Investor's Corner
Tesla starts setting the stage for the $35k base Model 3’s production ramp
Tesla’s production ramp for the Model 3 has not been easy for the company. Since starting the production of the electric sedan last year, the Model 3 ramp has been beset by multiple challenges, including bottlenecks in both the Fremont factory and Gigafactory 1. That said, Tesla appears to have hit its stride in manufacturing the electric sedan in Q3.
The company’s production and delivery numbers for the quarter are yet to be announced, but estimates, including those from Tesla’s staunchest critics from Wall Street, are high that the company has achieved its target of manufacturing and delivering more than 50,000 Model 3 in the third quarter. And this is despite the company only producing three variants of the electric sedan — the Long Range RWD, Dual Motor AWD, and Dual Motor Performance Model 3. The variant of the electric car that is designed to be a true disruptor in the auto industry — the $35,000 Standard trim Model 3 — is yet to enter production.
The absence of the $35,000 base trim Model 3 in Tesla’s lineup is one of the remaining bear thesis against the company. Some of Tesla’s more aggressive short-sellers even insist that the $35,000 Model 3 is a myth. Kelly Blue Book analyst Rebecca Lindland, who canceled her Model 3 reservation due to delays in the electric car’s production, previously noted to Forbes that she is not sure Tesla will ever make the vehicle.
“I’m not sure there will ever be any $35,000 cars. I think there’s a chance the company will eventually say they’re canceling that version because there wasn’t as much customer interest, that nobody wanted it,” she said.
Elon Musk begs to differ. Earlier this year, Musk noted that Tesla would need to hit its stride producing the higher-margin Model 3 variants before it can begin manufacturing the $35,000 Standard trim Model 3. Musk has since provided brief updates on the vehicle, such as its estimated start of production in Q1 2019, as well as an AWD Dual Motor option for the electric car. Tesla’s head of investor relations Martin Viecha provided an estimated timeline for the electric car’s production while facilitating a tour of Gigafactory 1 as well, stating that the $35,000 base Model 3’s would ramp “in the next eight months,” translating to an April or May rollout.
Considering recent updates from Tesla’s Model 3 ramp, it appears that the electric car maker is starting to make preparations for the vehicle’s production. Gigafactory 1, for example, is set to receive upgrades from Panasonic that would enable it to produce more battery cells. Yoshio Ito, head of Panasonic’s automotive business, noted that three new battery cell production lines would be completed sooner than the Japanese company’s initial “end-of-2018” estimate. Apart from this, Tesla is also receiving upgrades in the form of new Grohmann machines that are expected to be installed at the end of Q3 or the beginning of Q4. The new Grohmann machines are designed to make module production in Gigafactory 1 three times faster and three times cheaper.
In the final weekend of Q3, updates from Elon Musk and the Tesla community suggested that the production ramp for the Model 3 is going even further. In an email to employees, Musk noted that production of Model 3 drive units had reached a rate of 10,000 per week. Reservation holders in forums such as the r/TeslaMotors subreddit have also noted that the estimated timeline for the $35,000 base Model 3 has remained consistent over the past months. As of October 1, reservation holders are given a 3-6 month timeline for the production of the $35,000 electric sedan.
The Tesla Model 3 is a critical part of Elon Musk’s Master Plan, which involved creating a mass-market car that is a preferable alternative to comparably-priced fossil fuel-powered vehicles. At $35,000, the Standard trim Model 3 would be in the same price range as some of America’s most ubiquitous cars like the Toyota Camry, whose top-of-the-line XSE V6 trim is priced at $34,950. Thus, if Tesla plays its cards right, the vehicle could become not just a top-selling electric car — it could very well be a fossil fuel car killer.
In true Tesla fashion, even the $35,000 Standard trim Model 3 is packed with features that are characteristic of the company. The base Model 3 has an estimated range of 220 miles per charge, a 0-60 mph time of 5.6 seconds, and a top speed of 130 mph. Just like Tesla’s less affordable vehicles, the base Model 3 is fitted advanced safety features, including eight cameras, forward radar, and 12 ultrasonic sensors enabling active safety technologies including collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking. Six front row airbags and two side curtain airbags are also fitted on the entry-level vehicle.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
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Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins
Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.
Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.
Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.
Cybercab will be on display in Asia this month!
Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/wGmmEastfX— Tesla Asia (@Tesla_Asia) September 4, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.
Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
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