Tesla’s AI Day is tomorrow, and the company has been largely silent about details of the upcoming event. Considering how artificial intelligence plays into Tesla’s energy and electric vehicle business, it is no surprise that there is some excitement for AI Day. With this in mind, here are some things that Tesla watchers could expect for the highly-anticipated event.
Updates from Autonomy Day
Tesla bull and Loup Ventures Managing Partner Gene Munster previously noted that AI Day would likely be a “second edition” of sorts for the company’s Autonomy Day event back in 2019. The invitations that have been sent for AI Day suggest that the company is looking to expand its AI use to more than just vehicles. This is something that Elon Musk has mentioned in the past.
During the Q1 2021 earnings call, Musk stated that in the long run, people would start perceiving Tesla as an “AI robotics company” instead of a carmaker or battery storage producer. “I think long term, people will think of Tesla as much as an AI robotics company as we are a car company or an energy company. I think we are developing one of the strongest hardware and software AI teams in the world,” Musk said.
If AI Day does become a follow-up to Autonomy Day, however, Tesla would likely have to discuss some of the updates it has rolled out to its vehicles and self-driving efforts since 2019. These include the removal of radar for the Model 3 and Model Y, which Musk expects would ultimately accelerate the company’s progress towards autonomous driving.
Project Dojo Details
Tesla’s Dojo Supercomputer has long been teased, but its specs and capabilities have never really been revealed by the company. AI Day would be a great venue to formally introduce the world to its supercomputer and its capabilities. Dojo is crucial to Tesla’s self-driving efforts as the computer is tasked with training neural networks that would, in turn, enable the company’s vehicles to behave even more like cautious and confident human drivers on the road.
Gene Munster noted that based on Elon Musk’s previous comments, it appears that Tesla has plans to make Dojo available to other automakers in the future. This should help not just Tesla but the entire auto industry transition into the self-driving era. Musk definitely seems optimistic about Dojo’s contribution to Tesla’s self-driving efforts, which have been both highly praised and criticized to date.
“Dojo is really a — it is a supercomputer optimized for neural net training. We think Dojo will be, probably in order of magnitude, more efficient on, say — not sure what the exact right metric is, but say, per frame of video, we think it will be an order of magnitude more cost efficient in hardware and in energy usage for a frame of video compared to a GPU-based solution or compared to the next best solution that we’re aware of. So then possibly that could be used by others,” Musk stated.
Beyond Automotive and Energy
Tesla already uses AI on its electric vehicles, and the company’s products like Autobidder show that artificial intelligence could also be invaluable for the energy sector. Interestingly enough, Tesla seems to be intent on expanding beyond these markets, with the company teasing more AI-based efforts in its formal invitation.
“This invite-only event will feature a keynote by Elon, hardware and software demos from Tesla engineers, test rides in Model S Plaid, and more. Attendees will be among the first to see our latest developments in supercomputing and neural network training. They’ll also get an inside look at what’s next for AI at Tesla beyond our vehicle fleet,” Tesla wrote.
Elon Musk has hinted at other “smart” products in the past. During his first appearance at the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in 2018, Musk has stated that it would be great to develop a “Tesla Smart Home” that includes an efficient HVAC system. Musk mentioned this once more in March 2020, when he noted that creating smart and energy-efficient home products would be great since Tesla is already developing a lot of the needed tech for its vehicles.
TSLA Volatility
Tesla watchers and investors would likely have to get ready for some volatility after AI Day tomorrow. While Tesla’s dedicated events such as Autonomy Day and Battery Day were filled to the brim with information, and while both events were mainly for recruitment, TSLA stock ended up dipping the day after. The day after Battery Day in September 2020, for example, TSLA shares dropped 10% as critics pounced on the 4680 cells’ timetable and the fact that the company did not show a physical cell during its event. It will not be surprising if the same thing happens on Friday after AI Day.
Tesla’s AI day is set to be held at Palo Alto, CA, on August 19, 2021, at 5 p.m. PDT. The event would likely be livestreamed as well.
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Lifestyle
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla’s Halloween teaser hides a covered vehicle and an Optimus hand rising from the ground.
Tesla has started teasing a Halloween software update for its vehicles, with a short clip on X that reads, “Halloween is coming.” The clip opens on a glowing pumpkin before pulling back to the car’s center touchscreen, where the usual parked visualization has been replaced by a graveyard scene, and the vehicle draped with a white sheet so it reads as a cartoon ghost.
Halloween is coming pic.twitter.com/lM3ASUeOqX
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 1, 2026
The second detail is a robotic hand clawing its way out of the dirt like a zombie, which looks to be the hand of Tesla’s latest Optimus V3 humanoid robot. While Tesla still has not formally shown Optimus Gen 3 walking around in service, renders pulled from Tesla’s Android app last month gave the clearest look yet, including far more refined hands that Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom. The hand has been the hardest part of the program. Musk has called it the majority of the robot’s engineering difficulty, and Tesla’s patents describe a design driven by tendons with the actuators moved into the forearm.
Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents
Optimus also has a Halloween track record. Last October the robot handed out candy in Times Square, and a costumed “zombie” Optimus shuffled around the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Halloween night.
On the software side, Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update expanded Santa Mode with a Santa sleigh, snowmen, snow effects, and a festive lock chime, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched if we saw something similar but themed for a Halloween Mode.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is set to receive improvements to address its two biggest issues, according to a company engineer.
