Tesla has started rolling out a special incentive for its customers in Shanghai. With the incentive in place, customers who are ordering and purchasing the company’s domestically produced Model 3 and Model Y are given shopping vouchers worth 3,000 yuan ($420).
The incentive is offered in conjunction with a local government incentive program that’s designed to boost consumption. The $420 voucher is quite interesting as it’s likely enough to purchase a fairly decent amount of items.
Tesla China has also noted that it would be providing new car buyers with 3,500 yuan in cash ($487), as well as a free Enhanced Autopilot trial if they were referred by an existing Tesla owner, as noted in a Bloomberg News report. This incentive program remains active, the company noted when it announced its $420 shopping voucher offer on Wednesday.
China is the world’s largest car market, and it is also the world’s leader in electric vehicle sales. So far, retail sales of new energy vehicles for 2023 totaled about 647,000 in July, as per data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). Tesla China, for its part, delivered 93,680 vehicles from Giga Shanghai in June, which included 74,212 units that were sold in the domestic market.
China’s auto market is extremely competitive, and even Tesla, which is arguably the world’s leader in pure electric cars, is outsold by Chinese automaker BYD in the country’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) sector. While this is largely due to BYD’s NEV sales including hybrids, its large gap with Tesla’s pure battery electric car sales hints at the steep competition in the Chinese auto market.
As a means to become more competitive, Tesla opted to roll out aggressive price cuts to its vehicles earlier this year. Tesla ended up starting what could only be described as a price war in China, which culminated about a month ago when the EV maker, together with several other local automakers, signed a pact that committed to avoid “abnormal pricing practices.” The pledge was retracted eventually, but authorities still encouraged fair competition among automakers nonethelesss.
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Elon Musk continues to tease the unveiling event for the Tesla Roadster, a continuing trend that has grown into a bigger game of “When” for fans who have been waiting years for the car to finally enter production.
A video shared on X of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Musk appeared on last year, teasing the Roadster unveiling, was shared once again on the social media platform. The poster said the Roadster event will be “unforgettable.”
Musk agreed:
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The timing is interesting because just yesterday, Musk said that we will be getting flying cars, and for years, Tesla has hinted that it could develop a SpaceX cold gas thruster package that would help the car float or fly for a short period of time.
It would be reasonable to assume Tesla’s major delays with this unveiling event are likely caused by the company’s need to break the rules and push the envelope on nearly everything. Last July, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s VP of Vehicle Engineering, said:
“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind blowing. We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on and he got a little excited.”
The latest updates that Tesla has given us are that the Roadster is in design development, and it did have several potential dates for an unveiling event this year, including April. It was then pushed to August.
However, there are no clues as to when Tesla will be ready, and fans are certainly getting frustrated with the delays.
For what it is worth, Franz von Holzhausen told Jay Leno this week that the event would be “very soon.”
We sure hope.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Sweden’s IF Metall union has announced that it is ending all protests against Tesla, effective immediately.
The union said in a statement this morning:
“There seems to be no limits to the length Tesla would go to keep unions out of their operations. Unfortunately, they have managed to pay their way out in Sweden. At least that has given the former IF Metall members more money in their pocket, but the insecurity of not having a union or a collective agreement still remains.”
IF Metall has been after Tesla in Sweden for the past three years, attempting to push unionized operations into its factories. Tesla, on the other hand, has given its employees the chance to unionize in various markets. However, the organization says that Tesla has “bought out all of its striking members.”
🚨 NEW: IF Metall has decided to end all industrial action against Tesla in Sweden, effective immediately.
“IF Metall has decided to end all industrial action against Tesla’s Swedish operations, after the company bought out all of its striking members. With no members remaining… pic.twitter.com/blne8iC6hV
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 13, 2026
“Today, we end our industrial action against Tesla. We do so because it can no longer have an effect – not because our principles have changed,” a written statement said.
Over the past three years, IF Metall has definitely been a thorn in the side of Tesla and its operations in Sweden. The primary strike started in October 2023, when IF Metall members at Tesla’s Swedish Service Centers refused to work.
IF Metall chair to Elon Musk: “Give us a chance” as Tesla Sweden strike hits 2 years
Strikes extended to blockades and work stoppages at non-Tesla-owned repair shops that service Teslas. This limited and stopped anything related to warranties, transport damage, and other work on Teslas ending, eliminating work arounds for customers.
Sympathy strikes followed, as postal workers, dock workers, electricians, and other tradesmen stopped working. Add in lawsuits and other pressures, and you get the full scope of what strategies the union has used against Tesla over the past several years.
But now, it’s all over.
“We will continue to defend the right of workers to organize. We will continue to fight for collective bargaining. And we will continue to stand in solidarity with workers and trade unions facing similar challenges elsewhere – just as you have stood with us,” IF Metall said.
Elon Musk teases Tesla Roadster unveiling once again
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
