Sandy Munro gets a chance to go in a Ford Mach E with a representative of Ford, and he experiences Ford's Blue Cruise. The Ford guy just wants to talk about Blue Cruise, but Sandy can't seem to restrain himself from making comparisons with Tesla. This is probably not what the Ford guy wanted him to do.
First of all, it was clear that Ford's Blue Cruise is available only on limited access highways. And Blue Cruise isn't connected to the GPS navigation system at all. It won't steer you off at your appropriate off ramp. So the appropriate comparison is Blue Cruise vs Autopilot. Autopilot works on any road where there are painted lane markers, Blue Cruise works only on limited access highways. And Blue Cruise won't change lanes for you. You need to take control and do that manually. Ford is thinking about adding that feature in the future.
Ford advertises that Blue Cruise is a hands-free system. It uses a cabin-facing camera to make sure that the driver is paying attention. It will allow the driver to look away from the road briefly, but it will send the driver a reminder to pay attention after a few seconds of inattentive driving. Blue Cruise will stop working if the driver continues to be inattentive. The video doesn't make clear what, exactly, happens when Blue Cruise stops working due to the driver's sudden inability to pay attention.
There's another issue with hands-free driving. It's a reaction time issue. A long time ago in a previous millennium, when I took Driver Education, we saw a movie that I still remember. In the movie, a car was rigged so the front seat passenger, the instructor, could secretly push a button that would make a noise and shoot a chalk mark onto the road. The driver was told to immediately slam on the brake. At that point, the car shot another chalk mark onto the road. Then, a bit farther along, the car came to a stop.
It takes the brain about three quarters of a second to realize that an emergency exists and another three quarters of a second to move the foot off the accelerator and get it slammed down on the brake. At 65 miles an hour, the car will have traveled 96 feet down the road before a human being can initiate the stopping process. A few phantom braking events are a small price to pay for a quicker response to an emergency stop situation. So what does that have to do with hands-free Blue Cruise?
The brain still needs to see a situation that demands a sudden avoidance maneuver. Then it must decide which way to turn the steering wheel and how much to turn it. That delay will increase by the same one and a half seconds of effective inaction if the brain has to first figure out how to get the hands onto the steering wheel and then get them there before it can initiate a calculation about which way and how much to steer for the avoidance maneuver. That means you're 96 feet further down the road before you start the avoidance maneuver if your hands are off the steering wheel when an emergency becomes evident.
So I have to say that for level 2 autonomy, where the driver may need to take over quickly, it's better if the hands are already on the wheel.
There was another odd quirk about Blue Cruise. Sandy Munro was chatting with the Ford guy when he suddenly noticed a visual, but not audible, warning that he had to take control of steering. This was on a limited access highway going seventy miles an hour. It's a good thing he noticed it because Blue Cruise poops out when it sees a "sharp curve."
This particular curve was on a limited access highway. It wasn't sharp enough to require a reduction in the speed limit. I foresee that this will become an issue when drivers don't notice that Blue Cruise has quit working and the car drifts to the outside of the curve and out of its lane.
Autopilot stops working around sharp curves, too. But Autopilot gives an audible signal, your hands are already on the wheel, and Autopilot's definition of a sharp curve is one where you have to slow down to 20mph, not one that you can negotiate at highway speeds.
My advice? Don't ride in a car with Ford Blue Cruise.
Ford's Blue Cruise technology is way behind what Tesla offers today, not even considering the FSD Beta, which should become available to the public later this year. As Tesla advances further in vehicle autonomy, they'll be solving problems Ford has yet to come across. It's great to see that Tesla has started the electric revolution in cars, but Tesla's competition won't come with existing auto makers.
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It was a rainy April 1st when a news-searching author went on a delve into the depths of April Fools to find fact from falsehood. And while we found a lot of fantastic jokes, we also found some good ideas.
So, with a shoutout to MarcoRP on X, whose April Fool’s Joke gave us a good run for our money for a couple of minutes, we thought to ourselves - what would a Cybercab Charging Station / Cleaning Hub really look like?
Cybercab Wireless Charging Sites
Now, before continuing, we’d like to point out that the image up top is a joke from Marco - it isn’t an accurate or real site map submission from Tesla. However, it gave us the impetus to think critically about what is required for a Robotaxi fleet, based primarily on the Cybercab, to be able to service a city.
Requirements
Tesla will likely need to charge a small fleet of Cybercabs at a single time and in a single place. That means that the site needs to be large enough to cover a major metro area while also still being compact enough to not cost too much money to build out.
In addition, we need to factor in charge times. The Cybercab is likely to launch with a battery around 50 kWh, which will result in a range of approximately 300 miles. With that much range, the average Cybercab may not need to charge more than once or at all during daytime shifts, so instead, most of the vehicles will charge overnight.
