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Germany sets a new EV registration record, leaving ICE in the dust

Tesla Store in Stuttgart, Germany. Credit: Twitter/@kathl_fritzsche

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Germany has set a new electric vehicle registration record, as one of every three new vehicles registered in the country in October was electric, according to new data from the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).

In October, electric vehicles accounted for 30.4 percent of new car registrations due to the current dynamics of the market, a press release from Germany Trade & Invest says. Sales of gas-powered vehicles have slowed significantly due to supply shortages and extended delivery wait times. In the meantime, automakers that offer electric options are seeing an increased rate of purchase from consumers.

“The explanation is relatively simple: Carmakers decide what sort of vehicles they allocate parts like semiconductors to. The profit margins for electric vehicles are currently quite high,” Stefan Di Bitonto, an automotive expert for Germany Trade & Invest, said. That’s because the German state subsidizes the purchase of EVs with up to EUR 6000. Additionally, dealers offer a EUR 3000 rebate, which is making buyers think that now is the right time to purchase a car. So it makes sense to put semiconductors in EVs. Everyone all around is profiting.”

The VDA says that 178,800 cars were registered in Germany in October, which was a slow month for the industry as it resulted in a 35 percent decline. However, there were 54,400 EV registrations in October, an increase of 13 percent. Additionally, registrations of purely battery-driven vehicles, more commonly referred to as BEVs, increased by 32 percent month to month.

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“The examples of China and Norway, as well as the US as far as Tesla is concerned, suggest that if the state purchase premiums continue at this level, sales and registration figures for EVs will flourish,” Di Bitonto said. “This part of the automotive market is quite resistant to supply shortages because carmakers will continue to use the parts they have to build the vehicles that are the most profitable.”

RELATED:

Tesla sales in Germany grow 431% year-over-year for June

EV popularity has revealed an uptrend in registrations over the past several years. From 2019 to 2020, EV registrations more than tripled from 63,281 in 2019 to 194,163 in 2020, according to German government agency KBA. That number is set to increase by a considerable margin once again, as EV registrations from January to May of 2021 showed consumers purchased 115,296 electrified models.

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Germany, a country with rich roots in ICE manufacturing with companies like Volkswagen, Porsche, and Mercedes-Benz, is evidently transitioning to accept EVs as an acceptable alternative. “It’s also clearly the case that the acceptance of EVs in Germany is growing,” Di Bitonto added. “It’s a mutually reinforcing trend. People are buying EVs now because it’s advantageous to do so, but the increase in the number of EVs on the roads will almost certainly further boost their popularity regardless of the current shortages.”

According to EU-EVsVolkswagen is Germany’s most-popular EV brand with 58,590 registrations in 2021 thus far. Tesla is second, with 27,438 units.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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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 Semi hauls fresh Cybercab batch as Robotaxi era takes hold

A Tesla Semi was filmed hauling Cybercab units out of Giga Texas for the first time.

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A Tesla Semi loaded with Cybercab units was recently filmed leaving Gigafactory Texas, marking what appears to be the first documented delivery run of Tesla’s autonomous two-seater. The footage shows multiple Cybercabs secured on a flatbed trailer being hauled by a production Tesla Semi, a truck rated for a gross combination weight of 82,000 lbs. The location is consistent with Giga Texas in Austin, where Cybercab production has been ramping since February 2026.

The sighting follows a wave of Cybercab activity at the Austin facility. In late April, drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer spotted approximately 60 Cybercabs parked in two organized groups in the factory’s outbound lot, the largest concentration observed to date. Units being staged in an outbound lot is a standard pre-delivery step, and the Semi footage is the logical next frame in that sequence.


This is not the first time Tesla has used its own Semi to move Tesla products. When the Semi was unveiled in 2017, Musk noted it would be used for Tesla’s own operations, and over the years Semi prototypes were spotted carrying cargo ranging from concrete weights to Tesla vehicles being delivered to consumers. In 2023, a Semi was photographed transporting a Cybertruck on a trailer ahead of that vehicle’s delivery launch.

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The Cybercab itself was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event on October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk stated at the event that Tesla intends to produce the Cybercab before 2027. The first production unit rolled off the Giga Texas line on February 17, 2026, with Musk posting on X: “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.”

Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once multiple factories reach full design capacity, with the company targeting a price under $30,000 per unit. Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.

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Tesla Cybertruck too safe for even Musk’s biggest critics to ignore

Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.

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Credit: Tesla

The Tesla Cybertruck is an extremely polarizing vehicle because of its potential symbolism as a political stance instead of just a pickup truck — or at least that is what many would want you to believe.

Of course, the Cybertruck is an icon of Tesla culture, and it is one of those things that never has a middle ground: you love it, or you don’t.

But maybe there is an establishment of that “grey area” happening.

