Tesla Announcements: New Date for Robotaxi, FSD in Europe & China, Giga Mexico on Hold and More

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Yesterday Tesla held their Q2 2024 Earnings Call. Let’s take a deeper look at some of what was said.

Affordable Tesla

Tesla’s affordable model – previously dubbed the Model 2 by many, is supposed to be revealed in the first half of 2025. Tesla has been targeting a price point of about $25,000 USD for this vehicle, and many are excited to see an affordable EV from Tesla that doesn’t require the Federal EV Rebate to come down below $30,000.

The Model 2 is supposed to be built off the same production lines as Tesla’s other mass-manufactured vehicles — the Model 3 and the Model Y. Tesla has reserved their unique unboxed process testing for the upcoming Robotaxi instead.

New Date for Robotaxi Event

Speaking of the Robotaxi, Elon Musk confirmed in the earnings call that the Robotaxi event will be taking place on 10/10. In line with what we previously reported,  this delay was due to some important design changes. In addition, the extra time allows Tesla to “show off a few other things,” according to Musk.

We’re quite excited to see what these other things are – they could be previews of the affordable Tesla model, the Cybervan or a demo of the Robotaxi.

Unsupervised FSD Goal

In terms of FSD, Musk also mentioned that the hope is for Unsupervised FSD to be rolled out sometime between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025. That’s a pretty big time gap, and while we’re used to expecting the usual two weeks, Musk came clean and said he’s been overly confident in the past.

Instead, this new estimate is based on the current trend of miles per intervention, which has been growing at a steady clip since FSD v12 rolled out and has become more refined.

Expansion of FSD

But that’s not all. Tesla also intends to introduce FSD v12.5 or FSD v12.6 to Europe, China, and other countries by the end of this year, which is rapidly approaching. That’s a major piece of news for many countries that have limited access to Full Self Driving or Autopilot. Tesla previously worked hard to get regulatory approval for FSD in Europe and China and just launched some Vision-based features outside of North America.

Giga Mexico on Hold

Giga Mexico is now on hold, along with Tesla’s plans to produce their next-generation vehicle there. Instead, Tesla will be producing these vehicles at Giga Texas. This hold comes after US Presidential Candidate Donald Trump has said that if he’s elected, he will enforce heavy tariffs on vehicles that are produced in Mexico and imported to the United States.

Optimus Robot Timeline

Optimus has seen some timeline solidification between the Shareholder Meeting and this Earnings Call. While there are a few test units on the factory floors today, Tesla intends to begin limited production at Giga Texas for a V1 unit, to be used internally. This production run will be starting in early 2025.

They expect to work out any initial kinks and bugs, and then begin work on Optimus V2, which should be available for purchase to outside organizations by early 2026.

Megapack

Tesla Energy has seen the greatest growth, with production, revenue, and sales all being greater than in Q1 2024. In fact, Tesla’s megapack factory in Lathrop is continuing to expand and scale production, all while Mega Shanghai is also breaking ground. Overall, deployments of static energy storage doubled in Q2 from Q1, which already saw a doubling since last year.

Tesla is banking quite a bit on its energy business, and working to expand its supply chains, while also selling Megapacks to energy utilities around the world. And it's more than energy utilities interested – Megapack is being seen as an energy backup source for AI compute – data centers suck power extremely fast, and Megapack can help provide the juice needed.

There’s more on that front too – Tesla and energy utilities are looking to buffer power plants with Megapacks – which means powerplants can run at optimal capacity while Megapack handles the ebbs and flows. There could be a 2-3x increase in power plant efficiency, and this could also help with power plant base loading.

Earnings Call Video

So that’s it for all the big key points from the Earnings Call. If you want to know more about the call, you can review our recap, which includes some of the financial data, as well as lots of other information. You can also see the investor slide deck, or watch the earnings call below.

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Tesla Introduces Hands-Free Frunk Opening in Update 2024.32.3

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In Tesla’s upcoming update, 2024.32.3, Tesla has added hands-free support for opening the vehicle’s frunk. This follows the Spring Update (2024.14), which added Hands-Free Trunk support for certain vehicles.

When hands-free trunk support was added earlier this year, it was supported on vehicles that include an ultra wideband chip, which includes the refresh Model S, new Model X, and the 2024 Model 3. Due to the hardware requirement, these will be the same vehicles that support the new Hands-Free Frunk feature. Legacy vehicles without UWB will unfortunately not support either feature due to the hardware requirement. UWB enables far more accurate tracking of the phone key, allowing Tesla to pinpoint its exact location relative to the vehicle.

The Cybertruck interestingly also includes an ultra wideband chip, however, it didn’t include the automatic opening of the gate earlier this year. However, we expect the Cybertruck to also receive the hands-free frunk opening in this 2024.32.3 update or relatively soon afterward.

Update: The Cybertruck is receiving hands-free frunk support in the 2024.32 update as well.

Hands-Free Frunk

The Hands-Free Frunk works similarly to the trunk feature – with an iPhone 11+ and a recent version of the app, you’ll be able to stand in front of your vehicle, and the Frunk will unlatch after sounding a chime. On some vehicles, the frunk will immediately open after being unlatched, however, you’ll need to manually close it.

This new feature isn’t enabled by default – you’ll need to go to Settings > Locks > Hands-Free Frunk to enable it.

At this time, Tesla doesn’t support UWB on Android devices, though both the Hands-Free Trunk and Hands-Free Frunk support will come to Android users in a future app update, according to Tesla.

Exclude Home

With the addition of the hands-free frunk opening, Tesla has also added a new option. You can now choose to disable the automatic opening when your vehicle is located at home to prevent you from accidentally opening. This will apply to the automatic frunk and trunk. In addition, in the Model X, you’ll also be able to disable the self-presenting doors at home. This is a great addition as many people have kept the hands-free feature disabled due to it awkwardly opening in the garage.

In the 2024.32.3 update, Tesla also mentions that they’ve improved the detection of the phone key, which should make the feature more reliable and faster when approaching the vehicle from the front or rear.

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Tesla’s Referral Program Launches in Europe

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Following its recent launch in the United States and Canada, Tesla has launched their referral program in several European countries as well.

The program is available in Germany, Norway, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and possibly others. The program is almost the same as the one available today in North America, with rewards for each referral and a discount for those referred. The cap in Europe is also ten per year.

This program comes right on the heels of a 0% financing offer for the Model Y in Sweden and France. While referrals aren't currently available in Sweden, the 0% financing still is.

European Referrals

The European Referral program accounts for country and local currency, where applicable.

The referral reward program is comparable to the one available in North America. After exchange rates, there is only an approximately 10% difference between the available rewards in the US and EU.

Other Countries

We expect this program to start rolling out to other European countries over the next few days or weeks, as Tesla continues to expand its referral program.

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