News
SF Motors set sights on EV mass production with latest R&D testing facility
Santa Clara based electric vehicle startup SF Motors is opening up a new full-scale R&D center in Silicon Valley. SF Motors was founded in January 2016 after a large investment from Sokon Motors, a large Chinese automotive company. The company’s new 130,000 sqft research and development facility will be located in Milpitas, CA, roughly 6 miles away from SF’s headquarters.
The new facility, which is expected to be completed in Q4 ’18, will be capable of “small batch” manufacturing and development of manufacturing processes. The company is focusing on battery, powertrain, and autonomous vehicle development at the facility.
“Adding to our existing R&D labs, this new facility will conduct extensive design validation testing and small-scale manufacturing necessary to ensure a smooth transition to mass production of our batteries and electric powertrains, which are key components of our vehicles,” said SF Motors CTO Yifan Tang.
Yifan Tang joined SF Motors in February 2017. He was previously the technical lead on Facebook’s high-altitude long-range aircraft aimed at beaming internet across the globe. Before Facebook, Tang was VP of Drivetrain Engineering at Lucid Motors for three years and Principal Motor Technologist at Tesla for five years. During his time at Tesla Tang designed the motors for the Roadster, Model S, Mercedes B-Class/Toyota Rav4, and the prototype Model X AWD. Tang has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University and 35 U.S. patents.
- SF Motors’ Santa Clara Headquarters (Photos: Greg Cortez)
- SF Motors’ Santa Clara Headquarters (Photos: Greg Cortez)
- SF Motors’ Santa Clara Headquarters (Photos: Greg Cortez)
- SF Motors’ Santa Clara Headquarters (Photos: Greg Cortez)
- SF Motors’ Santa Clara Headquarters (Photos: Greg Cortez)
In October 2017 SF Motors acquired Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard’s battery module startup evINIT for $33M. Eberhard is now Chief Strategy Officer at SF Motors and the former CEO of evINIT, Mike Miskovsky, is Chief Development Officer. Eberhard served as the CEO of Tesla in its early years until late 2007.
Closing the loop from R&D to Manufacturing
SF Motors’ CTO Yifan Tang tells Teslarati that the new facility will help “close the loop from R&D to manufacturing,” and help accelerate the company to mass production. Tang describes the new facility as a key part of SF Motors strategy as they push forward to mass production.
According to SF Motors, the company is already prepping manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and China. SF Motors purchased a 675,000 sqft plant in Indiana from AM General in November 2017. The company also has a massive factory in Chongqing, China, with nearly 8.4M sqft of manufacturing space that’s capable of producing 200,000 vehicles per year.

SF Motors’ new R&D Facility in Milpitas, California (Photo: Loopnet/McCarthy Creekside
Industrial Center)
SF’s Tang emphasized that the company’s abilities to produce small-batch trial production at their R&D facility will differentiate itself from other automotive manufacturers. The company plans to also produce battery cells at the facility and will test different cell configurations, modules, and battery pack sizes.
SF plans to produce a wide range of vehicles, and the ability to tweak cell chemistry along with module configurations will allow them to produce battery packs that are optimized for cost efficiency and performance.
The new R&D facility will house roughly 100 employees, but its proximity to the company’s headquarters allows the company to shift employees back and forth. “Drawing on our global business model and decades of manufacturing experience, locating this facility near our Silicon Valley headquarters will strategically ensure quality and efficiency as we prepare to bring our intelligent EVs to market,” Tang said in a press release.
SF Motors plans to start trial production of their vehicles at the end of this year.
Update at 10:35 am PT: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that SF Motors was a subsidiary of Sokon Motors. Sokon Motors was a large initial investor in SF Motors, but does not wholely own the company.
News
Tesla Cybercab gets a for sale date at last
Tesla Cybercab units finally got a definitive date for when they will be able to be purchased by consumers, ending speculation regarding whether the fully autonomous vehicle would be available in the near term.
During Tesla’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call on October 21, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to begin delivering its purpose-built Cybercab robotaxi to customers before year-end.
🚨 In short, Cybercabs are slated to go to customers by end of the year. All units are going into Robotaxi fleet currently, per @larsmoravy
Cybercab will be “transport-as-a-service,” but vast majority of Cybercab will be “Tesla-owned,” @elonmusk says https://t.co/R8Qu8QWdmp
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 21, 2026
“We’re trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026,” Moravy said. He added that production is underway on the line at Gigafactory Texas, but “all of those are currently going to our own internal Robotaxi fleet.”
Moravy explained that as operations scale, Tesla will “mainly deliver fully designed autonomous vehicles to our customers,” with the Cybercab as the first such vehicle. Initial customer deliveries will start small while the company gains experience with delivery logistics, ownership models, fleet management, and operating autonomous vehicles outside its direct control.
CEO Elon Musk reinforced the limited nature of private sales, describing the Cybercab primarily as a “transport-as-a-service” offering rather than a personal ownership vehicle like the Model 3, Model Y, or upcoming Roadster. “The vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be Tesla-owned and transport-as-a-service,” Musk said.
