Elon Musk has stated that "at least 10 or 12 Gigafactories" will be able to produce 1.5 to 2 million vehicles each, or about 20 million vehicles annually. There are currently five Gigafactories worldwide, including three in the United States. Tesla is seemingly ramping up efforts to build two more Gigafactories in North America after a Musk spotting in Mexico and another job opening in Canada.
Media outlets in Nuevo León, Mexico, circulated photos of Musk with a state official and the state governor's wife. The state borders Texas; it gave Tesla suppliers their own lane at the border in June. An apparent gesture that Nuevo León welcomes Tesla with open arms.
It is an obvious location for the company, with at least six suppliers working in the state. The economy minister of Nuevo Leon, Ivan Rivas told Bloomberg that 5 to 7 percent of investment in the state would come from the EV industry in 2022.
The state is pro-business and has the population to support an extensive facility. More than 5 million people are in the state, including nearly 1.5 million in the state's largest city, Monterrey. It is also one of the highest educated populations in Mexico.
Nuevo León's Governor, Samuel García Sepúlveda, and several other high-ranking state officials toured Tesla Gigafactory in Texas in April. "We have come to endorse this agreement, that all the assembly, products and all the export of cars that are made in California and in Texas (from Tesla) are going to cross the Colombia Bridge," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, another exciting job has appeared on the Tesla careers page in Quebec, Canada. At the same shareholder meeting where Musk said he wanted 10 to 12 more Gigafactories, he asked the crowd where they should be located. "We get a lot of Canada," he said, and "I'm half Canadian, so maybe I should?"
It appears that Tesla's recruiting efforts are escalating in Quebec. In September, the company posted a recruiter position in Montreal, and now a Recruiting Coordinator posting in Laval. The job details state the successful candidate will work closely with high-volume recruiters in a fast-paced organization.
Over the summer, there was rampant speculation that the great white north would get a Gigafactory. It was revealed that Tesla met with the Canadian government four times in six months. Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, stated the country is ramping up efforts to become an EV powerhouse. He was recently asked about the Telsa rumors and said, "stay tuned."
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The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
Now, according to Wes’ post this morning, Tesla has made backend improvements to the Trip Planner, thanks to a rewrite by several engineers, that bring even more accurate predictions to Trip Planner.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.
As Tesla update 2024.44.3 continues to roll out, we’re seeing more features in this update. While the update doesn’t include many new feature, it either improves existing features or rolls out a feature to new regions. Actually Smart Summon is rolling out to Europe, although with more strict restrictions. AutoPark is also rolling out to the UK and several other countries for the first time, and we’re now seeing improvements to Autopark arriving in North America and Europe.
As Tesla’s 2024.44.3 update continues to roll out, more features in the update are being revealed. While this update doesn’t introduce many entirely new features, it does refine existing features or expand the reach of others.
Notably, Actually Smart Summon is now rolling out in Europe, albeit with stricter regulations. Vision-based AutoPark is debuting in the UK and several other countries, while North America and Europe are receiving updates that further improve Autopark’s functionality.
Improvements to Autopark
As part of the same update, Tesla is making a batch of improvements to Autopark in Europe and North America. In the release notes, Tesla states that Autopark is receiving performance and visualization improvements. Unfortunately, Tesla doesn’t go into more detail here, but it sounds like these improvements could be the faster and more accurate Autopark enhancements Ashok Elluswamy talked about earlier this year.
Those improvements are expected to make Autopark more reliable, let it pick spots faster, move faster into them, and also shift between forward and reverse faster. The improvements would also let the vehicle park in tighter spots than before, with more accurate vision.
We’ll have to wait and see how this improved Autopark compares to the current version.
Your vehicle's Autopark performance and visualizatons have been improved.
Autopark in the UK and Other Countries
Countries in Europe that previously didn’t have access to Vision-Based Autopark, including the UK, will now have access to the new Autopark for the first time with update 2024.44.3 and later. This includes countries such as the UK, Ireland and Malaysia.
While these countries are receiving Autopark, it’s not clear whether it includes the Autopark improvements that other regions are receiving. The release notes don’t include the Autopark Improvements section in these countries, but that could be due to Tesla simplifying the release notes for these countries that are receiving Autopark for the first time.
With Autopark finally introduced in these regions, it’ll be the first time vehicles without ultrasonic sensors are capable of Autopark. Vision-Based Autopark is far more reliable, faster, and easier to use in more situations than the older USS-based solution.
