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Why Sweden is primed to become home of Tesla’s European factory

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Could lightning strike twice for Tesla? It’s current factory was once used by NUMMI — a joint venture by Toyota and General Motors — to make cars in Fremont. Tesla was able to purchase it for pennies on the dollar. After years of extensive upgrades, it is now one of the most automated and efficient production facilities in the world.

Saab, on the other hand, used to manufacture world class automobiles at its factory in Trollhattan, Sweden. That factory is now owned by NEVS — an acronym for New Electric Vehicle Sweden. The principal owner of NEVS isΒ National Modern Energy Holdings Ltd, a Beijing based company founded in 2004 by Kai Johan Jiang. NEVS has a contract with PandaΒ New Energy Company to provided it with 150,000 electric versions of Saab’s last production midsize sedan, the 9-3 sedan.

Making 150,000 cars over 4 years is not enough to keep the factory fully operational — it’s capacity is far greater than that. All of which has several people in Sweden thinking it would be the perfect place for Tesla to locate its first European factory.

There are several factors that could make Trollhattan attractive to Tesla other than the fact that it has a large factory sitting practically idle. It has a large pool of workers who are familiar with building automobiles from the days when Saabs were manufactured there. It also is near Gothenburg, with its international railway hub and large ocean freight terminal.

Sveriges Radio P4 VΓ€stΒ says that a group of local stakeholders is working to attract Tesla to the area. According to reports, the group includes Business Sweden and automotive supplierΒ FKG.Β Fredrik Sidahl, CEO of FKG, confirms that the groupΒ has been in contact with Tesla. Everyone involved is tight lipped when it comes to details, though.

Sidahl says the group is confident that it can revive the car industry in Sweden. “I think the possibilities are quite good because Sweden has a well developed infrastructure with suppliers and expertise in building great vehicles with high technical standards.”

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A spokesperson for NEVS would not comment directly on the report but said in an e-mail to Radio P4 VΓ€stΒ that the company could be a valuable partner for other car manufacturers in terms of both production and development. “It’s part of our strategy to increase the capacity of our plant but we do not comment on the dialogue around this.”

Local automotive journalist Benny Christensen says, “It would be really fun if Sweden got the assignment. There are many people who think it is sad to see the car factory in Trollhattan idle. I think that whoever wins the [Tesla factory] will be those who put forth the best organized proposal based purely on economic and practical considerations. Everything from infrastructure to environmental and tax policies will undoubtedly be crucial,” he says.

Sweden is not alone in its attempt to lure Tesla. Finland’s Minister of Industry has indicated his country has its eye on the Tesla factory. There are interested parties in Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal as well. Tesla has let nothing slip about its intentions after Elon Musk’s whirlwind tour of the Continent last summer.

Is a mostly idle factory enough to seal the deal for Sweden? Even though cars were manufactured there up until 5 years ago, much of the tooling and equipment would likely need to be replaced. Elon Musk is intent on reinventing manufacturing — building the machine that buildsΒ the machine, as he calls it. It’s possible Tesla would prefer to construct its own facility utilizing all the efficiency strategies it can muster rather than spending money to reconfigure an existing space.

An announcement from Tesla about where its next factory will be is anticipated later this year, probably after production of the Model 3 gets started and begins running smoothly.

Hat tip: Leif Hansen

 

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"I write about technology and the coming zero emissions revolution."

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Energy

Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could

Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.

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Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.

Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can β€œextend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: β€œWith Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”

Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.

Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows β€œPowershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.

The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s β€œover two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.

There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as β€œcoming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.

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The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, β€œI don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.

The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.

Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.

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Tesla ships ‘spooky’ Halloween Mode with creepy and fun features

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is now starting to ship a “Halloween Mode” that is filled with some creepy and fun features; the company says, “This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels.”

The update is just the latest in a series of updates that Tesla typically ships out in a seasonal fashion. The Spring and Summer Updates provided some fun novelty items while also packing some cool features that are actually useful for the ownership experience.

