Tesla Space #72: Quiet, please. The machines are learning.

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X OF THE WEEK

…but why is it called that though?!?!

$TSLA

… is down -9.88% since our last week’s newsletter (Monday’s close), now at $227.4/share right as I send you this before the market open. Tesla now at $712.8B market cap.

TESLA, GLOBALLY

This might be an easter egg left for us before the Company Update — some new kind of gigacastings popped up on Joe Tegtmeyer’s drone shots and we’re pretty sure it's the rear casting of the Cybercab. Here’s an explanation from our friend and the OG gigacasting guy, Luca:

This is roughly in line with Lars Moravy (VP, Vehicle Engineering at Tesla) saying the Tesla Cybercab production equipment is already being installed at Giga Texas, with first prototype builds slated to start this summer. Sounds like they might even be a bit early on the prototype builds. Tesla is aiming for general mass production to start in early 2026.

Of course, there is the smallest of chance we got a glimpse of the next-gen vehicle casting instead? The Investor day Slide had a surprisingly familiar space there…

Watch tip: Bonne Eggleston, Tesla's Sr. Director of the 4680 battery cell program, was interviewed by the Munro Live team (43-minute video). While Bonne could naturally not speak too much about the stuff our hardcore battery geeks didn’t already know, it still served as a great overview of where Tesla stands.

Perhaps a notable one was a surprisingly candid bit on the dry process from Bonne:

"We have not yet found the fundamental process speed limit for the dry process. We're still pushing that speed limit until we find that breaking point."

He was also talking of Tesla working on a larger form factor than the 4680.

Quick takes:

• If you see another round of FUD going on about a lawsuit someone filed to claim Tesla speeds up odometers to avoid warranty repairs, that’s probably what it is. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but currently, the headlines try to make it look like that is what Tesla does, while it is just what one plaintiff says Tesla does.
  

  The plaintiff says Tesla’s odometers are based on energy usage and “predictive algorithms” rather than actual mileage driven. While we all now that’s the case for range estimations, not the actual mileage driven. 🤷‍♂️ 
  Elon comments: “This is idiotic.”
  

• Three Model Y's were used in a high-speed police pursuit in South Pasadena, then a thief crashed into one of the blocking patrol Y’s.

Meanwhile, Bargersville Police Department (Indiana) started with one Tesla in 2019, but it has since added another dozen more, says it has saved nearly half a million dollars in car upkeep and repair costs.

• Tesla Sweden team gave a record 800 test drives in one day this weekend at the Elmia Car Show in Sweden. “One 18 year old kid didn’t understand the power of a Model S Plaid and lost his driving license.” I have no idea how you do 800 in one day, but butts in seats sells EVs so way to go!

• A one-of-a-kind community in Houston, Texas, is made up entirely of
  Tesla-powered homes: all 11 homes in the community feature Tesla’s solar tile roof shingles, EV chargers, and Powerwall home battery storage to ensure they get uninterrupted power." There has been “a rush of interest by buyers”. Elon comments "Tesla solar roof is beautiful".
  … not much we’ve gotten in terms of the solar roof recently, one of the products that hasn’t quite panned out for Tesla. We dug deeper in a recent video here.

• Interestingly, the Minneapolis guy that vandalized at least six Teslas causing over $20,000 in damage gets to walk free as the County Attorney decides not to press charges. The Police Chief also expresses frustration about thisl

• A Tesla center in Michigan gave this new Model Y owner a bad experience when picking up her first Tesla — employees not being available at all to go over the car, apparently. However, it seems that multiple employees reached out later to apologize, and we got one small piece of info: “Tesla will change their mobile & web interfaces in the next 2-3 weeks.” This will likely mean incorporating some introductory videos etc, but we’ll see.

• Tesla starts offering two-day test drives, per their recent email:

VEHICLES

The New Model Y has now been spotted in camo in Mumbai, testing before launch in India. We’ve seen more and more hints towards an incoming launch in India, from 25 new job postings to even potentially sourcing battery materials in India per this job posting. Tesla is engaging with US chipmaker Micron and Indian firm CG Semi to source semiconductor components, following a chip deal with Tata Electronics. Elon also just spoke to India PM Modi, says he will visit India later this year. Maybe it’ll be for the local launch?

