Tesla Space #51: ⚡ Cyberroadster hits the streets

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X OF THE WEEK

There are quite a few people that say this — Joe Biden not inviting Tesla to the EV Summit and then saying the infamous “You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters” is where Elon’s larger move towards the other political side started. Well, who knows exactly, of course.

Meanwhile, I created a meme a while back on this topic. See if you can guess the answer to this Wheel of Fortune question:

TESLA, GLOBALLY

The day after we sent last week’s Tesla Space newsletter, the US concluded the winner of the presidential election. Here’s an idea of who won:

We don’t comment on politics here. All you and we need to know is that the Trump win was likely rather positive for Tesla (especially due to Elon’s strong backing of the guy), even if negative for overall EV adoption.

The sentiment around the Tesla communities has suddenly gotten a lot more positive… I’d assume it’s mostly due to the ongoing massive rally of the $TSLA stock - now at $341 at the time of my sending this out. This means Tesla is now officially again valued at over one trillion dollars (the last time it was up there was Sept 2022) and the stock is up +59.70% in one month (bump 1: robotaxi event; bump 2: Trump win).

Note, that the shares are still below the all-time high of $414.50.

Meanwhile, Tesla short sellers have lost about $75 billion since the company went public in 2010, with the vast majority of those losses happening within the last 5 years, and in the last 3 weeks, they’ve lost nearly $10B.

But we don’t talk about the stock price much here. What Tesla does is far more interesting. 👇️ 

Tesla integrates Monta for Wall Connectors

This is the news we broke here at Tesla Space before others (#humblebrag):

As the first such connection with Tesla in the world, Monta can now connect directly to Tesla Wall Connectors. This is a win for EV fleets and employees who want to use home charging reimbursement.

The chargers can be fully integrated through the platform easily and within minutes, as can be seen in this video:

This should help Tesla tap into more of the B2B market and will ease the employee and fleet management workflow for many fleets worldwide.

Just this autumn, Monta announced its expansion to the US, so this service is now available worldwide. You can read the full article we made and share it here.

Tesla opens store & service in Philippines

Tesla Philippines’ pricing for the Model 3 is quite competitive. The Model 3 RWD starts at Php 2,109,000 ($36,142), the Model 3 LR AWD starts at Php 2,489,000 ($42,652), and the Model 3 Performance starts at Php 3,099,000 ($53,105) before options. All basically match the Toyota Camry hybrid prices.

Quick bites:

• To honor veterans & active military, members of the US military and their spouses can save $1,000 on a new Tesla (cybertruck now included). It is now also available to those stationed in the US & overseas in Japan or Korea.

• Tesla Europe will give you 1 year of free Supercharging if you take delivery of a Model Y by the end of this year.

• Elon says Tesla may allow Giga Texas factory tours for people who order a Tesla. Tesla China just added this benefit for Giga Shanghai tour, done as a raffle between those who order a new Tesla with Tesla’s trade-in service before Dec 3rd.

• Tesla has raised the wages of all employees at its Giga Berlin by 4% since the start of November, and it also gave permanent jobs to the 500 previously temporary workers there. This comes as we recently reported on Tesla getting first approval for expansion.

• Tesla is one of the first automakers in China to receive the "Vehicle Privacy Protection" certification. (link) This likely builds on the big drama around Tesla sentry cameras in China last year, where they were banned from entering government areas. I’d assume this comes with the in-China-only data storage requirement.

• More FUD destroyed: Tesla China has received an apology from prolific car blogger and influencer Chen Zhengang over a controversial braking test from 2021 where his video misrepresented the Tesla Model 3’s automatic emergency braking performance.

• Watch tip: Happy 5th Gigaversary to Giga Berlin.

• “Funding secured? Ok.” — Tesla and Elon is cleared of liability for that tweet as US appeals court upheld a jury’s decision clearing him.

THE VEHICLES

Overheard on the streets: “Hey look it’s the Tesla Model… umm… the… wait what the frunk is that again?”

Meet the Cyberroadster.

Fully custom-built, our of a salvaged Tesla. Actually road-legal. Even runs FSD.

Oh boy, I’ve been waiting for David Andreyev — or the Cyber Hooligan — to finish this project to share it with y’all.

“Over 80” wide and a roof height of only 46.5” this thing is a neck breaker on the road and the 12-layer candy red paint,” says David. See more on his 6-minute video here and I suggest going through his whole journey with his past videos on the channel building it all live.