Director of Engineering at Tesla AI, Phil Duan, revealed in a post on X that improvements to both pothole avoidance and navigation “are coming,’ something we have heard many times in the past. However, there are a few things that seem to hint that things might be different this time around.
Improvements on both are coming.
— Phil Duan (@pduan) October 1, 2026
Pothole avoidance, navigation, speed control, and left lane camping are some of the most prevalent and frequently mentioned shortcomings of the Full Self-Driving suite. These are a few of the biggest issues that have kept Tesla Full Self-Driving as a Supervised suite, meaning drivers must remain attentive during operation.
Pothole Avoidance
Pothole avoidance was first mentioned as an “Upcoming Improvement” with the Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3 update back in early April of this year. It was listed alongside “Expand reasoning to all behaviors beyond destination handling.”
It’s been six months since we first saw pothole avoidance explicitly mentioned, and it has not moved beyond that and joined the main release notes yet.
Tesla has not shed any light on why pothole avoidance has been such an issue for it to solve, but it also has issues identifying large bumps much of the time, so its modeling of sudden changes in road conditions is likely pretty weak at this particular point. I’ve had more issues with large bumps than potholes, personally, but both are issues that need to be resolved.
This is that big bounce that I mentioned in the quoted post.
It’s just a tad too drastic to take at the speed FSD wants to go over it. You can see me quickly swipe down into Sloth, but I intervened. https://t.co/K20PK9ysBg pic.twitter.com/81Oc82ZJcZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
It makes sense that things might be pretty close to being released to the public, as we are going on such an extensive period of time between it being mentioned and it actually being deployed.
Navigation
Navigation is likely the most painful part of using Full Self-Driving, as it routinely takes strange routes, has trouble with local rules (like Except Right Turn Stop Signs in Pennsylvania), and sometimes does not realize that maneuvers it is suggesting are against the law. Turning out of my neighborhood, you cannot turn left, yet my Model Y still suggests it roughly 70 percent of the time when I’m leaving.
However, Tesla might be close to a breakthrough on this. With the Summer Update, Tesla added “Preferred Routes” alongside “Automatic Navigation.”
Preferred Routes prioritized roads that the driver had actually taken before, instead of always defaulting to what the vehicle believes is the most efficient path. This has already solved many of my issues. Formerly, I would turn off the Online Routing setting, and that would eliminate most of my complaints with routing, but then you lose out later on the Live Traffic Visualization.
Tesla’s Navigation has improved tremendously thanks to the Preferred Routes release with the Summer Update, but it still could use some polishing, as it still suggests strange routes from time to time, and it also has a lot of issues getting out of a parking lot. I find that those truly confuse FSD sometimes.
News
SpaceX’s midnight spy satellite launch quietly set a new record
Falcon Heavy launched its first NRO mission while SpaceX landed four boosters in one day.
SpaceX closed out one of its busiest days ever with a midnight Falcon Heavy launch from Florida, and the rocket’s two side boosters came home to finish off a landing record the company had never set before.
Falcon Heavy lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 11:54 p.m. ET Thursday carrying NROL-97, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. It was the first time the NRO has flown on Falcon Heavy after 22 missions on Falcon 9, and the first NRO mission bought through the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 contract awarded in 2025, according to Spaceflight Now.
Falcon Heavy lifts off from pad 39A in Florida for the 14th time! pic.twitter.com/uuZLKNTdD7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 2, 2026
Roughly eight minutes after liftoff, side boosters B1104 and B1072 touched down at Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, setting off double sonic booms across Brevard County. B1104 was flying for the second time and B1072 for the fourth. Both last flew on August 30 on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, making NROL-97 the quickest turnaround between Falcon Heavy missions to date. The brand new center core, B1106, was expended in the Atlantic so the payload could reach its high energy orbit, and SpaceX’s mission page noted the fairing had previously flown on the NROL-95 mission in July.
The two landings capped a record for SpaceX. Earlier Thursday, Falcon 9 booster B1101 returned to Landing Zone 40 after sending the Crew-13 astronauts to the International Space Station, and another Falcon 9 launched the Transporter-18 rideshare with 130 payloads from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Spaceflight Now reported it was the first time SpaceX has landed four boosters in a single day, wrapping up the triple header Teslarati previewed on Wednesday.
Falcon Heavy’s side boosters land on LZ-1 and LZ-2 pic.twitter.com/dBPcNeggFx
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 2, 2026
The mission also brought Landing Zone 1 back for what may be its final landing. SpaceX first landed an orbital class booster there in December 2015, but its lease on the former Launch Complex 13 site ended in 2025 as the company moved Florida landings to new pads at its own launch complexes. With LZ-40 already holding the Crew-13 booster, SpaceX brought LZ-1 back into service for one more night. Launch tracker Next Spaceflight listed NROL-97 as the final expected landing at the site.
NROL-97 adds to a fast growing stack of national security work for SpaceX. The company has flown four Space Force missions from Vandenberg since mid August, several believed to carry Starshield satellites, pushing its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion. Elon Musk was also named this week to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.
The Florida doubleheader stood out for another reason. The Space Coast saw only one launch in all of September as SpaceX shifts more of its East Coast infrastructure toward Starship, which reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 just three days earlier.
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla says fixes on Full Self-Driving’s two biggest issues are on the way
