Tesla is poised to open its Supercharger network in the U.S. to other EV brands soon as it seeks to access federal funds to extend the network. According to a Twitter post, Tesla is considering two membership plans for non-Tesla EV owners.
6 photos

One of the best advantages Tesla has over rivals in the EV war is its extensive network of charging stations, named the Supercharger network. Supercharger stations are not only ubiquitous but also easy to use, not needing any app or action to use them other than simply plug the car in. This advantage will disappear by the end of this year in the U.S. as Tesla prepares to open its Supercharge stations to non-Tesla EVs.

This happens after a successful trial in Europe over the past year. Europe was the first choice because the European Superchargers use the same CCS plug as other EVs in the market. In contrast, in the U.S., an adaptor is needed. Tesla is also rumored to install dual-plug charging poles in the U.S. to allow charging of non-Tesla vehicles. Adaptor or not, the move is required by the federal authorities to allow Tesla to access federal funds to build new charging stations in the U.S.

As you’d imagine, Tesla will offer a different authentication method for non-Tesla owners via the Tesla app. Tesla is already testing an updated version of the app, and a lucky guy caught the exact moment when Tesla displayed the membership options in the app. The option to sign up for a Tesla Supercharger membership was only available for a short time. Still, it was enough to give us a taste of what will come.

According to Sawyer Merritt, Tesla will offer two Supercharger tiers: a Pay Per Use plan and a membership option that promises a lower price per kilowatt-hour when paying a subscription. This is not much different from what other EV charging networks offer. Despite showing the $0,99 plan, we don’t think it’s time to pop the champagne yet. It is probably just a placeholder, and higher pricing is highly likely.

Tesla has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Dawn Project, an advocacy group attempting to discredit the automaker’s advanced driver assistance systems. It alleges that the footage shown in a video produced by the group is defamatory and misrepresents its technologies.

In a letter seen by The Washington Post, Tesla objects to the video, which shows one of its vehicles purportedly in “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) mode, running over child-size mannequins at speeds of up to 20 mph (32 km/h).

The footage has been shared online and used in TV commercials, and the test was funded by Dan O’Dowd, a billionaire and the founder of Green Hills Software. That company makes operating systems for airplanes and automobiles and could, therefore, be seen as a Tesla competitor, as critics of the Dawn Project (which O’Dowd is also behind) have pointed out.

One such critic, Electrek’s Fred Lambert, may be helping fuel Tesla’s legal position. Its cease-and-desist letter leaned heavily on an Electrek report that questioned whether or not FSD was actually engaged, citing the video’s in-vehicle footage of the mannequin test. Indeed, Dinna Eskin, Tesla’s deputy general counsel, dated the letter August 11, one day after the report was published.

"The purported tests misuse and misrepresent the capabilities of Tesla’s technology, and disregard widely recognized testing performed by independent agencies as well as the experiences shared by our customers,” wrote Eskin.

Aspects of Electrek’s report have come into question, though. The Dawn Project pointed to raw data and other information that indicated that the Tesla vehicle in the test was, in fact, in FSD mode during some demonstrations in the video.

Regardless, the letter demands that the Dawn Project immediately remove videos of the test, and accused the group of “unsafe and improper use” of FSD Beta. “Your actions actually put consumers at risk,” the automaker alleged.

Indeed, one Tesla customer upset by the footage from the mannequin demonstration actually went so far as to attempt to rerun the test with a real child. Although FSD did work in that scenario, video of the test has been taken down by YouTube.

O’Dowd, meanwhile, is unmoved by the cease-and-desist letter, saying in an interview that “this letter is so pathetic in terms of whining.” On Twitter, meanwhile, he said that Elon Musk, whom he called “Mr Free Speech Absolutist” was “hiding behind his lawyers.”

So far the video remains up and O’Dowd said he has no intention of taking it down, pledging instead to put more money into his efforts to discredit the automaker.

Despite claiming that its cars could be fitted with a system called Full Self-Driving for more than five years, Tesla has yet to prove that its cars can safely drive autonomously. Instead, as we’ve pointed out before, the $10,000 option is more of a neat driver assist feature, that still requires your utmost attention on the road ahead

Well now, lawmakers have cottoned onto the tall tales being peddled by Tesla and a new bill has been introduced in California to clamp down on the firm and its software. According to the LA Times

This isn’t the first time lawmakers in California have targeted Tesla and its FSD system. The DMV in the state is currently ‘reviewing’ the company’s claims about the software’s capabilities.

While the agency said that it did have the power to stop the EV maker from selling cars in the state if it was found to be in breach of advertising standards, the LA Times reports that any penalties “would be far softer than that.”

Tesla's head of investor relations, Martin Viecha, has shared some interesting insight into the company at an invite-only Goldman Sachs tech conference in San Francisco on September 12.

Viecha took investors through Tesla's next five years, explaining what to expect when it comes to battery supply and technology, as well as the cost of making vehicles. A person who attended the event shared details of the conference with Business Insider, including the potential for falling manufacturing costs per Tesla vehicle.