This one seems to be more fun-forward, and there are not any updates to the Full Self-Driving suite or overall operation of the vehicle. Instead, these novelty features are geared toward getting you in the mood for the Fall and Halloween.

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New Ghost Costume on Car Avatar

Driver Visualization will now show your vehicle as a ghost, as an all-white sheet is draped over the vehicle. Pedestrians are turned into mummies or skeletons, and other vehicles are all a spooky green:

Credit: Tesla

Additionally, the Park Scene with your Tesla now displays that ghost costume draped over your vehicle in the foreground of a scary backdrop with Jack-o-Lanterns and a haunted house:

Credit: Tesla

Trick or Treat Mode

Trick or Treat Mode will enable the vehicle to play spooky sounds and flicker the lights as visitors approach. This might be a nice touch for when you’re handing out candy to kids on Halloween Night.

Other Features

Tesla is also adding a new Light Show, new Wrap Options, and a new Lock Sound with this update.

Credit: Tesla

Additionally, Photobooth has a new Halloween option:

Credit: Tesla

You will also be able to speak remotely through the app and transmit your voice to people outside, which is not a new feature, but the car will say it in a voice of its own, which is a new feature with that bullhorn-like feature.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions

SpaceX reveals plans for one million Starmind AI satellites and calls out operators hiding maneuvers.

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Concept rendering of SpaceX Starmind constellation via Grok
Concept rendering of SpaceX Starmind constellation via Grok

SpaceX has put the largest satellite count it has ever published into writing, and it says that plan only works if every other operator in orbit starts sharing what it knows.

In a new Space Safety page highlighted Tuesday morning by Sawyer Merritt on X, SpaceX said it “plans to operate up to 100,000 Starlink satellites and up to 1 million Starmind AI satellites to meet the growing demand for broadband and supercompute.” Starlink has a little over 11,000 satellites in orbit today, so the target alone implies roughly a ninefold expansion of the broadband network.

Starmind is SpaceX’s orbital AI compute constellation. Elon Musk confirmed the Starmind name in June after an xAI trademark filing surfaced, and in August SpaceX said it was working with Nvidia on the compute payload. The FCC accepted the filing for up to one million satellites back in February.

FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan

SpaceX also released a new render of what a full Starmind constellation could look like. Alongside it, SpaceX VP Michael Nicolls explained why the satellites will not operate on their own. “We need to operate clusters of satellites in tight formation to get enough coherent compute to run AI models efficiently,” Nicolls said. “A cluster will be 10-ish satellites connected with 10 terabits or so of bandwidth between them, and interconnected to the broader constellation.”

That is the most specific detail SpaceX has given on how Starmind will be built. Instead of a million independent servers, the network would work as tightly packed groups of about 10 satellites acting as one compute unit, with Starlink’s laser links carrying results back to Earth.

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Packing satellites that close together, at that scale, makes collision avoidance the central problem, and most of the Space Safety page is aimed at other operators. SpaceX said Starlink encountered collision risks with about 650 unique maneuvering third party satellites in 2026, and only about half of them shared data. Over six months, Starlink recorded roughly 164,000 more collision risks where the closest approach came within four hours of an unannounced maneuver.

Some operators keep maneuver plans private over proprietary concerns, while others cannot get government permission to share them. SpaceX called those policies “counterproductive,” saying they “largely only serve to create preventable collision risk between satellites.” Starlink is also offering a free ephemeris sharing and screening platform that returns risk results within a minute, backed by its Stargaze network of 30,000 optical sensors.

The push comes as the Starmind application draws opposition from astronomers and environmental groups. In a September filing with the FCC, SpaceX said each Starmind satellite could weigh up to 4,000 kg, nearly seven times the mass of a Starlink V2 Mini. Musk has brushed off crowding concerns before, telling viewers in June that “space is enormous” and that SpaceX already knows how to run very large constellations safely.

SpaceX’s Starmind page says its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, is designed to produce AI satellites at scale, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027.

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