FSD Beta to go out to everyone in about the next month
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You get FSD! You Get FSD! Everybody gets FSD! For those waiting, Elon Musk's Full Self Driving announcement may have felt like being in the studio audience when Oprah gave everyone a car. People in the audience screamed, cried, and hugged as Oprah continued to chant, "everybody gets a car."
Musk, who can also be a showman, could've used the pop-culture classic meme. But instead, he casually mentioned that all FSD subscribers would be able to use the program by the end of the year. During the quarter three earnings call, Tesla's CEO told listeners, "So, anyone who has ordered a full self-driving Beta — full self-driving, will have access to the FSD Beta program this year [in North America]. Probably about a month from now."
Tesla's Q3 Earnings Call
FSD version 10.69.3 is due any day, and Musk has publicly stated his confidence and excitement with the next update. The 51-year-old believes that FSD and, eventually, fully autonomous vehicles will prevent countless injuries and save thousands of lives by making the roads safer. He is now seeing that in the data that Tesla is collecting. "So, the safety that we're seeing when the car is in FSD mode is actually significantly greater than the safety we're seeing when it is not, which is a key threshold for going to a wide Beta," said Musk.
On A.I. Day 2022, Tesla's director of the Autopilot program Ashok Elluswamy, said, "FSD beta software is quite capable of driving the car. It should be able to navigate from parking lot to parking lot, city street driving, stopping for traffic lights and stops signs, negotiating with objects at intersections, making turns and so on." Several team members who spoke at the event raved about the improvements of using an integrated stack. That means one code base that includes everything the car needs to operate all aspects of FSD.
Musk has been using the single-stack version for months. He told investors that he just used it. "When I came to Giga, Texas, from Brent's house, I never touched any of the controls on the way here." He said that all subscribers to the FSD package will soon experience this technology. "The car will be able to take you from your home to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel. So, it's looking very good."
Telsa executives have used the term supervised FSD or supervised autonomy when discussing how the technology has advanced. This means that the driver must still pay attention and be ready to intervene at any time. "We're not saying that that's quite ready to have no one behind the wheel. It's just that you will almost never have to touch the control, vehicle controllers," said Musk.
Safer Than a Human
That may soon be changing. Musk says the company is very close, and it will soon be able to challenge the regulatory bodies and prove that FSD is safer than human driving. "Certainly, without a question whatsoever in my mind, next year. I think we'll also have enough data next year to be able to show to regulators that the car is safer than the average human."
Now we need a Musk meme. You get FSD! Everybody gets FSD!
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In just 8 months, Tesla has gone from breaking ground to delivering electrons at its most ambitious Supercharger project to date, just in time to be ready for the busy Fourth of July holiday weekend. Project Oasis, the world’s largest Supercharger site, is now partially open to customers for its first phase in Lost Hills, California.
What makes this remarkable is the speed of execution. In just eight months, Tesla has constructed a site that will eventually feature 168 stalls (84 stalls are now open), supported by 11 MW of solar power and 10 Megapacks of battery storage. That construction speed is pretty impressive, but what is even more impressive is how this new station operates and what it means for future Supercharging infrastructure.
Self-Sufficient Energy Oasis
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The first 84 stalls at Lost Hills are now open, and according to the Tesla Charging team, they are currently powered solely by the sun and operate off-grid.
This makes it more than just a new Supercharger site. It serves as a proof of concept for a new type of Supercharger. Unlike nearly every other charging site in the world, which draws power from local utilities, this station generates its own clean electricity from its massive solar array and stores it in its array of on-site Megapacks.
Self-sufficient charging stations are something completely different than what we see today. They are highly resilient since they’re not reliant on the grid. That means that even if there is a local power outage, brownout, or blackout, one can always come to Lost Hills to Supercharge.
If you’ve got a Cybertruck, you could take advantage of the Cybertruck’s Powershare feature and charge up at Lost Hills to help keep your home powered during a blackout, utilizing the Cybertruck as a portable battery charger. Now that’s true independence and self-reliance.
The Future of Charging
Solar-powered Superchargers help avoid massive new loads on already stressed electrical grids, especially during peak afternoon and evening hours, when demand is the highest.
This is Tesla’s vision for the future of charging: a clean, fully closed-loop ecosystem that sustains itself. The sun’s energy is captured, stored, and delivered directly to vehicles on site at any time of day without relying on the electrical grid or fossil fuels.
Largest Supercharger in the World
This opening of 84 stalls is just the first phase of the project. Tesla says that the remaining stalls, as well as a new on-site lounge, are coming later this year. Once complete, the 168-stall site will be the largest Supercharger site in the world.
While the speed of building such a massive project in just eight months is a testament to Tesla’s execution, the true innovation is actually that self-sustainability. Let’s hope we see even more large, self-sufficient Supercharger sites across the world in the near future.
Elon Musk is once again seeking to expand Tesla’s vertical integration in the energy sector, this time focusing squarely on solar power. Following discussions on X that highlighted the massive gap in solar deployments between the US and China, Elon is now discussing the need for a Tesla Solar Gigafactory in the United States.
This potential move is driven by a specific catalyst: the exponential growth of AI is creating an insatiable demand for electricity. For Tesla and xAI, two of Elon’s companies betting their future on AI, building the power generation required is a strategic necessity.
A new factory wouldn’t just be about making panels; it would be about manufacturing the final missing piece in Tesla’s vertically integrated energy ecosystem.
Maybe there should be a solar Gigafactory in America
The context for this renewed focus is pretty stark. In May, China reportedly added a staggering 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity. In contrast, the United States installed approximately 14 GW over the entire first quarter, roughly 20 times less than China.
The primary driver of this demand is the revolution in AI. Training ever-larger and smarter AI models involves operating vast data centers, which consume staggering amounts of power. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have turned to small-scale nuclear reactors, with Microsoft petitioning to reopen the infamous Three Mile Island for its AI operations.
For Elon’s companies, whose future products like FSD, Optimus, and Grok are built on a foundation of real-world AI, securing a massive and sustainable energy supply isn’t a side quest. It is part of the main mission, especially in conjunction with grid-scale storage, such as Megapacks and Powerwalls. You can’t power a world of autonomous robots without a world of abundant, clean energy.
The Tesla Ecosystem
A US solar gigafactory would be the final, logical step in completing Tesla’s energy hardware ecosystem. While Tesla already manufactures some solar panels and the Tesla solar roof, the scale is too minuscule to matter.
By mass-producing its own panels, while also increasing Solar Roof production, Tesla would become a true one-stop shop for all things green energy. This would allow the company to supply its own large-scale projects, like the massive solar array for Project Oasis - the world’s largest Supercharger site.
It would also enable more complete residential packages, like the Giga-Small Haus concept home, combining Tesla-made panels and roofs with a Powerwall 3. This level of vertical integration would give Tesla complete control over the technology, cost, and supply of every major component in its energy ecosystem, from generation to storage to mobility.
Building a new Solar Gigafactory is about much more than just simply producing solar panels. It’s a requirement to power Tesla’s future products and make solar panels accessible to everyone.