In a striking illustration of engineering triumph over political tribalism, prominent Elon Musk critic Brian Krassenstein has purchased a Tesla Cybertruck, openly citing its exceptional safety as the deciding factor for his family.

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The announcement on X triggered predictable backlash, yet it underscores a growing reality: the Cybertruck’s safety credentials are proving impossible for even Musk’s fiercest detractors to dismiss.

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Krassenstein, who has repeatedly clashed with Musk over issues ranging from content moderation and “wokeness” to public health figures, made no attempt to hide his reservations. In his May 6 post, he acknowledged the coming criticism: “I might get hate for this too but I bought a Cybertruck.”

He stressed that the decision had “nothing to do with Elon or politics,” pointing instead to practical advantages—his existing Tesla charger, eligibility for Full Self-Driving upgrades, a returning-owner discount, and crucially, the vehicle’s strong safety profile.

With gasoline prices hovering near $5 a gallon in some areas, he also highlighted the environmental benefit of switching from a polluting combustion engine.

The numbers, data, and awards validate Krassenstein’s choice.

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The 2025 Cybertruck earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) elite Top Safety Pick+ award—the only pickup truck to achieve this highest rating. It delivered “Good” scores across every crashworthiness category, including the challenging updated moderate overlap front crash test, while excelling in crash avoidance and mitigation systems.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded it a perfect 5-star overall rating, with top marks in frontal, side, and rollover categories. No other pickup truck holds both distinctions simultaneously.

Tesla Cybertruck crash test rating situation revealed by NHTSA, IIHS

Beyond lab results, the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel exoskeleton and ultra-rigid structure have demonstrated remarkable real-world resilience. Owners have reported surviving high-speed collisions with minimal cabin intrusion.

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In one widely discussed incident, a Cybertruck endured a 70 mph sideswipe on the interstate; the driver reported barely feeling the impact while the other vehicle was heavily damaged.

Tesla’s crash demonstrations and independent analyses consistently show how the vehicle’s design prioritizes occupant protection through a fortified passenger cell rather than traditional crumple zones, giving families superior safeguarding in many common crash scenarios.

The online pile-on following Krassenstein’s post focused on aesthetics, politics, and perceived hypocrisy rather than the data. Critics called the angular truck “ugly” or accused him of selling out.

Yet his purchase highlights an inconvenient truth for polarized discourse: when objective safety metrics—IIHS awards, NHTSA ratings, and documented crash performance—point decisively toward one vehicle, even Musk’s biggest critics are forced to confront its merits.

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Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.

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SpaceXAI signs agreement with Anthropic for massive AI supercomputer access

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceXAI announced today that it had signed an agreement with Anthropic to give the company access to its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.

It is a monumental deal as Anthropic will gain access to all of the compute at the plant, delivering more than 300 megawatts of power and over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs within the month.

Anthropic’s Claude AI account on X announced the partnership:

We’ve agreed to a partnership with SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity. This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.”

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The company is also:

  • Doubling Claude Code’s 5-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, and Team plans;
  • Removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max plans; and
  • Substantially raising its API rate limits for Opus models.

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SpaceX also published its own release on the new agreement, noting that it is “the only organization with the launch cadence, mass-to-orbit economics, and constellation operations experience to make orbital compute a near-term engineering program rather than a research concept.”

CEO Elon Musk also commented on the partnership and shed light on intense meetings he had with senior members of Anthropic last week, stating, “nobody set on my evil detector.”

This has turned the argument that SpaceX is as much an AI company as a space exploration company into a very valid argument:

SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected

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Nevertheless, this is an incredibly valuable and important move in the grand scheme of things. AI scaling is fundamentally bottlenecked by compute, and demand for Claude has surged, bringing terrestrial power grids, land, and cooling operations hitting limits everywhere.

Anthropic has been aggressively signing multiple large-scale deals to be competitive in the space, including:

  • Up to 5GW with Amazon
  • 5GW with Google and Broadcom
  • Strategic $30b Azure deal with Microsoft/NVIDIA
  • $50b U.S. infrastructure investment with Fluidstack

Access to Colossus 1 gives Anthropic immediate relief on NVIDIA GPU capacity. For SpaceXAI, it turns its rapid buildout into revenue. It also showcases its ability to deliver at world-leading speed and scale.

Most importantly, it plants the seed that its much larger vision, orbital AI compute, is totally viable.

Starlink V3 satellites could enable SpaceX’s orbital computing plans: Musk

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Within the month, Anthropic will begin using 100 percent of Colossus 1’s compute, directly expanding capacity for Claude Pro and Max subscribers and the API. This means fewer limits, faster responses, and support for heavier workloads.

In the long term, meaning 2026 and beyond, there will be a continued rollout of other multi-GW deals Anthropic has signed, and an early exploration of orbital compute with SpaceXAI.

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