News
Opinion: Where would Herbert Diess fit best (hypothetically)?
Herbert Diess is officially no longer a Volkswagen employee, effective Wednesday. The seven-year reign as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management came to somewhat of an abrupt end after Diess and VW decided to part ways at the end of August.
“These were the most rewarding seven years of my career. The future of our industry can be brilliant, but we have to change fast. Volkswagen has already changed tremendously and is well underway,” Diess said. “We have transformed the company that was seen as an autocratic cheat into a global thought leader in clean mobility.”
Herbert Diess bids farewell to Volkswagen on his final day as CEO
Diess’s future remains in question, and while retirement is the likely option, there are several routes that he could potentially go, barring any stipulation in his contract that would eliminate the possibility of working for a competitor. While it is a long shot, Diess has three main automakers he would likely benefit from almost immediately, making an impact on several companies as his proven track record speaks for itself.
Tesla
(Credit: Herbert Diess/LinkedIn)
While I have already been in numerous discussions with various people about this possibility, and even though it seems unlikely, the first company that Diess would benefit is Tesla. Not only does Diess share a friendship with Elon Musk, but he could also benefit Tesla’s European business with additional expertise on the market. VW has performed very well in Europe in terms of EVs, and helping Tesla expand its operations throughout the continent would likely be a huge advantage for the company.
Tesla undoubtedly has a bright future in Europe, but Volkswagen currently holds the EV title there. The AG owned 1/4 of the European plug-in market in 2021, according to CleanTechnica data.
Toyota
I believe Diess has the track record to be a considerable ally to Toyota. Why? Toyota and VW have a lot of parallels, and Diess would likely navigate through them with considerable success.
Toyota is the world’s largest automotive manufacturer by volume, and it has been for some time. The last time a major automotive manufacturer outproduced Toyota was when GM built nearly 1M cars more than the Japanese company in 2011. Even VW finished ahead of Toyota in terms of production that year, but it has been a masterclass in production ever since.
Credit: Toyota
Volume is not the only way the two companies are somewhat similar. EV development is also somewhat of a parallel. VW has coming out of the Dieselgate crisis and had to make major waves to regain consumer trust. Diess knew this, and pushed incredibly hard for several years to help VW reinvent its reputation as a sustainable company. Toyota really needs the same thing.
Although it isn’t going thru an emissions scandal, Toyota has basically half-committed to EVs, aiming to go toward hydrogen and hybrid vehicles instead. It is not to say that the company hasn’t contributed to sustainability in other ways: the Toyota Prius was a huge step forward in sustainable transport. Evolution needs to continue, however, and it is time for Toyota to really begin developing some high-tech EVs. They’re falling behind, and Diess, with his experience in high-volume companies and sluggish EV plans, is a good fit.
General Motors
GM would also be a good fit for Diess simply because of his push and determination to transition a company quickly. GM is honestly a company that has so much potential, but it feels like they’re falling just short of the mark in so many areas. The Bolt has plagued GM with bad advertising for several years, the HUMMER EV is having more issues than what were anticipated, and the company’s plans for electrification seem to be one drastic announcement followed by silence and promises that they’ll one day overtake Tesla.
While Tesla dominates the industry now, it will eventually take a few decades for others to catch up, and they likely will. However, Tesla is establishing itself as the leader and it is no secret. It is going to take a long time to figure out the tech and the manufacturing and the supply chain.
The first 2022 GMC HUMMER EV Pickup Edition 1 exits Factory ZERO in Detroit and Hamtramck, Michigan. VIN 001 was auctioned in March 2021 at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction for $2.5 million to benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. (Photo by Jeffrey Sauger for General Motors)
GM will likely catch up to Tesla, but it won’t be in the 2020s or 2030s. They’ll all even out, just as the market is now. A lot of car companies do a lot of business, and it’s only a matter of time before other companies begin to figure things out.
GM will absolutely be a true player in the EV industry, and it’s just going to take some time. This is where I feel Diess would be a considerable asset to GM, simply because he emphasized on accelerating VW’s transition to sustainable energy. The goals of 2035 or more were simply not going to work. Things needed to be figured out now, and the goal is to establish yourself as an early player in the disruption of a sector. VW has done that thanks to Diess, GM has announced more (at least to me) but accomplished considerably less.
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.
Tesla has expanded the operational geofence for its driverless Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, marking the first such increase in some time. The updated Service Area for Robotaxi in Austin now spans about 288 square miles and is roughly 9 percent larger than the previous boundary.
This incremental growth adds approximately 24 square miles of coverage, bringing the prior zone of roughly 264 square miles into a broader footprint that better serves northern suburbs.
The expansion extends the geofence northward toward Pflugerville along the US 183 corridor, incorporating additional neighborhoods north of the Domain and areas such as Mesa Park. These additions include higher-end residential and commercial districts that previously sat just outside the allowed operating zone.
