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Republican party in Texas backs Tesla sales plan
Opposition to direct sales to consumers may be weakening in Texas. The state Republican Party has include a plank in its political platform backing Tesla’s bid. 90% of Republican representatives say they are in favor of the change.
Texas is a red state through and through. The Republican Party is strong there, but it is also a place where people have a strong libertarian streak. Many oppose to what is often considered meddling in private affairs by government. Last week , state GOP convention delegates in Texas endorsed the idea of allowing Tesla to sell its cars directly to customers, despite bitter opposition. Nearly 90% of the more than 8,000 delegates supported language in the party platform that backs Tesla.
The platform committee rejected pleas by U.S. Rep. Roger Williams and former Republican national committeeman Bill Crocker to strip the pro-Tesla language from the platform. Williams is a car dealer, and Crocker is a lawyer who represents car dealers. Williams personally called all five members of the platform subcommittee on the economy according to its chairman, Alan Arvello. When asked about the calls by the Dallas Morning News, a spokesperson for Williams said, “Like all Members of Congress, Rep. Williams uses his spare time to help support his political party.” Uh huh.
Collin Street Bakery welcomes Tesla owners stopping by the Waco, TX Supercharger
The position taken by the Texas automobile dealers has been successful so far at preventing a change in state law to allow Tesla to sell cars directly to customers. As things stand at the moment, customers can look at a Tesla car in one of the company’s three “galleries” in Dallas, Houston and Austin, but can’t test drive them without an appointment.
They also can’t buy the cars onsite. A Tesla employee can discuss the technology but cannot discuss price, take orders or direct the customer to the company’s website. Test drives are only permitted on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Even then, the company must get a test permit first.
The only way to buy a Tesla in Texas is to order online. The car will arrive registered in California, which means the customer has to re-register it in Texas. To have a Tesla worked on at one of the company’s four maintenance centers in Texas, service calls must be routed through the company’s California offices. Tesla says Texas is one of only five states with such a burdensome process.
But things are changing. Younger shoppers are less impressed with the state’s heavy handed approach to Tesla. They see little difference between a Tesla and an Apple product. Their libertarian leanings are offended by how the state has dealt with Tesla these past 3 years.
David White, Tesla’s Texas spokesman, said he and two others working in the company’s booth at the Dallas convention spoke to thousands of delegates last week. Many were surprised to learn of barriers the Legislature has imposed that limit “open competition” in car sales, he said. “If Texas is truly ‘wide open’ for business, our elected officials should take the appropriate steps to end these frivolous regulations in 2017,” White said.
Arvello, chairman of the platform subcommittee and a physician assistant, said the pressure from Williams and Crocker seemed to backfire. “The more we were getting calls and having people try to influence us to vote against it, just some of that Texas emotion took over from my committee,” he said. “It was like, we’re going to do this!”
2017 may be the year when Tesla is finally victorious in its battle to sell directly to customers in Texas.
Source and photo credit: Dallas Morning News
A Tesla Semi caught fire in Hayward, California, which caused both directions of traffic to shut down for hours before being completely reopened early on Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said.
The fire occurred just after 5:30 local time in Hayward on Tuesday, as the Semi caught fire in the southbound lanes of I-880 before CHP officials made the decision to shut down both lanes of traffic due to potential risks from hazardous chemical smoke.
There were no injuries reported.
🚨 A Tesla Semi reportedly caught fire, with California Highway Patrol confirming. The Semi was on I-880 SB
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
The cause of the fire is currently unknown, as neither Tesla nor the CHP have not determined a cause.
However, some images taken before the Semi was completely destroyed by the fire seem to indicate this might have been an older unit, as it appears to be one of the designs that Tesla shipped as part of its pilot program, before revising it and starting mass production just a month ago.
@Tslachan From on of the videos looks like it’s an old Semi (not the refresh version that recently started production) https://t.co/KzwmR2kXow
— Area Under The Curve 🎗️ (@AreaUnderCurve) October 28, 2026
At the time of publication, CHP had not returned our request for a comment for additional details, including the Semi involved and any potential collaboration on an investigation between the CHP and Tesla. We will update this story when we hear back from them.
The southbound lanes were reopened at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with the northbound lanes opening last night a few hours after the fire began. The CHP did state that the lithium batteries were “incredibly difficult to extinguish,” according to NBC Bay Area.