Viecha said that the per-vehicle cost of manufacturing is the most important metric to monitor in coming years, as it is a key indicator of how many cars a company can make and how big it can become.

He then revealed that in 2017, it cost Tesla $84,000 to make each vehicle. Remarkably, that cost has dropped to $36,000 per vehicle in recent quarters. Contrary to what most people might expect, Viecha said that almost none of the savings came from cheaper battery costs.

Instead, Tesla benefitted from better vehicle design to make manufacturing as easy as possible—such as the use of megacasts for big bodywork and chassis components of the Model Y—as well as new factory design. Viecha added that Tesla's first factory in Fremont, California, is not a great place to build electric vehicles, noting that there are cheaper places for that, such as Shanghai and Berlin.

While Tesla has new factories in those locations, plus another one in Austin, Texas, the company wants to continue pushing the boundaries of how much it costs to produce an electric vehicle. As new facilities build more cars, they will be able to manufacture each vehicle for less than $36,000, which should be good for the company's profitability, Viecha said. Mind you, that's before battery savings from the 4680 program kick in.

At the moment, the Fremont factory accounts for about half of Tesla's production, but as the Berlin and Austin plants' outputs are rising, Fremont's share of the total production will decrease.

Speaking of manufacturing, Viecha believes that EVs represent the third major revolution in automobile production, following the Ford Model T, the first automobile built on an assembly line in 1908, and Toyota's cheaper production approach in the 1970s.

10,000 Tesla Model Y electric cars have been built at the Giga Texas plant, since it entered series production at the site in April 2022.

The company shared a photo from the celebration of the small but important milestone, on a path to much higher volume.

It was reported in August that Tesla increased production to 1,000 Model Y per week in Texas. We don't know what level it's at now, but as the installed manufacturing capacity is higher than 250,000 annually, it must increase probably at least 5-fold to 5,000 units per week or so.

The main factor limiting the Model Y ramp-up in Texas appears to be the availability of the all-new 4680-type cylindrical battery cells for structural battery packs. Because of that, earlier this year, Tesla started production of the Model Y equipped with 2170-type cells (and non-structural battery packs). Both types are produced in parallel.

Only time will tell whether the 4680-battery supply improves enough to significantly increase production.

For reference, the Fremont Factory reached 2 million units (cumulatively - Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y) in July, while the Giga Shanghai plant crossed 1 million units in August (Model 3 and Model Y).

The Giga Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany also is ramping up, producing more than 1,000 Model Y per week since June.

Overall, Tesla has increased its installed manufacturing capacity to 1.9 million BEVs per year (as of the end of June).

According to the latest forecasts and estimations, the company is expected to produce and sell more than 350,000 electric cars (globally) in Q3:

Multiple companies have the bad habit of downplaying their customers’ intelligence. They offer lame excuses for things that people with two working neurons will figure out in a heartbeat. However, in more than 20 years of covering the automotive industry, I have never seen a carmaker with more signs of believing its clients are gullible as fish than Tesla.


There is a long list of situations in which the EV maker will tell the buyers of its products things that require blind faith to be even remotely credible. Take Full Self-Driving (FSD) – a piece of beta software that is never ready and that has been promised for the next year since 2016. Making these folks pay up to $15,000 for it is just the most evident example of this culture. Tesla really seems to think its buyers will buy anything it states as a fact.

There is currently a great hype around Optimus Prime, the Tesla robot that should replace workers in the company’s factories. Elon Musk laughed while presenting the idea a little more than a year ago because it was impersonated by a skinny human being dancing on stage. Tesla investors are anxious to see what the company will present on September 30, possibly wondering how many will believe it. If you check Tesla’s record, that should not be a problem.

You may remember that Musk teased the second-generation Roadster in 2014, presented a prototype in 2017, and started collecting $250,000 from 1,000 customers willing to get the Founder’s Series soon after that event. That alone represented a $250-million revenue from its clients. We don’t know how many $50,000 deposits the company received for regular versions of the sports car. All of them were non-refundable. First promised for 2020, the Roadster is now expected for 2023 – if nothing changes.

At the same 2017 event, Tesla also presented the Semi, which would arrive even earlier: 2019. Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s CEO, embarrassed himself after saying his company would get some of the 100 Semi units it ordered in Q4 2021. He’s still waiting. Rumors that this is about to happen presented photos of prototypes that have been around for ages.

What about the Cybertruck? It was presented in 2019, and deliveries were supposed to start in late 2021. Tesla took $100 refundable deposits for its electric truck and made a little less money with that than with Roadster pre-orders. With more than 1.5 million reservations for the Cybertruck, that’s $150 million. As you are well aware, not a single unit reached their pre-order holders.

One of Tesla’s excuses was that the “innovative” 4680 battery the Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster needed was not yet ready for production. I wrote about how concerning it was to base all your future products on something you do not have yet. It is like committing to build a house on a lot you still do not own.