Riders can now request unsupervised trips that begin or end in these newly included locations, provided the entire route remains inside the digital boundary:
Tesla has just expanded its Robotaxi service area in Austin, Texas for the first time in 10 months.
The new service area is roughly 9% larger than the old one, and is about 288 square miles in total. pic.twitter.com/i4oBM1KfWS
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 31, 2026
Tesla first launched public Robotaxi operations in Austin in mid-2025 with a modest initial zone of about 20 square miles. Subsequent enlargements in 2025 and early 2026 steadily grew the map until it covered much of the metropolitan area.
After the last major update roughly ten months earlier, the company held the boundary steady while it collected additional miles and refined the FSD suite.
The modest nine percent increase still matters for daily utility. Longer trips become possible, more residents gain access, and the fleet can accumulate more diverse real-world data across new road types and traffic patterns. Observers note that the added territory aligns with existing Tesla service infrastructure, which could support more efficient vehicle staging in the North end of Austin.
Although the geofence has grown, Tesla continues to operate a relatively small unsupervised fleet in the city. The company has emphasized safety and software readiness over rapid geographic scaling. This latest map update signals that Tesla remains committed to expanding Robotaxi availability in its home market as it prepares for further software improvements and potential Cybercab deployments.
The 288-square-mile zone now gives Austin riders one of the larger driverless service areas currently available in the United States.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update turns Grok from a talking companion into a true in-car controller, with considerably expanded capabilities. Where the assistant once answered questions and handled navigation, it can now operate hardware and software through ordinary speech, including several requests at the same time.
Grok has become incredibly robust over the past few quarters, and this new ability that Tesla has included with its Summer Update is perhaps the clearest sign of just how capable it has become.
You can issue many commands to Grok at once, and each will be taken care of: anything from headlight control to climate adjustments to mirror folding can now all be taken care of with a simple sentence spoken toward Grok:
This is cool, you can now give Grok a ton of commands at once in your Tesla and it’ll do them all together.
The commands I gave:
• Fold mirrors
• Turn on wipers to fastest setting
• Change temp to 65°
• Open self-driving app
• Open gloveboxComes with Tesla’s 2026 Summer… pic.twitter.com/drZxoHrknv
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 26, 2026
Here’s another example I used in my Model Y:
🚨 Using Grok to control the cabin temperature and turn on headlights in 2026 Model Y on FSD v14.3.8 and 2026.26.6.5 pic.twitter.com/7clgQkGABk
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2026
Tesla’s official Release Notes list the core powers of Grok’s new capabilities: Grok can place phone calls from a paired phone, search a streaming service and queue music, adjust climate, and search the Controls panel. Drivers can also ask it questions about the vehicle or the latest features included in a recent software update.
It can also take care of driving settings, dynamics, and other relevant preferences that deal with how the car operates and handles.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
It’s also more of a use case than a novelty feature. Grok was great for learning about something that was being pondered while Full Self-Driving was taking care of the major automotive responsibilities, but it did have some useful functionality when it came to navigation.
Another less-noted improvement is the swift transition that Grok has from thinking of its answer to giving you one. In the past, it would take a few seconds for Grok to truly come up with a valuable response. It now seems that it is improving, at least slightly.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is set to get a major fix with pothole avoidance, a feature that CEO Elon Musk said recently was “coming soon.” The feature has been included within the FSD v14 release notes for some time as an upcoming improvement.
Potholes come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing is universal about them, and that is the fact that every driver wants to avoid them. Driving into or over a pothole can cause tire and wheel damage, alignment issues, and even, in some more severe instances, injury to occupants or major damage to a vehicle in despair.
Tesla Cybercab uses a unique strategy for picking up the right rider
Musk said late last night in a post that pothole avoidance while utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite is “coming soon.”
Coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 31, 2026
Full Self-Driving, even in its most recent and robust forms, still has its shortcomings. While the suite has performed exceptionally well with avoiding on-road obstacles like cardboard boxes, horse droppings, car parts, and other debris, it still seems to struggle with recognizing certain things.
Potholes and other abrupt changes in a road’s layout are things that FSD still tends to struggle with. Perhaps the suite’s 3D modeling is still in need of some additional data or some sort of script that will help it to avoid a potentially destructive pothole or bump in the road that would be easily recognizable by the human eye.
Musk has mentioned pothole avoidance for some time, with the initial idea coming in April 2019 when an owner first requested the feature. Musk said that Tesla would “definitely” develop pothole avoidance.
In August 2020, Musk said Tesla was in the process of labeling bumps and potholes so cars can either slow down or steer around them altogether.
Tesla to utilize micro maps for pothole-detection in future update
Avoiding major disturbances in the road is a necessary feature for Full Self-Driving to have, especially as Tesla is working toward a fully autonomous program that will eventually allow every occupant in the vehicle to sleep, work, or enjoy leisure time while traveling.
That truly begins this week with the launch of Cybercab on Thursday.
Tesla expands driverless Robotaxi geofence in Austin
Elon Musk’s Grok can basically control anything in your Tesla now
