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Highlights from Tesla’s Gigafactory Media Event

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Tesla kicked off its Gigafactory Tour on Tuesday, July 26 with a media event. We’re providing the best curated Tweets from today’s event followed by a live Tweet from the official Gigafactory Grand Opening party scheduled for this Fiday, July 29.

Follow us on Twitter and join us Live from the Tesla Gigafactory!

July 25: Tesla Gigafactory Media Event (Pacific Time):

  • 12:00-12:30 PM: Arrival at the Gigafactory and intro
  • 12:30- 2:30 PM: Exterior and Interior tours
  • 3:00-4:00 PM: Remarks and Q&A with Elon Musk and JB Straubel
  • 4:15/30 PM: Shuttle departs Gigafactory

 

We’ll provide an update in a follow up post with results from the Q&A

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Elon Musk and JB Straubel take the stage for Q&A

Alongside Elon and JB is an executive from Panasonic.

Q&A with Elon Musk & JB Straubel coming up

Tesla Gigafactory robots in action

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758058708895092736

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758058583426682880

Top 6 tidbits about Tesla’s Gigafactory revealed through building permits

Tesla continues its expansion on the Gigafactory as seen at outer areas of the main plant where steel construction beams are being put into place.

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Tesla describes their relationship with Panasonic

Media was chaperoned to a no-photography-allowed section within the plant that housed proprietary equipment from Panasonic.

https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758048060077289472

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https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758061212345085952

Tesla is already assembling Powerwall units

Area within the Gigafactory where battery cells will be produced

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758044716273315841

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Water treatment facility located on the east side behind the main entrance to the Gigafactory

https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758038584393732096

The Gigafactory looks small by comparison to its expansive surroundings

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758036769904263168

Tesla’s Gigafactory occupies a relatively small footprint within the overall 3200 acres of land purchased

 

Miniature models of the Gigafactory office space and production floor

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758039972121186304

A model of the Gigafactory is seen in the lobby showing robots in action on the production floor.

A “you are here” label reveals that the current size of the Gigafactory is only 14% of what it will ultimately be.

https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758021392272986112

Entrance to the Gigafactory

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Tesla giving test drives in a Model S P90D before taking groups to tour the interior of the Gigafactory

Greeted by a beautiful Tesla Model 3 at the entrance of the Gigafactory

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758020744747941888

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Media making a pitstop at the security gate on Electric Avenue before heading into the Gigafactory

https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758015650560249856

New aerial photos of the Gigafactory taken on Sunday, July 24 shows a security guard shack located on the main road leading into the property.

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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead

Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now. 

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UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.

Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now. 

Anti-Tesla union leader exits X

In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.

“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said. 

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Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant. 

“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.

IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative

After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.

Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.

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“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said. 

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.

Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.

Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”

While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.

Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”

Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.

SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise

A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.

Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.

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Tesla adds notable improvement to Dashcam feature

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.

Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.

It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.

This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.

The release notes state:

“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”

Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording

Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:

  • 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
  • 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage

This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.

While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.

It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.

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