MarcoRP
Math and Charge Times
The overnight charging means that most of these vehicles could be charged slowly. When we did some back-of-the-napkin math last year, we determined that Tesla’s wireless charger will likely peak around 17 kW (for comparison, Tesla’s Wall Connector at 32 amps charges at about 7 kW). If we scale Tesla’s wireless charger down slightly to 10 kW, accounting for some energy loss and the potential size of the site, that means a Cybercab will be able to charge in about 5 hours.
Tesla’s upcoming V4 Supercharger unit can currently handle 1.5MW per cabinet, but this slower-speed charging is A/C, not DC, which means there is a step-down loss of about 3-5%. Let’s make that a comfortable 10% for any other overages, but we can estimate around 1.35MW of power. That 1.3MW will easily handle charging up to 100 Cybercabs at once - all wirelessly, using Tesla’s unique beam-forming and beam-steering technology to keep efficiency high at every single stall.
Within about 5 hours, a whole fleet of 100 Cybercabs could be charged overnight when electricity rates are cheaper and still be out in time for the morning commute.
While this is all just hypothetical, it really does make sense that Tesla will be establishing these sites that won’t require much space or a ton of energy.
Tesla recently curtained off a large section of the parking garage at Giga Texas, as well as some of their chargers on the eastern end of the facility, leading us to believe they may just be testing this at scale internally.
There’s a lot to look forward to with Tesla’s V4 Supercharger deployment coming this year and with Robotaxi launching in just a couple of months.
Tesla released its Q1 2025 delivery and production numbers this morning, reporting 336,681 vehicles delivered and 362,615 produced—marking the company’s weakest quarter since 2022. Deliveries declined 13% year-over-year and fell well short of Wall Street estimates, which ranged from 360,000 to 370,000. Some analysts had forecast as many as 407,000 units.
Despite the shortfall, Tesla stock is actually up about 4% this morning, not only suggesting the market had already priced in weaker performance, but that this may be seen as the low point for the company. Tesla began delivering its refreshed Model Y in March, and production across all four Gigafactories was impacted by several weeks of downtime as Tesla retooled lines to accommodate the newer model. However, there’s no doubt that there is some brand impact from Elon Musk.
Comparing Numbers
Most of the deliveries—323,800 units—came from the Model 3 and Model Y lineup, while the “Other Models” category (including the Cybertruck, Model S, and Model X) accounted for 12,881 deliveries. That’s a 31% drop for Model 3/Y and a sharper 45% drop for the Other Models category compared to the previous quarter. However, comparing it to a more applicable Q1 2024, these numbers are only down about 13% for the Model 3/Y and down about 24% for the Model S/X and Cybertruck.
In terms of production, Tesla built 345,454 Model 3/Y vehicles and 17,161 from its “Other Models” line. The company attributed the production drop to the Model Y changeover but said the ramp is “going well.” This still leaves a large gap between production and delivery numbers, although they may not be as large as many had feared.
Q1 2025
Q1 2024
Q4 2024
Model 3/Y Deliveries
323,800
369,783
471,930
Model 3/Y Production
345,454
412,376
436,718
Other Models Deliveries
12,881
17,027
23,640
Other Models Production
17,161
20,995
22,727
Total Deliveries
336,681
386,810
495,570
Total Production
362,615
433,371
459,445
Cybertruck
One major weak point in Tesla’s numbers seems to be Cybertruck deliveries. While Tesla previously expected the Cybertruck to sell more than 250k units per year, we’re already seeing a decline in numbers. This is likely due to several factors, including the higher-than-expected price point of the truck, the unavailability of the RWD model, and the Cybertruck’s polarizing design, which may attract unwanted attention right now.
While the Cybertruck was ramping up production in 2024, making the lower numbers reasonable, the deliveries for Q1 2025 dropped drastically compared to the previous quarter. Cybertruck deliveries are estimated to be in the 5- 6k unit range for the quarter.
The good news to take away here is that the Single Motor variant of the Cybertruck appears to be nearing release. The price of the RWD version is expected to be about $60k USD before any incentives.
Q1 Earnings Call
Tesla announced their quarterly numbers this morning and posted on social media that they’ll live stream their Earnings Call on April 22nd.
This post was later edited to change “Q1 Earnings Call” to “Q1 Company Update.” It’s not clear whether there’s any significance in this change, but it could mean that Tesla has more to announce during the call.
The Company Update will occur on April 22nd at 2:30 PM PT / 5:30 PM ET. The standard Q&A session with executives and Musk is expected to follow the release of additional financial results for the quarter.
Tesla is set to launch its long-awaited Robotaxi service in June, and a cheaper, mass-market model is also planned for this year. With delivery numbers coming in soft and the refreshed Model Y just hitting the road, all eyes will be on forward-looking commentary during the update.
