News
Tesla China launches new ‘Special Handling Team’ after Shanghai Auto protest
Tesla is launching a new “Special Handling Team” in China to “meet the demands of car owners and strive to satisfy car owners while complying with laws and regulations.”
The creation of the Special Handling Team could be in response to a recent protest at the Shanghai Auto Show.
Yesterday, Teslarati reported that a woman who was at the Shanghai Auto Show event in China climbed on top of a Model 3. The woman was wearing a shirt with the Tesla logo and a phrase that said “Tesla brake failed me,” after claiming that the automaker’s braking systems were not operating correctly in her vehicle. She screamed at the perhaps thousands of people in attendance and was eventually removed from the vehicle by security at the event. Tesla said it “acknowledges sensible criticism,” but “it will not compromise to meet unreasonable claims,” according to the Global Times.
The Tesla Model Y is leading China’s electric SUV segment by a wide margin
The woman is spending five days with the police for her actions.
Now, Tesla is responding to the accusations by setting up a new Special Handling Team. The automaker announced the creation of the team in a post on its official Weibo account, along with a message to “customers, netizens, and friends from the media.” Tesla wrote:
“We apologize for failing to solve the problem of the car owner in time.
Today we listen to all kinds of voices from the media and the Internet as seriously as before. Tesla is grateful to all car owners, netizens and media friends for their trust and tolerance, and actively listens to the opinions and suggestions of customers, netizens and media friends. And criticism. In order to make up for the discomfort of car owners to the greatest extent and the adverse effects on their car experience and life and many other aspects, we are always willing to do our best to actively communicate with car owners, seek solutions with the most sincere attitude, and firmly fulfill our commitment to responsibility to the end.
Tesla respects and firmly obeys the decisions of relevant government departments, respects consumers, abides by laws and regulations, and resolutely actively cooperates with all investigations of relevant government departments.
To this end, we have set up a special handling team, dedicated to special handling, and strive to meet the demands of car owners and strive to satisfy car owners while complying with laws and regulations.
At the same time, we still earnestly hope that car owners can give us the opportunity to find better solutions to the problem, strive to achieve a multi-satisfactory result, and truly protect the rights of consumers.
Based on this experience, we will try our best to learn from the lessons, carefully summarize, and carry out strict self-examination and self-correction while cooperating with the investigation of relevant government departments, and sort out our own unreasonable problems and service processes that do not meet the service standards. And rectify and reform, and strive to achieve immediate inspection and reform, immediate inspection and reform, so as to respect consumers and respect the market.
We will continue to listen to customer feedback, continue to optimize customer experience, and continue to serve every customer well.
I once again apologize to the owner and thank you for your tolerance and understanding.”
Tesla, like every car company in the world, experiences some quality issues from time to time. With Tesla being such a mainstream, current topic because of its CEO Elon Musk and the company’s influence on the global automotive market, mistakes or controversies that involve the company are often magnified by media. However, Tesla has improved significantly on its quality via refinements and manufacturing adjustments through the years, and the company recently was listed in China as the carmaker with the least number of complaints on its vehicles.
The creation of a new Special Handling Team could reduce or even eliminate some of the quality issues that come with mass-manufacturing vehicles.
News
Tesla Model Y Standard Long Range RWD launches in Europe
The update was announced by Tesla Europe & Middle East in a post on its official social media account on X.
Tesla has expanded the Model Y lineup in Europe with the introduction of the Standard Long Range RWD variant, which offers an impressive 657 km of WLTP range.
The update was announced by Tesla Europe & Middle East in a post on its official social media account on X.
Model Y Standard Long Range RWD Details
Tesla Europe & Middle East highlighted some of the Model Y Standard Long Range RWD’s most notable specs, from its 657 km of WLTP range to its 2,118 liters of cargo volume. More importantly, Tesla also noted that the newly released variant only consumes 12.7 kWh per 100 km, making it the most efficient Model Y to date.
