News
Tesla is about to make producing 1 million EVs per year unremarkable
It’s a bit amazing that just over two years ago, Tesla was struggling to hit a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 per week at the Fremont Factory. The target, which proved elusive enough to warrant extreme attention from TSLA short-sellers, was achieved at the end of Q2 2018, six months behind the company’s initial schedule. Over the course of 2018, Tesla delivered a whopping 245,240 cars, a new record for the company.
Since then, Tesla has steadily ramped its vehicle production capabilities, and today, the company is aiming to deliver around half a million electric cars by the end of the year. That’s despite a pandemic that has shaken the world, which has resulted in shutdowns in Tesla’s two production facilities, the Fremont Factory and Gigafactory Shanghai. Giga Shanghai is only in its first year of operations too and is not yet fully ramped.
But Tesla, if any, is a beast of optimism and possibility. It’s the one carmaker that is still growing strong during a pandemic, and its vehicles, particularly the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y crossover, are seeing strong demand from consumers. With this in mind, Tesla has noted that it intends to ramp its vehicle production capabilities to the millions within the next years. It would not be surprising at all if the company announces that it would be producing and delivering 1 million cars by next year.
Such an idea might sound implausible now, but so was the idea of pursuing a delivery goal of 500,000 vehicles in a year that’s weighed down by a pandemic.
What is rather noteworthy is that over the years, Tesla has steadily established itself as a capable automaker that has what it takes to deliver on its goals. The company may not always be on time and it may hit snags with the build quality of its first-production vehicles, but it does stay true to its word. The same is true for Elon Musk. FSD may have been delayed for some time, for example, but the limited beta that’s testing today is very real, and its potentials are vast.
With these milestones comes a normalcy of sorts for Tesla. While the company made headlines when it first broke the 5,000 Model 3 per week barrier, for example, such things are simply unremarkable today. And that’s really where Tesla’s magic lies. The company simply has the capability to make something remarkable seem normal. This was true with regards to the public’s perception of the power and capabilities of electric cars against their gas-powered rivals. This will likely be true when it comes to vehicle production capabilities as well.
This is already starting for the electric car maker. Just recently, data from the Chinese Passenger Car Association (CPCA) revealed that Tesla China was able to produce 22,292 Model 3 in Gigafactory Shanghai in the month of October. This translates to a run-rate of 275,148 vehicles per year. Interestingly enough, leaks from industry insiders have suggested that Tesla China is aiming to produce 550,000 cars in 2021, with 300,000 of those being the Model 3.
Considering Tesla China’s October production figures, it would appear that the company is already well within striking distance of its 2021 Model 3 production goal. It wouldn’t be surprising if Tesla hits a run-rate of 300,000 China-made Model 3s by the end of the year, and it would be quite silly to assume that the company would stop optimizing Gigafactory Shanghai at that level.
If Gigafactory Shanghai can build 550,000 cars in 2021, Tesla would have a pretty solid chance of producing 1 million vehicles in one year. This would no doubt be a milestone for the company. But if Tesla’s previous years are any indication, it would only take a few years before vehicle production rates in the level of millions will be considered expected, or even better, unremarkable. Once that happens, then one could probably declare that the electric car age is truly beginning.
Tesla has spent years trying to engineer its way out of the automotive paint shop, one of the most expensive, space-consuming, and environmentally costly steps in vehicle manufacturing. With the Cybercab, Tesla confirmed on X this week that a new reaction injection molding process will embed color directly into the panel itself during production.
“Our new reaction injection molding (RIM) process shrinks Cybercab paint cycles from hours to minutes. This cuts those parts’ manufacturing and supply chain emissions by 35% and eliminating 100% of paint volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in traditional paint methods.” noted Tesla.
While the RIM process isn’t necessarily new and has existed since the 1960s, what makes Tesla’s application notable is how it is being used specifically for exterior body panels that traditionally required a separate paint process after forming.
Tesla’s RIM approach integrates the color directly into the panel material during the molding process itself. The pigment is part of the polymer mix injected into the mold, meaning the panel comes out of the mold already colored, with no separate paint application required. The clear coat or protective layer can be applied at the mold stage or through a much faster post-process than traditional multi-stage painting. Tesla claims this compresses what was a multi-hour paint cycle into minutes per panel.
Tesla’s obsession with killing the paint shop is one of the most consistent threads running through the company’s manufacturing philosophy going back years. As far back as 2018, Musk was trimming paint color options to simplify production, tweeting at the time: “Moving 2 of 7 Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing.” Two years later, in a 2020 Automotive News interview, Musk laid out his broader vision, saying he believed Tesla factories could one day be 1,000 times more efficient than conventional plants, and pointing to the paint shop as one of the biggest sources of waste, cost, and complexity. The Cybertruck was the most extreme expression of that thinking. Tesla chose an unpainted stainless steel exterior partly because it would eliminate the need for a $200 million paint facility at Gigafactory Texas. The stainless approach proved harder and more expensive than anticipated, but the underlying ambition never changed. The Cybercab is what happens when that same ambition meets a manufacturing process that delivers on it.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
Elon Musk
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
California passed a $135 million EV incentive that rewards Rivian and Lucid while sidelining Tesla
California just drew a line in the EV incentive sand to put Tesla on the wrong side of it. The state recently passed a $135 million program offering first-time electric vehicle buyers a direct incentive with no application required, but the rules were written in a way that leaves Tesla at a structural disadvantage compared to Rivian and Lucid.
The program caps eligible vehicles at $50,000 for new EVs and $25,000 for used ones. That pricing threshold rules out a significant portion of Tesla’s lineup, though some lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y configurations would still qualify. California-based automakers are exempt from the price cap entirely, regardless of what their vehicles cost. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, and Lucid, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, both benefit from that exemption. Rivian’s R2 starts at roughly $45,000 but has versions above the cap. Lucid’s Air and Gravity start at $70,990 and $79,990 respectively, well above any threshold a non-California company would face.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla built its reputation and a significant portion of its early market share in California, where EV adoption has consistently led the nation. The company operates its original factory in Fremont, California, and the state was home to Tesla’s headquarters for most of its existence. That changed in 2021 when Tesla moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Since then, the relationship between the company and California Governor Gavin Newsom has been openly adversarial, with Musk and Newsom trading public criticism on multiple occasions.
California’s EV incentive landscape has shifted repeatedly in recent years, and Tesla has previously lost eligibility for state-level programs as its vehicles exceeded income-adjusted price thresholds. The federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which Tesla models have qualified for and lost depending on policy cycles, is no longer available after it expired without renewal, making state-level programs more meaningful to buyers than they have been in years.
The practical impact for buyers is more nuanced than the headline suggests. California residents purchasing a Tesla under $50,000 for the first time can still access the incentive. But the exemption written for California-based manufacturers is a structural advantage that rewards where a company plants its headquarters flag rather than where it builds its products, and Tesla moved that flag to Texas.
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
