds, Plans, and Pricing

For most users in the United States, Starlink offers a few different options. The company has several tiers of Residential plans for home use, along with a couple of Roam plans for on-the-go connectivity. There’s also an ultra-cheap, low-speed $5-per-month Standby Mode plan for those who don’t need full-speed connectivity 24/7.

You’ll also need a Starlink terminal (or dish) to use the service. The Standard kit typically costs $349, while the Mini dish (designed for traveling and can only be used with a Roam plan) is priced at $249. Every order also carries a $20 Shipping & Handling fee.

That said, SpaceX regularly offers discounts and free hardware deals in specific regions to keep its growth trajectory moving. At the time of writing, Starlink is offering “free” hardware rentals to Residential customers in the U.S. — you can get a Standard hardware kit at no upfront cost that’s free to use for as long as you remain subscribed. The Mini dish, meanwhile, is available for a discounted $199. Head over to the Starlink website to check out what’s currently on offer in your area.

As the constellation grows, Starlink’s performance is getting closer and closer to speeds offered by terrestrial broadband providers. While it might not beat a high-end fiber connection in a major city yet, it is rapidly becoming a viable competitor to cable internet in many suburban markets.

Starlink in the Air and at Sea

If you’ve flown on a commercial flight recently, you know that airplane Wi-Fi is usually terrible. Starlink Aviation is aiming to change that. It is already becoming the world’s leading provider of high-speed Wi-Fi for commercial airplanes. Instead of sharing a measly connection that struggles to load an email, Starlink allows every passenger on a plane to stream 4K video or play online games simultaneously.

The maritime industry has seen a similar revolution. Cargo ships, oil rigs, and cruise liners now use Starlink to stay connected with their home offices and families. This “Starlink Mobility” sector is one of the fastest-growing parts of the business and is a primary reason why Musk previously said that Starlink is SpaceX’s largest source of revenue.

Direct to Cell: The End of Dead Zones

Perhaps the most exciting recent development is Starlink Mobile. SpaceX has launched satellites capable of “Direct to Cell” service. This allows standard LTE smartphones to connect directly to satellites without any special hardware or modifications.

According to Starlink, the company’s Direct to Cell service has connected over 12 million people across the globe at least once, and more than 6 million users every month actively rely on it for coverage where terrestrial cellular can’t reach. This effectively eliminates “dead zones” globally, ensuring that if you can see the sky, you can send a text or make a call.

Starshield and Government Use

While consumer internet is the public face of the company, SpaceX also operates Starshield. This is a version of Starlink designed specifically for government and national security use. It offers higher levels of encryption and the ability for government agencies to host their own sensors or communication equipment on the Starlink satellite bus. It has become a vital tool for modern defense, providing resilient communications in conflict zones where local infrastructure has been destroyed.

The Future: AI, xAI, and Tesla

Looking forward, the ambitions for Starlink are staggering. There is heavy speculation that Starlink could eventually even connect Tesla vehicles, replacing the terrestrial cellular connections they currently use. This would mean every Tesla on the road would have a permanent, high-speed connection to the internet, regardless of where it is parked.

SpaceX is also looking toward AI integration. The company recently acquired Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, to help manage the complex routing of data across its massive fleet. There are even ambitious plans to put millions of AI-enabled satellites into orbit to create a planetary-scale computing network. With an initial public offering (IPO) looming on the horizon — which could be the largest in history — SpaceX is incentivized to make Starlink the default choice for internet connectivity for the entire human race.

Starlink has transformed from a quirky space project into the most dominant satellite network in history. By blanketing the Earth with over 10,000 satellites, SpaceX has proven that high-speed internet is no longer tethered to the ground. From helping rural students attend school to providing critical links for the military, its impact is undeniable. As the company moves toward connecting smartphones and Tesla cars directly, the concept of being “offline” may soon become a relic of the past.

During the historic TERAFAB launch event in Austin, Elon Musk unveiled the silicon roadmap that will power the combined ambitions of Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX over the next decade. While the spotlight was understandably dominated by the AI5 and AI6 chips, which will serve as the unified brains for millions of Robotaxis and Optimus humanoids, many also noticed a third, highly specialized chip on the presentation slide and in the Lunar Mass Driver video: D3.

Standing for Dojo 3, the D3 chip is a pivot for Tesla’s custom silicon program. Rather than competing with NVIDIA on terrestrial supercomputer floors, the Dojo architecture has found its true, permanent calling: powering the vast majority of human compute in the vacuum of space.

The Pivot from Earth to Orbit

To understand the significance of D3, we have to look back at the turbulent history of the Dojo program. When Tesla first unveiled the D1 chip and the Dojo supercomputer, the goal was to build the ultimate Earth-bound video-training cluster for FSD. When the D2 chip later entered mass production, it continued that legacy with massive performance leaps.

However, as Tesla’s engineering teams increasingly unified the architectures for FSD and the Optimus robot under the upcoming AI5 and AI6 processors, and as xAI built out massive, GW-scale clusters using commercially available GPUs, many industry analysts speculated that the Dojo program was effectively dead.

The TERAFAB presentation proved that Dojo isn’t dead; it has simply evolved to solve a much larger bottleneck. Earth is rapidly running out of electricity to power the AI revolution.

Currently, the entire planet only builds roughly 100 to 200 gigawatts of compute capacity per year, severely constrained by local power grids, cooling limitations, and physical real estate. To reach Musk’s ultimate goal of a terawatt, and eventually a petawatt of compute, the hardware must go off-world. Enter the D3.

Unconstrained by Earthly Limits

The D3 chip is different from AI5 or any terrestrial processor because it is engineered specifically for the hostile, yet liberating, environment of space.

When designing chips for Earth, engineers spend significant time and money managing heat and power dissipation. D3 throws those constraints out the window. Because space is an endless thermal sink and the chip will not be constrained by a fragile local power grid, D3 is designed to be a vastly higher-power chip that can safely run much hotter than any processor on Earth.

Plus, the D3 architecture is heavily radiation-hardened. Operating outside the protection of Earth’s magnetic field exposes silicon to severe cosmic radiation, which can cause bit flips and catastrophic hardware failures in standard chips. D3 is optimized from the ground up to survive and thrive in this unforgiving environment.

The Economics of Space Data Centers

But why send the D3 into space in the first place? During the presentation, Musk made a staggering economic prediction: within a few years, it will actually be cheaper to launch chips into space than to build a traditional data center on the ground.

The secret lies in the synergy between the D3 chip and SpaceX’s heavy-lift capabilities. D3 processors will be packed into massive, 100-kilowatt orbital server racks – the  AI Sat Minis. Weighing roughly one ton each, these satellites will be deployed into orbit by Starship.

Once in space, the economics of running a D3 cluster become radically cheap. Because these satellites can be positioned to receive 24/7, uninterrupted sunlight, there is no need for heavy, expensive battery backups to keep the chips running. Furthermore, space-based solar arrays cost significantly less to manufacture than terrestrial solar panels, as they don’t require heavy glass or thick aluminum framing to protect against wind, rain, and gravity.

Founding a Galactic Civilization

Ultimately, the D3 chip represents the critical bridge between Tesla’s AI ambitions and SpaceX’s interplanetary goals.

While AI6 will be the workhorse that navigates our cars and automates our physical labor via Optimus, the D3 chip will be the unseen backbone of the entire ecosystem. Operating silently in orbit, massive constellations of D3-powered AI Sat Minis will handle the unimaginably heavy data processing required to scale xAI’s intelligence, power the Martian internet, and eventually guide humanity’s push into deep space.