Connect with us

News

Rivian opens R&D center in Serbia

FOTO TANJUG/ VLADIMIR PORÈIÆ/ bs

Published

on

Rivian opened a research and development (R&D) center in Belgrade, Serbia, the Development Agency of Serbia announced on Thursday. An opening ceremony was attended by Serbian Minister of Innovation Jelena Begovic, Rivian VP, Talent Acquisition Cindy Nicola, and Wassym Bensaid, Senior VP Software Development at Rivian, as well as US ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill.

The Development Agency of Serbia noted that Rivian confirmed that there were several hundred job applications received. The applicants showed interest in careers related to infotainment, mapping, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and IT services.

Rivian said that the first employees began working “in the previous days,” and the company is planning to expand its Belgrade team in the coming weeks and months. Rivian will hire 200 engineers before the end of 2022 and then an additional 1,000 jobs.

Wassym Bensaid emphasized the importance of Belgrade as a place where the best engineers could be found. He said,

“We need the best engineers, we chose Belgrade on purpose, and I am happy that we can welcome our new colleagues.”

President Aleksander Vučić said that Rivian’s expansion into Serbia is of great importance and places the nation on the “innovative-technological map.”

Advertisement
-

“We have been working on this for at least a year and a half. This arrival is very significant for us. Rivian is the most innovative company in the whole world when it comes to electric vehicles. We brought the best from the world to Serbia – Serbia is the only one that succeeded. Besides the USA and Canada, they opened a center only in Serbia. No one else in Europe can boast of that,” said Vučić.

“We must continue to work on increasing our capacity and see how we can expand the capacity of the faculty of technical sciences in Novi Sad, as well as all the other faculties within the Belgrade University,” President Vučić. said at the opening ceremony.

U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, Christopher R. Hill, took to Twitter to share his thoughts about Rivian’s new R&D center in Serbia and even got to try out one of the vehicles.

“The only thing better than welcoming @Rivian to Serbia today was getting to try the product! Their new tech center is an exciting investment in Serbia and its people and a clear vote of confidence in Serbia’s future. And the ride is amazing!” he said. 

Below is a gallery of photos from the opening ceremony, courtesy of the Development Agency of Serbia. Teslarati contacted the Development Agency of Serbia and Rivian for comment, and we’ll update you when/if they provide one.

Update: A Rivian spokesperson told Teslarati:

Advertisement
-
“We recently opened a space in Serbia, our fourth European country. We’re currently recruiting for roles in our IT and technology teams, which will enable us to continue to bring world leading products and services to market.”

[rl_gallery id=”225545″]

 

In September, Rivian announced that it would be expanding into Serbia. On Thursday, the Serbian president’s office announced that Rivian opened a research and development (R&D) center in Belgrade.

Azhar Mirza, Rivian’s European Senior Commercial Facilities Operations Project Manager, announced that the company was hiring an experienced Workplace Operations Specialised based in Belgrade. “It’s an incredibly exciting time at Rivian, and this role will be instrumental in the support and operation of a workplace in a new region for us,” he wrote.

Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Advertisement
-

 

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla Roadster livestream: everything Tesla has revealed before Thursday night

Tesla will stream the Roadster event Thursday at 7:55 p.m. Central. Here is what’s known.

Published

on

By

Concept rendering of a Tesla Roadster with SpaceX Package via Grok

Tesla will stream its next generation Roadster event live this Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. Central, according to a post from the official Tesla account shared late Monday. Texas is on daylight time, and outlets have read the post as local Central time, which puts the Tesla Roadster livestream at 8:55 p.m. Eastern and 5:55 p.m. Pacific. The stream is expected on Tesla’s X account, where the announcement went up.

This is the second date for the event. Tesla posted a “Go for launch” image on September 12 that set the unveil for October 1, and invitations sent to reservation holders placed it in Waco, Texas, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, for guests 21 and older with tickets that could not be transferred. Until this week, Tesla had not said the event would be broadcast at all.

On September 28, Tesla moved the event to October 15, citing severe weather and the fact that the demo can only be held outdoors. Elon Musk then said the cause was high winds, a comment that pushed speculation that the car will leave the ground on stage.

The event will be held in Waco, which sits close to SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site, where the FAA closed airspace up to 10,000 feet from September 18 through October 2 for the original date. Another restriction covering Wednesday, October 14, has been reported near the site, which could mean a rehearsal, though that is unconfirmed.

Advertisement
-

What Tesla will actually show comes from speculative reports that the vehicle will be unmanned, and spectators will be kept several hundred yards back for safety. A SpaceX package is reportedly code named A71, and linked to what Musk has hinted at in the past – thrusters that could bring 0 to 60 mph down to about one second, compared with the 1.9 seconds quoted for the base car in 2017. Tesla also closed its Semi event with a Roadster teaser suggesting a design that looks different from the original prototype, and has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.

The 2017 figures remain the only official ones: 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, and prices of $200,000 for the base car and $250,000 for the Founders Series. Tesla reopened reservations last month with a $5,000 card payment followed by a $45,000 wire within ten days, and the deposit is refundable. Production is expected at Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028.

Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, six days after the stream, so whatever price or timeline appears Thursday night will land just ahead of that call.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan

SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.

Published

on

By

SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.

There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.

The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.

Advertisement
-

That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.

The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.

The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Energy

Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows

Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.

Published

on

By

Concept render of Tesla Megapack farm supporting an AI Data Center in Taiwan
Concept render of Tesla Megapack farm supporting an AI Data Center in Taiwan

A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.

The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.

Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.

Tesla Taiwan partners with Costco to sell vehicles

Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.

Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.

Advertisement
-

The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.

Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.

Continue Reading