Tesla Fremont Factory puts pedal to the metal as end of Q4 approaches

Posted on


The Fremont Factory may no longer be Tesla’s most productive and efficient plant, but it is still a facility that can churn out serious volumes of all-electric vehicles. This was highlighted in a drone flyover of the factory this week. 

Avid Tesla watcher Met God in Wilderness, who has been observing the Fremont Factory and the Lathrop Megafactory for some time now, captured footage of the facilities yesterday, December 28. During the flyover, the drone operator observed that the Fremont Factory seemed to be very busy pushing out vehicles, likely as part of the company’s end-of-quarter rush. 

What’s quite interesting is that the Fremont Factory was producing so many vehicles that some of them were already being parked at the employee parking lot. Thus, during the flyover, a portion of the Fremont Factory’s employee parking area was already converted to a temporary holding lot for new cars. 

The notable activity in the Fremont Factory bodes well for the electric vehicle maker’s overall production and delivery results in the fourth quarter and 2023 as a whole. Tesla, after all, is looking to deliver about 1.8 million vehicles this year, and for the company to achieve this, deliveries in the fourth quarter would have to reach about 476,000 vehicles. 

For context, Tesla delivered a total of 422,875 vehicles in the first quarter, 466,140 vehicles in the second quarter, and 435,059 vehicles in the third quarter worldwide. Wall Street seems to be optimistic about Tesla’s chances, however, with Wedbush estimating that the electric vehicle maker is tracking a bit ahead of 480,000 vehicle deliveries for Q4 2023. 

The Fremont Factory is Tesla’s first facility that is capable of mass vehicle production. And while it has since been eclipsed by factories like Giga Shanghai, Giga Texas, and Giga Berlin, the Fremont Factory is still quite notable with an estimated annual output of about 650,000 vehicles, comprised of Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y. 

Watch the recent drone flyover of the Fremont Factory in the video below. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Tesla Fremont Factory puts pedal to the metal as end of Q4 approaches





Source

some consumers will have to settle for inferior cars because they dislike Elon Musk

Posted on


Longtime Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) bull Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki recently shared his thoughts on the electric vehicle maker’s challenges and CEO Elon Musk. During an interview with Yahoo Finance, Gerber, who has adopted a more critical stance on Tesla as of late, noted that the EV maker could see some risk to its sales because of Musk’s behavior. 

That being said, Gerber also stated that Tesla makes the best cars on the road today. This means that some consumers may end up settling for an inferior electric car because of their dislike of the Tesla CEO. Some consumers, however, would likely simply buy a Tesla because the company makes good cars. 

“I think if Musk’s behavior continues to get more and more extreme, that is a risk to Tesla sales. But the bottom line… it’s the best vehicle on the road. It’s the best value on the road, so consumers literally have to buy a lesser car because they don’t like Elon. And so I don’t know if consumers are going to do that or not. I know certain consumers are for sure. But there might be many others that just simply want the best car,” Gerber said. 

The longtime Tesla bull did give credit to Tesla for seemingly separating itself from Musk in social media. In the past, it was quite difficult to distinguish which are Musk’s and which are Tesla’s statements on X. As of late, however, Tesla has been posting more actively on its official X account, at times even responding and correcting negative media reports directly. This, Gerber noted, could result in Musk’s potential damage to the Tesla brand being reduced. 

“Tesla is Tesla and Elon is Elon. And I think the best thing Tesla can do is continue to differentiate its brand, you know, as Tesla. If you notice on Twitter, Tesla’s been tweeting more as Tesla. They’ve been defending themselves more. We’ve seen more attempts at advertising. And I think if Tesla goes full in on advertising and continues to build its brand, Elon’s effect will be less and less damaging to Tesla overall,” Gerber said. 

Inasmuch as Musk’s alleged damage to the Tesla brand has caught the news cycles, a study from Heatmap suggests that car buyers who are considering EVs do not really factor in Elon Musk that much in their purchase decision. As per Heatmap, in the weeks leading up to Musk’s recent round of controversies, 27% percent of its respondents stated that Musk’s behavior made them less likely to pick a Tesla. This was an improvement from February, when the number was 36%. 

Watch Ross Gerber’s Yahoo Finance interview below. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Tesla bull: some consumers will have to settle for inferior cars because they dislike Elon Musk





Source

Tesla FSD Beta V12 undergoing extra testing before customer release date

Posted on


Elon Musk recently shared more news about Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta V12 and when customers could expect a wider release to non-employee vehicles. 

“It’s already on a lot of cars, but given that[it] is a completely new architecture, we are going extra testing,” replied Elon Musk to a question about v12 on X. 

“It works very well in California but needs more training for heavy precipitation areas,” he added. 

Tesla started rolling out FSD Beta V12 to employees in November. Elon Musk confirmed the news through a post on X. FSD Beta V12 rolled out with update 2023.38.10 at a limited scale. On December 28, Tesla rolled out FSD Beta V12 to more Tesla employee vehicles. 

Teslascope estimated that V12 was uploaded to more than 15,000 personally owned Tesla employee vehicles. The experienced software tracker believes Tesla will release V12 to customers by mid-to-late January 2024. 

Version 12 is a highly-anticipated update because it transitions FSD Beta from a rules-based to a network-path-based AI approach. As such, it will base decisions on the road on human driving data rather than rules set by a programmer. 

“Here’s what happens when we move from rules-based to network-path-based. The car will never get into a collision if you turn this thing on, even in unstructured environments,” explained Tesla Autopilot employee Dhaval Shroff. 

Tesla recently went on X to recruit more people to its AI team. The post stated that Tesla AI was “building next-generation autonomy on a single foundation video network that directly drives the car.”

After V12 is released, Tesla is expected to drop the “Beta” moniker in FSD Beta. As of this writing, “Beta” is still included in Tesla’s FSD Beta update launches. 

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via X @Writer_01001101.

Tesla FSD Beta V12 undergoing extra testing before wider release: Elon Musk 





Source