This new cell would not be just a larger format. It would have dry battery electrode coating (DBE) technology, no cobalt, a silicon anode, and no tabs. When Giga Austin opened on April 7, 2022, the Model Y made there received 4680 cells. Teardowns showed it was just a more prominent and ordinary NMC 811 battery, with the same chemistry as current Tesla ternary cells.

For the vehicles Tesla actually delivers, it states that its direct sales model is highly convenient to customers. The car is handed wherever buyers want, and there is no markup. What Tesla clients eventually faced were long wait lines, prices that changed when the EV was finally ready for delivery, order cancellations, and inspection lists in forums to refuse vehicles with too many problems.

When they decide to accept their cars and fix their issues later, what emerges is a service system that makes it difficult to talk to anyone and frequently cancels appointments. Musk promised F1-style service speed and spoke about a $100 compensation for cancelations made within 24 hours. Still, he suggested customers would have to pay Tesla the same if they canceled appointments in the same conditions.

The people who had their Teslas serviced during their warranty period frequently saw invoices with “goodwill” written for repairs or replacements that the automaker should cover. While most customers did not mind that, those with chronic problems discovered that this was a way to dodge lemon car claims. Some can consider that a plus: many customers have to hear that their cars are “within specs,” which means Tesla will do nothing about the issues they detected.

Recently, I wrote about the clients that sued Tesla when the company capped the voltage of cells in their cars. At that time, all EVs were still under warranty. Two years later, when most of them were not covered anymore, Musk said Tesla’s policy was “never to fight true claims” and that they were wrong in this case. The EV maker offered them a deal and paid each $625 for damages while pushing an over-the-air update with a new diagnostic tool for the battery packs.

Many of these owners are now getting a 50% restriction in capacity and estimates to replace the defective battery packs that may reach $22,000. They must deeply regret having trusted the deal Tesla offered. If they continued in courts against the EV maker, it would have to explain why it capped the voltage in these cars, prove it was not concealing fire risks, and eventually replace the defective battery packs under warranty.

That’s what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) forced Tesla to do with MCUs. These computers had a chronic problem with their eMMC flash memory card. With constant logging, these cards would fail. As Tesla did not predict replacing them, the entire MCU had to be substituted at up to $4,000 a pop when they were no longer under warranty. Tesla tried to escape the recall by saying that computers were wear parts, but NHTSA did not buy that.

If this was not enough, there is still plenty more on Tesla’s list of bold statements that do not stand a simple reality check. The EV maker likes to brag about selling the safest cars on earth. It releases a Vehicle Safety Report, which contains data about crashes when Autopilot is active. That has already been debunked by Noah Goodall because there are important distortions in the report that make Autopilot look safer than it really is.

To authorities, the EV maker states that Autopilot and Full Self-Driving are Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). To customers, Elon Musk said Tesla cars are appreciating assets because they will be autonomous. Tesla wrote in official videos that its cars drove themselves: a driver was only there for legal purposes. Liza Dixon even coined an expression to define that attitude: autonowashing, which is pretending something is more autonomous than it truly is.

Many people believe what Musk and Tesla said about Autopilot, and some even died trying to prove it was true. When confronted with these stories, Tesla investors say it was their fault. They say the same when vehicles with FSD crash and even stress it is beta software as an excuse for the issues. The customers that crashed their EVs using Autopilot became moral crumple zones – those that get “damaged” to protect a company’s reputation.

To make matters worse, even the ratings that Tesla vehicles obtain in tests such as Euro NCAP are under suspicion after the white-hat hacker GreenTheOnly discovered the tested vehicles had a code that recognized the test conditions. Tesla never cared to explain that.

The EV maker and its advocates frequently argue that buying a Tesla helps the environment. However, do not dare to tell them that Tesla has multiple emission violations in its Fremont factory. Emitting formaldehyde, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, and xylene – chemicals that may cause cancer – is apparently forgivable. The EV maker also had a chemical spill at Giga Grünheide and a fire. Talking about the German factory, Tesla promised to make there the best paint job in the world, with unique colors. Until very recently, EVs made in Grünheide were only black or white.

The last example of how gullible Tesla thinks its customers are has to do with the EPA range sticker its vehicles present. Edmunds discovered these EVs are among the only ones always falling short of their estimated ranges. Anyone buying these vehicles based on how far they promise to travel will eventually get disappointed.

This extensive list of situations involving Tesla shows that the company either needs to improve how it treats its clients or stop talking about any competitive advantages it has. Apart from the Supercharging network, most ended up not being true despite the best efforts of its investors to pump the narrative. Unfortunately, Tesla’s major asset may prove to be pretty gullible customers. The demand drop the EV maker is facing in China may show some of them are getting more skeptical.

The EV maker and its advocates frequently argue that buying a Tesla helps the environment. However, do not dare to tell them that Tesla has multiple emission violations in its Fremont factory. Emitting formaldehyde, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, and xylene – chemicals that may cause cancer – is apparently forgivable.