The truck’s driver said that the Semi caught fire, but he did not have an explanation.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year.
Tesla’s launch of the “Emergency Drive Away” function a few months back offered owners a safe option to evacuate an area if they were in reasonable danger. The function finally got its first use in the real world, but it appears it was by mistake.
A video shared by u/Joshalander in the r/TeslaLounge subreddit recorded the instance from his vehicle and said the incident took place in Austin this past weekend during the city’s F1 Race.
“Was charging around 6 AM this past Sunday in Austin before heading to the F1 race and heard a pop. Looked over and saw the new emergency drive-away feature in action. Genuinely felt bad for the dude when he got out and realized what happened, since he looked exhausted and only seemed to half-read the prompts.”
🚨 Here’s the first look at Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away function in action:
Apparently this driver accidentally enabled it and drove forward; you can see the Supercharger pull with the car.
Tesla said previously this would cost up to $25k if not used properly. https://t.co/B4qQRrsO6B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
Emergency Drive Away unlatches the Supercharger connector from the vehicle, but still causes damage to both the car and the Supercharger. Tesla has said that it will cost up to $25,000 in repairs to have everything fixed back to normal.
Additionally, the company said that if it were not used in an emergency situation, the driver of the vehicle who activated the Emergency Drive Away feature would be responsible for all repair costs.
Tesla constitutes the following situations as reasonable justifications for activating the feature:
- You face an immediate threat to your life or personal safety.
- You must leave the area immediately.
- Exiting the vehicle is unsafe.
- Unplugging the charge connector would unreasonably delay your departure or expose you to a risk to your personal safety.
After using the feature, Tesla requires the driver to schedule Service so the car can be inspected.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab battery design could make robotaxis even cheaper
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with spare room for a future switch to LFP.
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with empty space inside it on purpose, and the reason points to a cheaper robotaxi down the road.
Robert Sumpf, Tesla’s director of mechanical design engineering for battery modules and packs, said the extra room beside and beneath the Cybercab’s modules was left there so the company can move to lithium iron phosphate cells later. “So, we protected this pack to go to an even lower energy dense chemistry as we scale and need to bring LFP into the platform,” Sumpf said in a Cybercab deep dive with Munro Live.
The Cybercab runs on Tesla’s own 4680 cells with a nickel chemistry today. LFP cells store less energy for their size, so a straight swap would cut range. The reserved space lets Tesla add more LFP cells to make up the difference. In return, Tesla would get cells that cost less, run cooler and survive more charge cycles. LFP became the most used EV battery chemistry in the world last year.
Not all of that room was planned for a chemistry change. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said part of it exists because “we didn’t need as many batteries as we thought we did.” Tesla told Sandy Munro in early 2025 that it was targeting a Cybercab pack under 50 kWh with close to 300 miles of range.
The pack also breaks from the structural design Tesla used in some Model Y and Cybertruck builds. Instead of potting hundreds of cells into one block, the Cybercab uses four separate, individually sealed modules, so a bad module can be replaced without scrapping the whole pack. Sumpf was blunt about the older approach, giving the Model Y structural battery “a grade D” because it was hard to build and nearly impossible to repair. He estimated a fully structural pack gains about 10% more cell volume, but said “the issue is the service cost.”
That cost matters more for a car that rarely sits parked. Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley said replacing an entire pack “before half a million miles is a killer on cost,” which is why remanufacturing and serviceability were built into the design from the start.
The same Munro Live tour produced Moravy’s admission that the Cybercab line at Giga Texas is now outpacing Robotaxi deployments, along with a look at the robotaxi’s unorthodox paint process. Tesla is aiming to deliver the first Cybercabs to outside customers by the end of 2026, though Elon Musk has said the vast majority will stay owned by Tesla and run as a transport service.
Sumpf did not give a date for an LFP version, name a cell supplier or say how a chemistry change would affect range. For now, the 4680 cars keep piling up: Texas DMV records from Tuesday list 544 Cybercabs authorized for Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet, more than the 507 Model Ys on the same roster for the first time.
Tesla Semi catches fire in California: what we know
Tesla’s ‘Emergency Drive Away’ function gets its first use in the real world
