Tesla has had a long history with Swedish Unions. IF Metall, a Swedish Metalworkers Union, has been involved in a labor dispute against Tesla for over a year now, with the strike beginning back in October 2023.
The core issue lies in Tesla’s refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with IF Metall. In Sweden, these are the norm. However, Tesla compensates its workers well, and it seems that many of its employees in Sweden don’t even want to sign the collective agreement—they would be losing out on a lot. Employees have banded together to wear vests that say “Tack, det ӓr bra” - “Thanks, I’m good” in response to the unionization efforts.
Tesla does not have any unions in any of its facilities across the world - and signing one in Sweden would be a massive change. United Autoworkers in the US (UAW) has also been working towards establishing an autoworkers union in Tesla, but it has never really taken off.
Previous Impacts
The strike originally targeted just Tesla’s service centers but quickly grew beyond that. IF Metall expanded the strike to include painters, suppliers, electricians, postal workers, and many other unionized bodies within Sweden. Hydro Extrusions, a notable Tesla supplier, lost its primary contract with Tesla due to the strike in early 2024.
Sympathy strikes have also impacted the mailing of registrations and license plates for new Tesla owners, which led to a lawsuit against IF Metall and other unions involved.
Superchargers Unpowered
Now, the latest impact of the strike has left 100 Tesla Supercharger stalls across six different sites unpowered. All these sites have been permitted, built, and fully set up. Now, the last step is to just power them on.
This step lies in the hands of one of the unions working for local electricity companies - who are conducting sympathy strikes against Tesla. Max de Zegher, Tesla’s Director of Charging, previously commented that not enabling these Supercharger stations will leave EV drivers struggling over the Holiday period.
And that prediction has come true. Nicklas, a Swede who has been covering the dispute on X, recorded a video of the few Supercharger stations that are working - where Tesla vehicles are lined up waiting to charge.
Teslas (mostly) in the middle of 🇸🇪Sweden waiting in line at a Superchargerstation in Malung. Can you count how many there are in line?
Max commented again on the situation, pointing out that it's not just Tesla drivers suffering - this impacts other EV drivers in Sweden as well. Tesla’s Supercharger network in Europe uses the CCS2 standard and is open to other electric vehicles as well.
Tesla vehicles and other EVs are now either lined up and waiting for long charge queues or being diverted to third-party sites, many of whom are unable to keep up with the Holiday travel impacts and whose uptimes are nowhere near the 99.99% availability that the Supercharger network provides.
We’re hoping to see a positive resolution to this strike, as it seems the employees of Tesla want no part of the union, but the union wishes to insert themselves into the equation anyway.
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Tesla signaled its intention to launch its first Robotaxi network in Austin, Texas, with company-owned and operated vehicles, back in January. This network will be Tesla’s first foray into truly autonomous vehicles - ones that aren’t being directly supervised by a driver. Later in February, Tesla’s executive team confirmed that the plans were on track for the launch of the Austin network both on X and during several interviews that they participated in.
At the end of February, we also found out that Tesla has applied for a Supervised Robotaxi license in California, where the network will also launch, but with safety drivers in place.
This is an ambitious plan, but FSD has really come a long way in the past year. FSD V12 was a massive step forward from V11, and V13 has made the experience smoother and safer than ever before. FSD V14 is expected to be another big step up with auto-regressive transformers and audio input.
Still on Track
Now, Elon has tripled down on the fact that Tesla will be launching their first autonomous robotaxi network in Austin - just two months away at this point. It seems that Tesla is fully set to launch their first fully unsupervised self-driving vehicles that will carry paying passengers in June.
Additional Cities
The best part is that Elon also confirmed that they’re targeting robotaxi networks launching in many cities within the United States by the end of this year. However, remember that this will be a Tesla-run network at first - Tesla owners won’t be able to add their vehicles to the Robotaxi fleet right away.
Adding Customer Vehicles
It will take some time before Tesla meets their strict internal safety requirements before it lets customers add their own vehicles to the network. Tesla’s executive team mentioned that they intend to let owners add their own vehicles to the fleet sometime in 2026. This happens to be the same time frame that Tesla plans to launch the Robotaxi across the United States, Mexico, and Canada — something that could only be done with customer-owned cars.
That final step will be bold—and it may come with complications, especially given that autonomous vehicle approval spans municipal, state or provincial, and even federal levels. There are plenty of regulatory hurdles ahead, but this is undoubtedly shaping up to be one of the most exciting times for Tesla.
Launch Event
With the Robotaxi network launching and Unsupervised FSD just around the corner, there’s a lot to get excited about. Tesla is expected to host a launch event at Gigafactory Texas in Austin to mark the debut of its first Robotaxi network. The company previously hinted that referral code users could receive invites—offering a rare chance to score an early ride in a Robotaxi outside the Hollywood studio lot.
Tesla’s engineering mule vehicles—used to test autonomy for future platforms—have resurfaced after an extended absence. The last time we saw them was back in July, when Tesla was gearing up for its initial We, Robot event. Since then, sightings have been scarce.
These vehicles typically signal that Tesla is testing new camera placements or validating FSD ground-truth data. This time, however, they appear to be outfitted exclusively with the updated camera hardware seen on the Cybercab.
New Sightings
The mules have now been spotted in Boston, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire—their first known appearances this far east. This suggests Tesla is actively collecting data to evaluate and optimize FSD performance in new regions. Thanks to Reddit user Ready_Medium_6693 for catching the one in Concord.
Elon Musk recently mentioned that Tesla plans to expand Robotaxi networks beyond the initial Texas and California launches. So while these sightings aren’t entirely unexpected, the speed of their arrival is. It suggests Tesla is confident in its ability to train FSD for local traffic rules and driving behaviors to the point it no longer needs a driver.
Bumper Cameras
The vehicle that’s been spotted in Boston is the usual Tesla engineering Model 3… except with one unique twist. It includes a front bumper camera. Shout out to @Dylan02939106 for catching the bumper camera in these photos.
The Refreshed Model 3 Mule with a Bumper Camera!
@Dylan02939106 on X
We previously released an opinion piece regarding whether the front bumper camera would be required for Unsupervised FSD. In our eyes, Tesla will require a bumper camera for Unsupervised FSD - if only to improve direct visibility in the bumper area of the vehicle. This is key for low-speed maneuvering in crowded areas like parking lots and garages, as well as for key features like Actually Smart Summon.
It isn’t surprising that Tesla is continuing to evaluate vehicles with a bumper camera - the Cybertruck, Cybercab, and Refreshed Model Y all have them now - and the rest of the lineup, including the flagship Model S and X, as well as the refreshed Model 3 - were supposed to eventually receive them as well.
With the Model S and Model X set for refreshes this year—and the front bumper camera on this Model 3 looking well-integrated rather than a temporary setup—it seems likely that front bumper cameras will soon become standard across Tesla’s entire lineup.
The Robotaxi Mule in Boston
@Dylan02939106 on X
In fact, Tesla’s newest iteration of the FSD computer has a slot for the Bumper Camera on all AI4/HW4 vehicles, so a future retrofit could even be possible.
These are some pretty exciting times - we may see Robotaxi networks actually deploy in time for Tesla’s lofty goal of “sometime in 2026” for cities throughout North America. Once many American cities begin to accept their deployment, it will be easier to seek homologation in Mexico and Canada, enabling deployment throughout the continent.
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