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Tesla reopens Wuhan store as China regains footing after COVID-19 outbreak

Tesla Service Center in Dongguan Guangzhou, China (Credit: Tesla)

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The Tesla Store in Wuhan, China, the city known as the center of the Chinese COVID-19 pandemic, officially resumed business on March 30 after a two-month closure.

Vice President of Tesla China Grace Tao shared the update on Weibo around lunchtime in China on Monday. The store located at 690 Jiefang Road in Wuhan at the International Plaza was shut down in early February after COVID-19 flooded through the Chinese city of over 11 million people. Tesla decided to close all of its retail locations in mainland China on February 6.

Tao shared with her followers that, “I received a video from my colleague in Wuhan before the meeting in the morning, and the Guoguang store was officially resumed. Wuhan friends went out to work for the first time in two months.”

Tesla China VP Grace Tao says the company’s store in Wuhan, once the epicenter of COVID-19 cases, has reopened. (Credit: Weibo | Grace Tao Lin-Tesla)

This marks a significant turn of events for the Chinese city that has indicated its death toll from the pandemic could be in the tens of thousands based on local cremation figures, according to NewsweekChina’s number of infected was once exponentially higher than any other country in the world. However, a plateauing in the number of cases thanks to a nationwide quarantine effort from residents has allowed retail locations in some areas to resume business.

Wuhan has allowed many businesses to reopen amidst the virus, as authorities lifted the mandatory quarantine that lasted over two months. Wuhan’s government has permitted retail locations and malls to resume business to revive the world’s second-largest economy.

While residents are now being allowed to go out and shop in local malls and shopping centers, they are required to stay within the Hubei province that the city of Wuhan is located in until April 8.

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Virtually every company in the world has felt the economic effects of the COVID-19 virus, and Tesla is undoubtedly no exception. The electric car maker has made every effort to keep customers and employees in China safe.

Tesla implemented home deliveries, unlimited Supercharging, and webcam-based customer service at many of its Chinese stores. This allowed customers to continue taking delivery of their vehicles or allowed new customers to ask questions to Tesla advisors at the retail location nearest to their residence.

For employees in China, Tesla took several measures to ensure safety and health for its workers. After the Giga Shanghai production facility was forced to close down for an extended period after the Chinese New Year, it reopened on February 10. Employees at the first Gigafactory outside of the United States were shuttled to work in large buses. Still, the intense spread of the virus caused the company to explore several additional measures that included daily disinfection of the facility, and body temperature checks before employees clocked in for their shift.

The reopening of Tesla’s retail location in Wuhan brings economic support to the employees of the store, and the company overall. While Tesla has implemented several ways to limit the damage that the pandemic has done to its business in China, face-to-face interactions at the Tesla store can officially resume.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla prepares for full-throttle manufacturing of major product

Tesla has the second quarter of 2026 as its projected start date for Cybercab production. It also plans to launch Semi and Megapack 3 for “volume production” starting next year, which will also be two major contributors to the company.

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(Credit: Tesla North America | X)

Tesla is preparing for a full-throttle manufacturing effort of potentially its biggest product in company history, job postings on the company’s website show.

In preparation for its foray into fully autonomous travel, Tesla is gearing up for Cybercab manufacturing with 30 job postings, ranging from repair technicians to manufacturing specialists.

Elon Musk sets definitive Tesla Cybercab production date and puts a rumor to rest

The jobs are all located in Austin, Texas, where the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility is located. This is where Cybercab production is going to take place.

Tesla has made major strides in the Cybercab project over the past few months, including launching the vehicle on the Fremont Test Track in California and conducting crash testing at Gigafactory Texas.

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All of these indicate the company is preparing for an imminent production effort of the vehicle, which, as Elon Musk said during last week’s Earnings Call, will be void of a steering wheel or pedals.

Tesla has the second quarter of 2026 as its projected start date for Cybercab production. It also plans to launch Semi and Megapack 3 for “volume production” starting next year, which will also be two major contributors to the company.

Musk spoke in great detail during the Earnings Call last week about Cybercab’s potential to change the grand picture of the automotive market, comparing other vehicles in the Tesla lineup to “a little bit of the horse-carriage thing.”

