According to an inside source who spoke to Bloomberg, Tesla will be hosting the Robotaxi reveal on October 10th at Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s movie studio in Los Angeles, rather than at Giga Texas, where they’ve normally held reveal events.
Hollywood Reveal
The Warner Bros. studio is a massive space, covering over 110 acres. The area has an array of different simulated city street scenarios generally used to record movies, rather than a large stage like at Giga Texas.
It seems that Tesla wants to demonstrate Robotaxi’s capabilities at Warner Bros. studio to attendees, where it will serve as a real-life simulacrum of what it will actually be like to request a Tesla Cybercab from the Tesla app, and then experience the actual ride from point A to point B.
Rather than testing on real city streets and closing off a huge portion of a town, or even setting up a local simulation outside of Giga Texas, Tesla has instead opted to use the pre-built facilities at the studio, which will provide a whole host of fairly realistic scenarios. The 110 acres provide ample space for several Robotaxi vehicles to roam around on the grounds, without intruding on real traffic or impeding pedestrians for a system that currently is unapproved.
Tesla has been working diligently with municipal, state, and federal agencies to have Robotaxi in an approved state for its future launch, but this process will likely take some time. This is a pretty good alternative for getting people into real vehicles and taking them on real trips for a reveal event.
A part of Warner Bros.' Discovery Inc.
Not a Tesla App
Tickets and Attendance
So far, nothing has shown up through the usual sources for how to acquire tickets or when they will become available. Tesla may use the newly re-launched Referral Program, which also recently launched in Canada, to let attendees get tickets.
We’re hoping to find out more details on the exact cost, but if they use the referral system, it may cost three referrals ($1,500 USD). Tesla’s Cybertruck event was 30,000 credits, which was three referrals. Tesla will still require attendees to travel to the location themselves and work out all travel costs on their own.
Rivian recently launched its own referral system and is going to hold an all-expenses paid trip for its top 100 referrers, which includes flight, meals, and accommodations (visit our new Rivian site, Rivian Wave for details).
We’ve previously looked at awesome Robotaxi concepts, so take a look at them and let us know what you’re looking forward to in the forums. Perhaps we might even get more than a Robotaxi announcement… wireless charging would definitely be a fitting announcement.
Tesla’s upcoming Home Wireless Charging Pad – the so-called “Project Garfield,” will get special Autopark support. Vehicle backup cameras will be able to locate the Wireless Charging Pad and then Autopark the vehicle in the best spot for the charging session to begin.
This information comes from Gizmodo China, who found this information from a reputable local source. We previously looked into Tesla’s Wireless Charging Patents in-depth and how Tesla intends to make this a simple and easy-to-use system, but one that’s also fairly high performance.
Automatic Docking
Similar to your robotic vacuum automatically docking to charge, eventually, your Tesla will be able to automatically locate your Home Wireless Charging Pad, and then maneuver itself into the perfect spot to take advantage of the highest charging speeds with the least energy leakage.
Automatically docking the vehicle is a fantastic solution to the woes of Wireless Charging, where even minor misalignment creates heat and wastes lots of energy. This fixes that issue at the vehicle level, so owners won’t have to move their wireless charging pads under the vehicle or move their vehicle around to find the perfect spot on their own.
In combination with Tesla’s patent to automatically adapt to variations in wireless charging layouts and systems, it seems that Tesla will be able to adapt to most circumstances that previous wireless EV charging companies were having difficulties with. Tesla will be able to vary the coil induction across its Wireless Charging Pad to “steer” or aim the wireless charging at different parts of the inductive coil inside the vehicle, enabling them to reduce heat, reduce waste energy, and accommodate variances in how vehicles line-up with the Wireless Charging Pad.
This feature may be limited to owners or subscribers of Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, which come with AutoPark as a standard feature. It could also be a software-level feature that’s enabled when a Home Wireless Charging Pad is detected nearby—which could also be an excellent option. We don’t know how Tesla plans to implement this just yet, but it will be very cool.
While we expect Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi to feature the first Wireless Charging tech inside an EV, the Cybertruck already has the connectors for it and is ready to be retrofitted with the induction coils in a future update. The upcoming Model Y Juniper may also bring Wireless Charging en-masse to EVs.
We’re super excited to hear more about Tesla’s Home Wireless Charging Pads, as they’ll add even more convenience to owning a Tesla.
Rendering of what Tesla's integration could look like
@dkrasniy
Tesla is adding support for Smart Child Seats in an upcoming update. Greentheonly, who typically decompiles and analyzes Tesla’s software updates, found references to smart car seats in update 2024.32. Tesla will sometimes release code in a software update that isn’t exposed to end users. There could be various reasons for this, such as Tesla wanting to collect data and running the feature in shadow mode, which is often the case with features like Park Assist, Autopark, or Autopilot changes.
Tesla also has the capability to turn on a certain feature in a remote configuration, letting them enable or disable the feature at their discretion. Whatever the case, Tesla appears close to releasing support for these new car seats that help alert parents of potential dangers.
Smart Child Seats
The Smart Child Seat in the preview image is the Babyark Convertible Car Seat, which retails for approximately $1,200 USD. In the code of Tesla’s update, they specifically refer to an “ISOFIX” base. ISOFIX is a standardized car seat fitting system that automatically locks onto a car seat.
The Babyark comes with a slew of smart features, including real-time notifications, buckle alerts, status notifications, and approximately how much time your baby has spent in the seat. Additionally, the Babyark can remind owners of reconfiguring the seat as your child grows. One of the key features of Babyark is a forgotten child alert – which prevents parents from leaving their child in the car.
At this point, we’re not quite sure exactly how many of these smart features will be integrated into Tesla’s UI, but most likely the forgotten child alert will be integrated, as well as possibly a means to automatically recognize when an ISOFIX style seat is installed. Currently, child seats need to be manually marked in the UI – which will dismiss the seatbelt indicator for that seat.
Tesla has time and time again placed a huge focus on safety features, and this upcoming support for smart child seats is another interesting integration to help ensure that parents can keep their children safe. And when they grow up – you can use Tesla’s parental controls to ensure that they drive their Tesla in a safe manner.
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