Tesla Space #57: Tesla now worth more than the 29 next automakers *combined*

TESLA, GLOBALLY

Tesla is now worth more than the next 29 automakers combined:

Tesla, one of the least recalled

Tesla recalls over-the-air software update remedies continue to be one of the ways media tries to shed Tesla in a negative light — like the latest headlines from last week:

Naturally, this required no service center visit. Interestingly, NHTSA has, for the first time ever, changed the form of its notification to include the statement “software update repairs recall.” We could rejoice that there’s finally a proper distinction, but… do you think those headlines will ever change?

Tesla had to spend about $3.7M this year mailing 5.1 million paper letters to its US owners about over-the-air software update "recalls," even though most of those software updates had already been completed at people’s homes before the letters arrived. What a waste.

Sawyer Merritt dug into the data of all 2024 recalls in the US, and found:

Tesla's over-the-air (OTA) software update recalls in the US affected 5,096,386 vehicles (many vehicles received multiple OTA recalls, so they are counted more than once.) In contrast, Tesla's physical recalls—requiring a visit to a service center—affected only 39,311 vehicles, accounting for just 0.77% of the total.

A very much recommended, super geeky watch tip:

a 53-minute video of the live Q&A with Wes Morrill (Cybertruck lead engineer) from the grand opening of Tesla North Hollywood. Also, Ryan Torres (Program Manager North America Sales and Operations at Tesla) and Ari Nagger (Manager, Residential Energy Products at Tesla). Yes, that event we said you should attend two weeks ago ;)

Also, here is some of it summarized, and a full transcript.

While we were enjoying holidays, Tesla ramped up its Q4 incentives, expanding the free lifetime Supercharging offer also to Cybertruck, for any orders placed on or after Dec 27th. Not sure when this offer ends, but one would assume sometime in Q1.

Tesla has extended its 5-year 0% interest loan incentive in China to the end of January 2025 (from end of Dec). Tesla is also offering a $1,370 USD discount for new Model Y buyers.

You can now redeem your referral credits for a FSD subscription (usually $99/mo), so every new referral on current scheme gets you ~ 10 months. By the way, the Referral credits will drop as soon as 2025 hits: referrer will get $500 ($1k currently) and amount referees are getting $1k-$2k will also be reduced.

Tesla employees are also finally allowed to use their own referral codes as employees.

This all is on top of all the incentives we’ve already reported on… which is quite a lot this year.

Quick bites:

• Watch tip: Tesla’s 2-minute video highlighting all of its accomplishments in 2024.

• Tesla has now sold over 7 million vehicles through its existence. Can’t wait to see the Q4 report. Should drop this Thursday before the markets open! Tesla needs to deliver 514,925 vehicles to equal its total deliveries for 2023, and its current record is 484,507 per quarter in Q4 2024.

• We happened to break another Tesla story — this time about Tesla opening its Lithuanian store. We also learned that Tesla plans to expand to Riga (Latvia) and Tallinn (Estonia) “ASAP”. Since I live in the latter country… makes me happy we don’t have to take a ferry to our neighboring country (Finland) for any service soon. Yes, we do that and M3 and MY are most-sold EVs here despite that.  

• Here’s a full list of Tesla’s Voice Commands.

• Here’s a full list of what features you’ve received by now if you bought a Model 3 in 2021, with OTA updates.

• Tesla released a (frunking great) Cybertruck lightshow video: “Stand in the middle to enter boss fight”. The custom Octa-Cybertruck show is already available to download as a lightshow at Tesla’s github.

• In case you stumble on the latest (perhaps also the dumbest) message out there as if Elon is talking to ‘himself’ on Spaces through an alternative account called Adrian Dittmann, then — no, it is not true. As context is everything, here’s the actual X Space with the two talking to each other (audio). I wouldn’t even write this here if this hadn’t spread to millions of people already 🤦‍♂️ 

• Watch tip about a watch tip: Tesla released a video of the Tesla App on Apple Watch.

