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Ford’s top brass sit down with Sandy Munro to discuss the F-150 Lightning

The manufacturing technology in the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center is just as innovative as the F-150 Lightning. It is the first Ford plant without traditional in-floor conveyor lines and instead uses robotic Autonomous Guided Vehicles to move F-150 Lightning trucks from workstation to station in the plant. Due to high demand, the current model year is no longer available for retail order. Contact your dealer for more information.

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Ford CEO Jim Farley and other company executives were interviewed by Sandy Munro earlier this week, highlighting the work done on the F-150 Lightning, its defining features, as well as Ford’s future more generally.

Sandy Munro of Munro Associates runs a YouTube channel where he and his team dive into different models of vehicles and analyze their dependability, durability, and overall engineering design work. However, Sandy and fellow Munro associate Cory Steuben got to sit down with top leaders from Ford, which included Farley, Linda Zhang, who was the Chief Engineer of the all-electric pickup, and Doug Field, the automaker’s Chief Officer of EVs. Mainly focusing on the F-150 Lightning but also talking about the brand’s future and competitors, the interview culminated as Sandy asked the executive team about possible vertical integration within their manufacturing process, possible partnerships with Tesla, and a possible switch to the Tesla connector as the US default.

The video starts with Sandy getting the keys to his new F-150 Lightning, kindly delivered in person by Jim Farley and the team. However, Sandy quickly moves to ask about the truck and its design.

While Sandy was quick to praise the EV drivetrain and the durability of design, foremost thought the interview; the executive team focused on accessory features instead. Doug Field specifically sees the onboard generator, the large frunk, and the bi-directional power (the feature that allows the truck to power the home during a blackout) as the top reasons consumers have flocked to the new truck. Farley continues by noting that, while he didn’t expect the vehicle’s features to be such a crowd pleaser, he believes that they are the reason consumers aren’t asking “why an EV,” but “why not!”

The rest of the interview generally focuses on the market and the Ford brand. The biggest question is the thought of exponential growth in the EV market. Sandy notes explicitly that the US market had recently reached a 5% market share of EVs, what he calls a “tipping point” in the market. Jim responds positively, noting that he is excited about the chance to expand so quickly, expanding older plants such as “The Rouge” and constructing new plants like their new facility in Tennessee to meet demand. Further, he notes he isn’t worried about the brand’s ability to meet demand.

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Another big question on the mind of Sandy (and many others who are interested in EVs) is the question of a partnership with Tesla, as well as the executives’ thoughts on the recent proposal to make the Tesla connector the new US standard. “We consider everything,” Doug responds tritely. The team responds to a Tesla partnership, saying that Ford would need a powerful motivating idea to consider abandoning their independence and partnering with another maker, Tesla or otherwise. However, none of the team concretely answered Sandy’s question about standardizing the Tesla Connector.

The group next addresses the possibility of increased verticle integration within their manufacturing. Software, batteries, and powertrain parts were essential parts where they stated the brand would likely continue to pursue verticle integration, going as far as to call other battery makers such as CATL “competitors.” However, Farley notes that he would not compromise the user experience in efforts of verticle integration.

Sandy concludes by lamenting the lack of the $20-$25,000 EV. He mentions that the in-demand Maverick is an excellent example of a vehicle that shows affordable vehicles can still do well and prove profitable for brands like Ford. Doug responds conservatively that, while they see the segment as “very important for global competitiveness,” difficulties remain in acquiring affordable powertrain parts and batteries. And while LFP batteries may offer an avenue into that market, Ford is still in the process of “considering other options.”

Sandy’s interview shows that Ford remains quite dedicated to pursuing EV tech and why they remain ahead of previous rivals such as GM and the Chrysler family of brands. Farley is thinking ahead of many of these other legacy brands, and despite the hurdles that come with that status (cough cough dealerships cough cough), they are positioning themselves well to succeed. Ford’s sales and stock price seem to reflect this.

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What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Tesla is releasing a modified version of FSD v14 for Hardware 3 owners: here’s when

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Tesla is releasing a modified version of the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version 14 suite for Hardware 3 owners, the company announced during the Q3 Earnings Call earlier this week.

Perhaps one of the most pertinent issues for Tesla owners right now is that those owners who have purchased vehicles before 2024 have been stuck with an older version of the company’s self-driving chip, known as Hardware 3 or AI3.

Owners with Hardware 3 vehicles have been stuck in a strange limbo for some time, wondering whether they should wait for the company’s official plans to upgrade them to the newer AI4 or even the to-be-released AI5 chip, or if they should purchase a new vehicle altogether. The upgrade would give them access to the latest Full Self-Driving suite releases, but it would likely cost a good bit of money.

Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2025 earnings: Wall Street’s reactions

For a while, these owners have been waiting for Tesla to give some sort of update on its plans, as the company has, in a way, danced around the issue by stating it would “take care” of those owners. The problem is, the definition of “take care” is subjective, and nobody knows if that means an upgrade or a free Tesla t-shirt.

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Nevertheless, many owners finally got a tad bit more color earlier this week during the Earnings Call, when company executives finally outlined the beginning of a concrete plan to “take care” of HW3 vehicles.

Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja gave the first bit of the answer, as it is a personal issue to him. He also said that the vehicle he drives is a HW3 car, so it is impacted by the lack of upgrades.

He said:

“We have not completely given up on HW3. These customers are very important. They are early adopters. We will definitely take care of you guys.”

However, Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, gave some additional color, revealing that Tesla plans to launch v14 Lite for HW3 cars, and it will be released in Q2 of next year, tentatively:

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“Once the v14 release series is fully done, we are planning on working on a v14 Lite version for hardware three. Probably expected in Q2 next year.”

This is somewhat of an answer, but some owners have already voiced discontent with this solution because HW3 will more than likely not be capable of what will be the “feature complete” version of FSD.

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Jim Cramer chimes in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

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Credit: The Street

Investor and host of Mad Money on MSNBC , Jim Cramer, has chimed in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package and whether it should be rewarded to the frontman or not.

Cramer has drawn a lot of attention regarding his sentiments on Tesla, as investors have routinely given him a pretty hard time over what he’s said about the company.

For the past few years, we have covered his comments on Tesla when he has something to say, mostly because his opinion on the stock seems to change pretty frequently; at a minimum, he has something different to say about it every few months.

However, Cramer knows Musk’s value to Tesla, and said on Thursday that he believes the CEO deserves his pay package:

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

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Cramer’s comments come just one day after Tesla’s Q3 2025 Earnings Call, where Musk took several opportunities to call out the importance of the pay package and how it could impact the company’s future — with or without him.

Musk said at one point that he would not feel comfortable continuing to develop the company’s massive fleet of Optimus bots without having appropriate control of the company from a voting perspective.

He said he does not want so much power that if he “were to lose his mind,” he could not be removed. However, he does feel he needs to be protected from “activist shareholders,” or “corporate terrorists” like proxy groups Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis:

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“My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future? …It’s just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? That’s what it comes down to in a nutshell. I don’t feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.”

At the end of the call, Musk said:

“Like I said, I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no freaking clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists.”

Cramer is one of many who realize Musk’s importance to Tesla, and how the company would likely lack the guidance and prowess it does without his planning and drive. However, Tesla shareholders will have the ultimate say on November 6 when they vote on Musk’s compensation plan.

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Tesla is stumped on how to engineer this Optimus part, but they’re close

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has been stumped on how to engineer one crucial part of the Optimus bot, but CEO Elon Musk says the company is “on the cusp” of achieving something great with the project.

During the Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company is moving closer to a major breakthrough with the Optimus project, and said they are “on the cusp of something really tremendous.”

However, it seems there is one specific portion of the robot that has truly stumped engineers at the company: the hand, fingers, and forearm.

Musk went into great detail about how incredibly complex and amazing the human hand is, highlighting its dexterity and capability, as its ability to perform a wide variety of tasks is especially impressive:

“I don’t want to downplay the difficulty, but it’s an incredibly difficult thing, especially to create a hand that is as dexterous and capable as the human hand, which is incredible. The human hand is an incredible thing. The more you study the human hand, the more incredible you realize it is, and why you need four fingers and a thumb, why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom, why the various muscles are of different strengths, and fingers are of different lengths. It turns out that those are all there for a reason.”

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It’s been pretty apparent that Tesla has made massive strides in the Optimus project, especially considering it has been able to walk down hills, learn things like Kung Fu, and even perform service tasks like serving food and drinks.

However, a recent look at a Gen 2.5 version of Optimus posted by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, showed that Tesla was likely using mannequin hands until it developed something that was both useful and aesthetically pleasing:

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Musk continued on the call last night that the Tesla team was confronted with an “incredibly difficult” challenge from an engineering perspective, and the hands and actuators for that specific part were tough to figure out:

“Making the hand and forearm, because most of the actuators, just like the human hand, the muscles that control your hand are actually primarily in your forearm. The Optimus hand and forearm is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge. I’d say it’s more difficult than the rest of the robot from an electromechanical standpoint. The forearm and hand are more difficult than the entire rest of the robot. But really, in order to have a useful generalized robot, you do need an incredible hand.”

The CEO continued that developing a useful and effective robot was “crucial to the future of the company,” and that he works with Optimus’s design team each Friday night.

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