Lifestyle
Tesla lends its automation expertise in search for COVID-19 vaccine
Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have strong disagreements over the political handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but his actions to help solve the matter strike a more positive note, namely one of progress in vaccine technology.
In a recent Twitter discussion about the uptick in national cases, Musk offered his thoughts on using RNA for immunization therapies.
“In principle, I think synthetic RNA (and DNA) has amazing potential,” he replied. “This basically makes the solution to many diseases a software problem.” Musk then brought attention to the current work Tesla is doing via Tesla Grohmann Automation GmbH in Germany. “Tesla, as a side project, is building RNA microfactories for CureVac & possibly others.”
CureVac AG is a German biotechnology company founded in 2000 with the primary goal of using proteins created with stabilized messenger RNA (mRNA) in disease therapeutics. As described on their official website, the company has “…develop[ed] an extensive in-house nucleotide sequence library that allows us to optimally assemble the various pieces of the mRNA puzzle for the desired therapeutic use…Each CureVac product can be thought of as a tailored molecular creation.” The protein-centric nature of these products may enable the development of a wide variety of therapies, including cancer immunotherapy, antibody production, treatments for rare diseases, and prophylactic vaccines.
In principle, I think synthetic RNA (and DNA) has amazing potential. This basically makes the solution to many diseases a software problem.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2020
CureVac’s vaccines use a dose of synthetic mRNA coded for disease-specific proteins or antigens which induce the immune system to respond and produce antibodies. Musk’s comment about diseases being a software problem seems to refer in part to this type of technology. The production side of this specialized mRNA looks to be where their relationship with Tesla is formalized. Specifically, the two companies have developed a bioreactor (referred to by Musk as an ‘RNA microfactory’) which combines Tesla Grohmann’s automation technology with CureVac’s tailored mRNA coding and printing.
A press release by CureVac from February 2019 refers to the bioreactor as The RNA Printer™ describing it as “…a transportable, down-scaled, automated messenger RNA (mRNA) printing facility…that can target known pathogens (including Lassa Fever, Yellow Fever, and Rabies) and prepare for rapid response to new and previously unknown pathogens (referred to by WHO as “Disease X”).” Several partnerships and grants have been accumulated by CureVac to further its development of the machine’s capabilities, and the race for a COVID-19 vaccine has brought even more attention and support to the technology.
Although this pandemic has now provided a spotlight on the Tesla and CureVac partnership, a joint patent application for the bioprinter was originally filed in 2018. Published in January this year, the invention is descriptively titled “Bioreactor for RNA in vitro Transcription” and assigned International Patent Publication No. WO-2020/002598. The Background section of the application provides a bit more insight to the technology, its potential, and why Tesla-style automation really makes a difference in what’s possible:
“A critical step in RNA production is the generation of a suitable DNA template, which at industrial scale is a major cost factor…Manufacturing of RNA requires a large degree of manual handling in a GMP-regulated laboratory executed by well-trained technical staff. In consequence, current established manufacturing processes are time consuming, cost intensive, and require a lot of laboratory space and laboratory equipment.”
Essentially, automating much of the manufacturing process would improve speed and reduce errors from human interaction, just as is the case with Tesla’s automated car manufacturing. Unlike automotive large-scale productions, however, this bioprinter would be much smaller. With staffing needs reduced and the equipment needs reduced to a single machine, portability comes into play.
“…an acceleration of RNA manufacturing would be highly advantageous and of major importance for public health, especially in the context of pandemic scenarios. Further advantageous in that context would be the production of the RNA therapeutics in the region of the outbreak which would, however, require a portable RNA production apparatus.”
It’s not clear exactly which parts of the invention were specifically Tesla’s contribution aside from Musk’s indication that his company would be manufacturing the machines.
Overall, as stated in CureVac’s press release, The RNA Printer™ will be capable of producing enough customized mRNA for 100,000+ vaccine doses within a few weeks and on-site of the outbreak location. The same machine would be flexible enough to be used for a wide variety of pathogens. Notably, CureVac was recently cleared for phase I human trials of its mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.
Musk’s interest in biotechnology is well known to those who follow his many projects and businesses, especially in terms of artificial intelligence as it relates to human-computer interfaces via Neuralink. However, this more traditional philanthropic involvement is surely quite welcome in a world turned upside down by a pandemic.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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