The Cybercab is a two-seater vehicle developed by Tesla without a steering wheel or pedals. It relies completely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite and has been in production since February. Early units have been put in Tesla’s Robotaxi service as of early September, when the company launched rides to the public. Tesla previously indicated it would aim to sell Cybercabs for about $30,000.
Unsupervised Full Self-Driving is expected to ship to consumer cars during Q2 2027, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Head of AI, indicated during the call. Early buyers or fleet operators may receive vehicles whose autonomous operation remains geographically restricted due to lagging regulatory agencies. There are some hurdles that remain ahead of Cybercab deliveries.
Elon Musk
Tesla Q3 2026 Earnings results: in-line revenues, slight beat on EPS
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2026, marking a reasonable performance on the various financial metrics. Tesla still plans to hold a call that will field investor questions at 5:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. CT.
Here’s where Earnings came in:
- Total Revenues: $28.046 reported vs. $28.34B expected
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48 reported vs. $0.45 expected
- Operating Margin: 2.6 % reported vs. 2.5% expected
- Operating Income: $718M reported vs. $721M expected
- Free Cash Flow: $1.531B reported vs. ~-$4.51B expected
Tesla $TSLA Earnings Results:
Revenues: $28.046B
Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48
Operating Margin: 2.6%
Operating Income: $718M
FCF: $1.531B— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 21, 2026
Major Takeaways
Full Self-Driving (Supervised)
“FSD (Supervised)⁴ attach rate continued to grow, reaching over 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America – our most mature market – a nearly twenty percentage point sequential increase. We believe that FSD is driving demand in markets where it is available, and we continue to work with regulators to get it approved in other markets.”
Tesla Semi
“We began volume production of Tesla Semi, our Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The top variant can go 500 miles at full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight while achieving an efficiency of 1.7 kWh/mile. That efficiency allows the Tesla Semi to use a third of the energy used by a comparable diesel truck to haul the same payload. In a transportation market where energy is one of the largest components of total cost per mile, this will provide a meaningful advantage to Tesla Semi operators.”
SI Compute
“We plan to reach 400 MW of SI training compute by the end of the year, supporting the development of both vehicle and humanoid robot autonomy software. Additionally, we continued construction for the Austin Fab, where we plan to start commissioning equipment in 2027.”
Robotaxi
“We began deployment of Cybercab into our Robotaxi fleet in Austin. We reached nearly two million cumulative unsupervised miles for our Robotaxi service as of the end of the quarter. Operating hours in Austin are now 6am to midnight, and we expect to reduce wait times via increased fleet supply and improvement of Robotaxi orchestration algorithms. Grok is available in Cybercab with access to Grok Bot and Connectors, which allows users to manage their inbox, calendars, files, chats and tasks – all hands free via voice command – making Cybercab a mode of transport, a productivity space and, with our entertainment options, a second living room.”
Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.
Investor's Corner
Tesla reports Q3 Earnings today: here’s what to expect
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports its earnings for Q3 today. Here’s what to expect, as the company will reveal its balance sheet after the market closes on Wednesday.
Tesla already reported deliveries just after Q3 ended, and it demolished Wall Street consensus estimates of roughly 462,000 vehicles. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars in the third quarter, which was a big beat, but was down 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up year-over-year.
Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong
For the quarter, analysts have already compiled their predictions for what Tesla will report this afternoon:
- Total Revenues: $28.34B
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.43
- Operating Margin: 2.5%
- Operating Income: $721M
- Free Cash Flow: ~-$4.51B
Here are a few things we are looking forward to hearing about on the call:
Automotive Gross Margin and Overall Profitability
This was 16.3 percent in Q2, down from 19.2 percent in Q1, and was impacted by warranty charges and some fading regulatory credits. Consensus implies overall gross margin near 18 percent, but a miss here would potentially reinforce concerns about pricing pressure on its vehicles.
Pay attention to energy storage margins as well, especially since Tesla missed GWh expectations, although it was still a strong quarter.
Robotaxi/Cybercab, Unsupervised FSD, and Optimus Progress
The Say questions from retail investors usually focus on these types of projects, and this quarter is no different. Scaling the Cybercab fleet beyond Austin amid the open NHTSA safety review, timeline for Unsupervised FSD in customer cars, Robotaxi unit economics, and Optimus cost per unit plus when it could start generating revenue, are all things to be looking for.
Any concrete timelines or regulatory path details will likely move the stock more than the near-term numbers. SpaceX merger speculation, which was detailed during SpaceX’s earnings call last night, may also surface, although the key details were shared last night.
Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for
Say Investor Questions
- How does the Cybercab fleet scale past Austin, and what’s the regulatory path outside Texas given NHTSA’s open safety review?
- When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?
- When will the CyberCab be available for customer purchase/ownership?
- What’s the unit economics per paid robotaxi mile, and how does it compare to the thirty-cent target?
- Tesla has acknowledged that HW3 vehicles cannot support unsupervised FSD. When will owners know whether they can upgrade their hardware for free, and when will Tesla provide a clear plan?
The full Earnings Call will be streamed this evening after market close around 5 p.m. this evening.





