Lifestyle
Here’s what happened at Tesla’s VIP Factory Tour and Q&A with Franz von Holzhausen
Model S-owning YouTuber and Tesla’s referral program leader for most referred sales, DÆrik, shared the low down on Friday’s VIP Factory Tour event in Fremont, California. The invite-only factory tour also featured a Model 3 and a private Q&A session with Tesla Senior Design Executive Franz von Holzhausen.
DÆrik shared that they were able to see the Model 3 at the event, but it was an Alpha unit and they were not able to touch it, sit in it, or be driven around in it. The Model 3 experience was a bit underwhelming but that was expected based on confirmation from Tesla prior to the event that the production-ready Model 3 would not be in attendance. With the official production Model 3 reveal and first delivery slated for sometime in July, it doesn’t comes as a surprise that Tesla didn’t put any emphasis on showcasing a release candidate of its upcoming mass market sedan during Friday’s VIP Tour.
Teslarati received reports from attendees who indicated that the VIP Factory Tour was not much different than a standard Fremont Factory Tour. Attendees learned about the history of the factory, were shown various production lines in action and were told about the factory’s commitment to unparalleled safety.
After the factory tour, attendees were whisked away by shuttle to a building across the street from for lunch and a Q&A session with Franz. Luckily for us, DÆrik captured all questions and accompanying responses in his second video update which we posted below. To make it easier for our readers, we have transcribed DÆrik’s account of the Q&A, as follows.
Q&A with Tesla Design Executive Franz von Holzhausen
The first 5 questions had been determined in advance, while 10 additional questions were obtained from the live audience. Here are the 5 predetermined questions and answers:
1. How do you feel to have designed the world’s most anticipated car (referring to Model S)?
He didn’t know it would be such a success in the beginning but he felt a desire and a need to just go for it. He felt it was a big opportunity.
2. Did you design Tesla Model S and X to be the safest cars?
The entire design of Model S and X was safety first and everything else was built around that.
3. What was the definition of design vs. style?
Design is more about solving problems and style is more of a personal taste. They are as much designers as engineers at Tesla.
4. What was the most challenging aspect of the Model S and X?
Model S: the door handles.
Model X: the falcon wing doors.
5. What was the design approach for Powerwall and Solar Roof?
Tesla designers were looking at the most efficient way to produce to combine it and make it beautiful. They wanted to make it completely flow as a line of energy products.
The next 10 questions were submitted by the audience.
6. Why did they include the black front end on the fascia of the Model S and why did they switch it later?
It gave a shorter appearance on the front end and made it look lower. He talked about how it framed the badging and helped with brand recognition on the Model S. After the brand had been established, they felt comfortable to refresh the front end.
7. How about a convertible?
No comment.
8. Design challenges for the Model 3?
To make a truly great affordable project and a sexy car. Sexy car were his words.
9. What about a Truck? See Elon’s Tweet.
10. How about a Sports Car? See Elon’s Tweet.
11. Favorite challenge to solve in Model 3 versus Model S?
He said he couldn’t go into too much detail but that he wanted to create a beautiful car at the price point without having to give anything up. So the process was generally the same as the Model S.
12. As batteries become more efficient will the space required for them go down or will Tesla continue to increase the overall battery capacity?
The battery on the bottom of the car allows for a ton of flexibility. They will always be looking out and focusing on efficiency and range and performance.
13. There are 120 people on Franz’s team. How many people contribute or is Franz in charge of the overall look and does he delegate?
There are thousands of decisions to make all the time. The team goes through design phases. Some are empowered to make decisions however, Franz likes to stay involved as much as possible. Elon has the final say. They have digital designers, they have clay modelers and everything is designed under one roof.
14. Tesla vs typical auto manufacturers. How do they compare since Franz has history with that?
What sets Tesla apart and what is Tesla’s ‘special sauce’? Good communication. Good communication between the designers and the engineers.
15. Did your friends think you were crazy when you left your stable career to work at Tesla?
Yes because it was such a new idea. It wasn’t known, they didn’t have a Model S on the road yet but it made sense to him. He had an opportunity to do a product that no one knew and do it from the ground up.
The VIP event was not mind-blowing but one could interpret some of Franz’s remarks as insight on what’s to come. Right? Ahem, Tesla convertible.
A big thanks to DÆrik for jotting down these notes. Be sure to subscribe to the channel here.
Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.
Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”
The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.
The new Automatic Collision Evasion feature worked flawlessly! FSD reengaged itself just as I was about to hit a curb.
Kudos @Tesla_AI team! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Fbp15HhpL2
— Spencer (@scotsrule08) September 28, 2026
The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.
Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.
Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Elon Musk
Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production
Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.
Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.
Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.
Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.
Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.
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