Cybercab on display

Tesla has put the Cybercab on display at its Santana Row store in San Jose, California — if you’re around, that’s your chance to check it out! (fairly sure more will pop up) Here’s a video from the spot, too.

Quick bites:

• The Cybertruck is now available for lease in the US. For example, the AWD version with $0 down is $1,249/month for 36 months and $1,568/month for 24 months.

• Tesla is updating the Model 3 and Model Y RWD variants with new battery packs.

• Watch tip: Munro Live’s “From 120 to 1: How the Cybertruck Castings Continue Tesla's Reign of Reduction.”

• A note from Lars Moravy: “Heads up - all Model 3s have dual-zone climate control -it comes on when both front seats are occupied - then the control will pop up. We do this for efficiency - every Wh matters.”

• Spy video: Cybercab driving near Giga Texas.

• Listen tip: Tesla promotes their ultra-silent cabin of refreshed Model 3 

• Watch tip: Armored CyberGlass has developed the first (actually) bulletproof glass upgrade for Cybertruck, which costs $40,000 for all 8 windows. You know, to make your Cybertruck ready for the apocalypse?

• The Cybertruck won the “Coolest Car” award at the Golden Steering Wheel 2024 awards (in Germany, by Auto Bild). I love how it’s the squircle wheel there haha.

SOFTWARE

Current FSD (Supervised) software being rolled out: FSD 12.5.6.3. The FSD v12.5.6.2 brought (to HW4 owners) the full roll-out of end-to-end highway driving, enhancements in stop smoothness, less annoying bad weather notifications, and other safety improvements.

Tesla Speed profiles for FSD Supervised (Chill | Standard | Hurry) are now also enabled on speed limits of 50 and higher on the city streets and all roads, instead of just on highways.

By the way, here’s a recent video showing FSD Supervised saving a family from hitting a deer at 68mph in Canada. Details: the car is running version 12.5.4.2 on HW3, so it isn’t even on the end-to-end highway stack yet which would’ve slowed the car down even earlier.

Here’s a great article on what is coming on FSD V13, including the ability to rely on audio (so it’d handle emergency vehicles better) or being able to honk the horn when needed. If you really want to geek out, here’s a patent from Tesla showing how FSD works.

Tesla is introducing offline commands, letting users send a command to their vehicle (say, open frunk) over Bluetooth instead of relying on an Internet connection if the vehicle is close enough. This will help in both limited cellular coverage, and it also creates a faster functionality as it doesn’t have to wake up the vehicle first. Looks like it won’t apply to legacy Mosel S & X, before the 2021 refresh.  

THE MUSKONOMY

Got a cool $6,850,000 to spare? You can buy this LA home where Tesla shot their recent Optimus home assisting promo videos at.

Now, on Optimus, Elon also just commented:

“Well, Optimus is already doing some tasks in the factory and the scope of its ability is increasing rapidly.

The toughest part by far is improving the design of Optimus for ease of manufacturing and tooling up a complex supply chain, so it can be made in significant numbers.”

SpaceX

Elon commenting on Chinese space companies copying the SpaceX approaches nearly one-on-one:

“Interesting. Well, I think China is smart to aim for a fully reusable rocket. Other countries should also do so. It is the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”

Meanwhile, Falcon completes its 400th successful launch;

Watch tip: For the first time, SpaceX's Dragon capsule just successfully performed a reboot demo using its Draco thrusters to alter the International Space Station's altitude. This is for the contract with NASA where SpaceX will deorbit the ISS and send it to the ocean at the end of its lifetime in 2031.

SpaceX released a blog post about what it learned with Starship’s fifth test flight, the objectives for the next test flight (Flight #6 as soon as 18th of Nov!), and some of the upgrades for future ships.

SpaceX also just signed a contract with LG Energy Solutions to use their batteries on the Starship missions.

(SpaceX’s) Starlink

Starlink terminals are sold out in five African countries as demand soars. Elon says: “Starlink is working to increase Internet capacity in dense urban areas in Africa as fast as possible. Please note that there is still significant capacity outside of city centers.”

Niger also just signed a deal with Starlink for coverage in the country — its current 32% internet coverage will be increased to 80-100% with Starlink.

Boring Company

Looks like the Boring Company used Fallout Vault door design for the tunnel at their HQ in Bastrop, Texas

xAI

xAI announced that developers can now build on its Grok foundation models using its newly released API. xAI will run a public beta program until the end of 2024 during which everyone will get $25 of free API credits per month.

Also, Nvidia is reportedly considering investing in xAI.