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SolarCity and Airbnb partner on a Tesla-like referral program

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Tesla’s partnership with home-sharing service Airbnb, to install destination chargers in select host homes, have opened new doors of opportunity between the two companies. With one month left before Tesla and  SolarCity shareholders vote on their proposed merger, SolarCity announced through a press release that it will be teaming up with Airbnb on an incentive program that offers a $1,000 discount for hosts to install a SolarCity solar system onto their homes.

Airbnb hosts and members: Install a solar generation system, and receive a $1000 discount through SolarCity.

SolarCity customers: You have a $100 travel credit waiting for you for future Airbnb bookings.

Airbnb’s Head of Global Policy Chris Lehane shared the company’s philosophy about pairing up with SolarCity. “We are indeed that climate friendly travel option that we believe guests are looking for,” he said. He added that their customers place a high value on lowering their environmental footprint, and Airbnb customers, in particular, are looking for places to stay that understand the importance of joining in with others who share the belief that clean renewable decentralized energy is necessary for the future success of the planet.

LeHane noted that Airbnb currently has already proven itself to be a leader in the environmental travel industry in the U.S.

  • Airbnb has reduced water consumption by 4.2 billion liters vs. traditional accommodation options.
  • Greenhouse gas reductions are nearly equivalent to what is generated by 560,000 cars on U.S. roads per year.

Airbnb is part of what is known as the “sharing economy,” which was inspired by a series of factors including the 2009 global economic crisis, millennial environmental focus, and the acceptance of social media as a serious information source. The numbers of people who now participate in the sharing economy are quite significant.  With 100 million users, 640,000 hosts, and 2.3 million listings, Airbnb is the role model for other sharing economy businesses.

SolarCity, too, is an innovator that sets industry standards. Its business is a litany of renewable energy services such as solar energy products and services. It offers installation, ongoing monitoring, and repair services of solar energy systems in the U.S. and also provides services to homeowners, businesses, schools, non-profits and government organizations.

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“The great majority of our customers go solar with absolutely no money out of pocket,” related SolarCity President of Global Sales Toby Corey.  He explained that SolarCity surveys the business market, looking for programs and partnerships that allow it to alleviate expenditures for potential customers. A majority of SolarCity customers don’t put money down on installation financing plans, so the $1,000 credit from the Airbnb venture will be applied to their payback.  That means the overall repayment period will be reduced.  

SolarCity operates in 19 states currently, which means Airbnb members in any of those U.S. markets can take advantage of the program. With 300,000 customers, SolarCity can help Airbnb to harness the millennial market, a target audience for most sharing economy business and one that both SolarCity and Airbnb hope to call their own. As reported on Ecoprenteurist, millennials make up a significant portion of today’s target business audience. Millennials are the 2 billion people born between the early 1980s and 2000. 81% of millennials believe business has a key role to play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the guiding business practices shaped by world leaders from 193 nations as outcome from the COP21 summit in Paris.

Carolyn Fortuna is a writer and researcher with a Ph.D. in education from the University of Rhode Island. She brings a social justice perspective to environmental issues. Please follow me on Twitter and Facebook and Google+

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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks

Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.

Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.

The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.


Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.

The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.

The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.

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There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.

The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.

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Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation

Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.

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The next generation Tesla Roadster’s touchscreen, shown in Tesla’s first official look at the car’s interface. (Credit: Tesla/X)

Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”

The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.

Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.

That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.

The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.

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The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.

Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.

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Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves

Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.

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Concept rendering of Tesla Optimus in mass production

Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”

The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.

Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.

The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.

Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.

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The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.

Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.

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