China’s Automotive Research Institute found that Tesla Model 3 are one of the safest vehicles on the market when considering electromagnetic radiation towards the owners. ‘

Tesla China VP Grace Tao said in a post on Weibo, the idea that EVs expose occupants to electromagnetic radiation is a product of misinformation, and that Tesla’s radiation values are far lower than national and WHO standards. Tao gave an explanation:

Quick takes:

• Carwow car review channel and its prominent reviewer Mat Watson decided to make a comparison video of the New Model Y vs BYD Sealion. Throughout the video, Model Y came out better in nearly every single aspect compared, and in the end, Mat declared BYD the ‘winner’ of this comparison. Outrage followed, and the channel issued an apology (kind of), also edited out the ending of the video. Even Elon commented: “wow”.
  
  My question is — how much does BYD pay for something like this? It’d have to be a lot for a channel like carwow to compromise themselves in such an obvious manner. Or perhaps its political?
  

• Good to see Cybertruck account is able to joke about a poke at the stripped down Cybertruck we covered last week:

  

   

FSD & SOFTWARE

This is slightly older news, which I couldn’t fit into last week’s newsletter:

Tesla has officially launched its FSD (Supervised) Early Access Program in the US. Am I the only one who finds it funny that the words make up FSD EAP?

"Enroll to experience early features before they're widely released. Provide your feedback and related vehicle data to help make the next release our best yet."

Once you’re in Tesla’s new FSD (Supervised) Early Access Program, an “Early Access” button appears at the bottom of the Tesla app, showing your enrollment status and the option to leave the program.

Tesla also released a new version of its Safety Score: “Excessive Speeding is now measured as a proportion of driving time in excess of 85 mph or speeding in relation to vehicles in front of you.”

Also, here’s a post from Tesla’s AI account:

More on FSD (Supervised)

Across the US, Tesla is now hosting "Intro to Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" workshops. Find one near you at tesla.com/events.

Joe Rogan says on X: “I had my Tesla model S drive me home the other day with FSD, and it’s f**king wild. Changes lanes to avoid slow traffic, stops at red lights and stop signs, hits the blinkers and turns for you. It’s bananas.”

Here’s a video of someone on FSD where the car didn't reduce speed or change lane for police emergency vehicles on the road. The policeman hit the Tesla’s side mirror with flashlight while the Tesla drove past. And then the guy got a citation for not changing lanes... all this got me thinking, who will assume the responsibility after we’re running Unsupervised FSD?

Watch tip: PC AUTO, a known Chinese auto publication, recently reviewed intelligent driving systems from eight major brands: Huawei, BYD, XPeng, Zeekr, LI, Xiaomi, NIO and Tesla. All except Tesla rely on LiDARs for their system. In 2 scenarios where a tree is in the way, FSD is the only system that successfully drove around to stay the course. Every other system failed to proceed.

Tesla improves Tow Mode — now displays a checklist similar to Car Wash Mode. Each item in the list will light up green or red, depending on whether it’s already in the correct setting for Tow Mode. Tesla has also added a readout of the low-voltage battery.

Tesla also added a way to record the ‘why’ you are changing tires on the Tire Service menu, so it would be correctly recorded in the vehicle maintenance history.

SUPERCHARGING

New Tesla Supercharging vote winners are announced, and the next quarterly vote is live — go vote to get a Supercharger in a location you want.

Tesla diner screens now show videos, seems closer to launch:

Tesla put 2 Megapack-chargers with 16 charging stalls to handle the extra load of people at Coachella, the event which gets ~250k visitors every year:

Watch tip: here’s a video of Tesla’s largest Supercharger site in Europe so far — expansion in Montélimar, France. Featuring trailer-friendly stalls, solar canopies, and a total of 60 stalls with the adjacent Superchargers.

MUSKONOMY

SpaceX & Starlink

This is the SpaceX Starlink facility in Bastrop:

Starlink announced they are providing internet to over 350K active Australian customers, which is around 4.20% of homes across the country.

xAI

Per this FABER Report video it seems Tesla is now building Colossus 2.
Faber also says there is speculation that Elon Musk's xAI could soon be seeking to raise upwards of $25B at a $150B to $200B valuation. Note that there was a $125B valuation tag right after the X+xAI merger.

Also here's a good view of the site + the world's largest Megapack site that Tesla plans next to it.

Meanwhile, Grok 3 Mini tops the leaderboards on graduate-level STEM, math, and coding. It outcompetes flagship models that are 20x more expensive. It is 5x cheaper than any other reasoning model on the market, setting the standards for cost-effective intelligence.

Neuralink

Noland Arbaugh (patient #1) gives a talk at University of Arizona (if the video is green for you, turn the quality to 480p and it’ll work).

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