• I won’t go into Elon’s H-1B stuff but this comment around it from him is more up our alley: We named Tesla after Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest engineers ever. He was a penniless immigrant whose inventions led to American dominance in electricity generation and usage.” And in case you didn’t know this yet, the Tesla logo is a section of an electric motor:

Saia Inc, one of the largest trucking companies in the US, purchased two Tesla Semi trucks for its fleet. Here’s what they said:

“Our drivers were equally impressed, noting the smooth acceleration, comfortable design, and its ability to maintain speeds on steep inclines, even while hauling heavy payloads. This feedback underscores the enormous potential of the Tesla Semi."

Dan Priestley added: “They're a great customer with a high mileage duty cycle that matches the capability of the truck. Looking forward to further collaboration and opportunities with them. Also, their wrap is awesome!”

I remember Dan saying to me when we met back in Hannover that there will be “several more partners going live this year”. Looks like Saia was one of them, DHL last month, and no doubt others too. Also, I’m very disappointed in all of us Tesla Semi geeks — how did we not spot two of these trucks anywhere on the roads for over a month?!

Meanwhile, Tesla’s Semi Factory Nevada topped off the main area of the building with the last major piece of structural steel. Dan comments: “Fantastic design and execution by this construction team and our contractor partners with focus on safety and efficiency. This factory is going to rock!”

SUPERCHARGING & ENERGY

Tesla Megafactory for Megapack production is nearly ready in Shanghai, built in just 7 months. Tom Zhu, Tesla’s China head, comments:

This factory will double Tesla's global battery energy storage production capacity to 80 GWh / year.

Tesla says the Powerwall owners globally saved over $800 million on their utility bills in 2024. The owners generated 4.5 TWh of solar energy this year globally. If you own a Tesla Powerwall or Solar, you can find this year’s recap in your Tesla app like this:

Supercharger battery heating is now live at V3 and V4 posts in cold climates, also for LFP batteries. When plugging in, Superchargers can now pre-heat batteries for Model 3/Y that are standard range, rear wheel drive. This gets you back on the road faster in extreme cold conditions.

For the holidays, Tesla deployed “Tesla MegapackChargers” in several locations in the US to handle the extra demand. Max de Zegher, one of the Tesla Charging key members, shares:

“MegapackChargers have 3 MWh of capacity capable of charging ~75 cars, 8 x 250kW posts, and are Starlink connected. They’re a powerful tool for temporary congestion bottlenecks and disruptions like hurricanes. They’re recharged within hours by taking a nearby Supercharger cabinet offline at night, when usage is low. They’re costly and high bandwidth to deploy, but make all the difference for getting customers home for the holidays.”

• Winter 2025 Supercharger voting is now open.

• 🇨🇦 Tesla says they will open 50+ Supercharger sites and 630+ stalls in Canada in 2025. Here is the full list of upcoming sites.

• Watch tip: full video tour of the LARGEST Tesla Supercharger just opened, 120 stalls in Barstow, CA. It also has 495 kW of solar canopies.

MUSKONOMY

Optimus sent holiday wishes: “Merry Xmas from Optimus & his older brother, Optimus.”

Under the post, I also found this interaction. If you know, you know.

SpaceX

Here’s a minute-long holiday greeting video from SpaceX. YOU’LL LOVE IT.

Elon on Mars: “The Martians will decide how they are ruled. I recommend direct, rather than representative, democracy.

Uncrewed Starships landing on Mars in ~2 years, perhaps with crewed versions passing near Mars, and crewed Starships heading there in ~4 years are all possible.”

And Elon on the Starship heat shield: “I am confident that we will figure out a fully reusable (technically, a high multi-flight reusable) heat shield in 2025.”

SpaceX finally gets some US competition (perhaps), with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin just receiving its first-ever FAA launch license for the New Glenn rocket, which is meant to be a Falcon 9 competitor.

(SpaceX’s) Starlink

🇳🇿 And the winner is… NEW ZEALAND. One NZ becomes the first in the world to launch a nationwide Direct to Cell service from Starlink.

Starlink is now on over 430 planes worldwide, and counting, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX's Starlink is also now on contract to connect more than 2,500 aircraft all around the world, including commercial airlines.

xAI

xAI shares a 7-second video ““warp speed cooling for our compute.”

xAI just completed its $6B Series C funding round, in which also NVIDIA invested. Elon says: “It’s an honor to have Nvidia as an investor.” Here’s a good overview of what xAI has shipped since its previous funding round in May from their announcement.