He said:

“That’s really a vehicle that’s optimized for full autonomy. It, in fact, does not have a steering wheel or pedals and is really an enduring optimization on minimizing cost per mile for fully considered cost per mile of operation. For our other vehicles, they still have a little bit of the horse carriage thing going on where, obviously, if you’ve got steering wheels and pedals and you’re designing a car that people might want to go very direct past acceleration and tight cornering, like high-performance cars, then you’re going to design a different car than one that is optimized for a comfortable ride and doesn’t expect to go past sort of 85 or 90 miles an hour.”

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Cybercab production is imminent, given the job postings and the company’s proposed timeline for manufacturing to begin. Of course, there is always the potential that Tesla is late to the party, as it has been with other projects.

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xAI’s Grokipedia goes live, gets praise from Wikipedia co-founder

xAI’s latest creation, Grokipedia, has gone live, and even if it’s only at Version 0.1, it is already receiving positive reviews from some users.

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Credit: xAI/X

xAI’s latest creation, Grokipedia, has gone live, and even if it’s only at Version 0.1, it is already receiving positive reviews from some users. These include Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia, which has become quite controversial in recent years over accusations of bias.

Grokipedia launches

Immediately after Grokipedia went live, the AI-powered Wikipedia alternative was tested by numerous users. So far, a good number of testers have responded positively to the online encyclopedia, with many observing that Grokipedia does tend to be more neutral than Wikipedia. This was particularly evident in controversial topics, from alternative medicine to events like Gamergate.

Among these users was Larry Sanger, who noted that while Grokipedia still has a lot of areas of improvement, it is already very promising. “My initial impression, looking at my own article and poking around here and there, is that Grokipedia is very OK. The jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually better than Wikipedia. But at this point I would have to say “maybe!” He wrote in a post on X. 

Musk responded to Sanger’s comments, stating that the Wikipedia co-founder’s observations are “accurate.” The xAI founder also noted in a separate X post that even in its V0.1 form, Grokipedia is already better than Wikipedia. 

Why Grokipedia exists 

During an interview on the Tucker Carlson Show, Sanger point out that Wikipedia has become a far cry from his initial vision for the online encyclopedia, and a lot of this was because of the its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page, which categories publications and sources into tiers of credibility. Sanger noted that the list leaned heavily left, with conservative publications getting effectively blacklisted in favor of their more liberal.

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Musk responded to Sanger’s comments by stating that Grokipedia will be created as a step towards xAI’s broader goal of “understanding the Universe.” He added that Grokipedia, which will use xAI’s Grok, would provide broader sourcing and a freer exchange of information compared to Wikipedia’s current system. 

One month after Elon Musk’s comments, Grokipedia has gone live in its V0.1 form.

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Tesla Fremont Factory celebrates 15 years of electric vehicle production

Since opening in 2010, the Fremont Factory has produced all four “S3XY” models while creating tens of thousands of jobs.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is marking the 15-year anniversary of its Fremont Factory in California, the first automotive mass-manufacturing plant acquired by the electric car maker. 

Since opening in 2010, the Fremont Factory has produced all four “S3XY” models while creating tens of thousands of jobs and investing billions of dollars in the region.

Celebrating 15 years of EV production

The Fremont Factory’s milestone was celebrated by the official Tesla Manufacturing account on X, which posted a photo of several Teslas forming a “15” in front of the facility’s iconic white facade. As per the electric vehicle maker, the Fremont Factory has now produced 3.6 million vehicles so far, and it has also created over 20,000 jobs in the state. 

“15 years ago, we opened Fremont factory. Today, the Fremont team is producing all 4 S3XY models, totaling 3.6M vehicles made so far. 20k+ California jobs created w/ billions of dollars invested,” the official Tesla Manufacturing account on X wrote in its post.

The Fremont Factory’s transformation

Tesla acquired the Fremont Factory from the defunct NUMMI joint venture between General Motors and Toyota in May 2010 for $42 million. The facility had produced more than 8 million vehicles under GM and Toyota over 26 years. Following its acquisition, Tesla retooled the 5.3-million-square-foot plant to support the production of the Model S sedan.

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Over the past 15 years, the factory has evolved into Tesla’s primary North American production hub, assembling the Model S, 3, X, and Y. Annual output has exceeded 550,000 vehicles, including nearly 560,000 produced in 2023 alone. Expectations are high that other products, such as the next-generation Roadster and Optimus, might be produced in the Fremont Factory as well.

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