The Model Y Standard provides a lower entry point for consumers who wish to enter the Tesla ecosystem at the lowest possible price. While the Model 3 Standard is still more affordable, some consumers might prefer the Model Y Standard due to its larger size and crossover form factor. The fact that the Model Y Standard is equipped with Tesla’s AI4 computer also makes it ready for FSD’s eventual rollout to the region.
Top Gear’s Model Y Standard review
Top Gear‘s recent review of the Tesla Model Y Standard highlighted some of the vehicle’s most notable features, such as its impressive real-world range, stellar infotainment system, and spacious interior. As per the publication, the Model Y Standard still retains a lot of what makes Tesla’s vehicles well-rounded, even if it’s been equipped with a simplified interior.
Top Gear compared the Model Y Standard to its rivals in the same segment. “The introduction of the Standard trim brings the Model Y in line with the entry price of most of its closest competition. In fact, it’s actually cheaper than a Peugeot e-3008 and costs £5k less than an entry-level Audi Q4 e-tron. It also makes the Ford Mustang Mach-E look a little short with its higher entry price and worse range,” the publication wrote.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI bets $20B on Mississippi with 2GW AI data center project
The project is expected to create hundreds of permanent jobs, dramatically expand xAI’s computing capacity, and further cement the Mid-South as a growing hub for AI infrastructure.
Elon Musk’s xAI plans to pour more than $20 billion into a massive new data center campus in Southaven, Mississippi, marking the largest single economic development project in the state’s history.
The project is expected to create hundreds of permanent jobs, dramatically expand xAI’s computing capacity, and further cement the Mid-South as a growing hub for AI infrastructure.
xAI goes MACROHARDRR in Mississippi
xAI has acquired and is retrofitting an existing facility in Southaven to serve as a new data center, which will be known as “MACROHARDRR.” The site sits near a recently acquired power plant and close to one of xAI’s existing data centers in Tennessee, creating a regional cluster designed to support large-scale AI training and inference.
Once completed, the Southaven facility is expected to push the company’s total computing capacity to nearly 2 GW, placing it among the most powerful AI compute installations globally. The data center is scheduled to begin operations in February 2026.
Gov. Tate Reeves shared his optimism about the project in a press release. “This record-shattering $20 billion investment is an amazing start to what is sure to be another incredible year for economic development in Mississippi. Today, Elon Musk is bringing xAI to DeSoto County, a project that will transform the region and bring amazing opportunities to its residents for generations. This is the largest economic development project in Mississippi’s history,” he said.
xAI’s broader AI ambitions
To secure the investment, the Mississippi Development Authority approved xAI for its Data Center Incentive program, which provides sales and use tax exemptions on eligible computing hardware and software. The City of Southaven and DeSoto County are also supporting the project through fee-in-lieu agreements aimed at accelerating development timelines and reducing upfront costs.
Founded in 2023 by Elon Musk, xAI develops advanced artificial intelligence systems focused on large-scale reasoning and generative applications. Its flagship product, Grok, is integrated with the social media platform X, alongside a growing suite of APIs for image generation, voice, and autonomous agents, including offerings tailored for government use.
Elon Musk highlighted xAi’s growth and momentum in a comment about the matter. “xAI is scaling at an immeasurable pace — we are building our third massive data center in the greater Memphis area. MACROHARDRR pushes our Colossus training compute to ~2GW – by far the most powerful AI system on Earth. This is insane execution speed by xAI and the state of Mississippi. We are grateful to Governor Reeves for his support of building xAI at warp speed,” Musk said.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, says that something that was expected with version 14.3 of the company’s Full Self-Driving platform has already partially shipped with the current build of version 14.2.
Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have teased on several occasions that reasoning will be a big piece of future Full Self-Driving builds, helping bring forth the “sentient” narrative that the company has pushed for these more advanced FSD versions.
Back in October on the Q3 Earnings Call, Musk said:
“With reasoning, it’s literally going to think about which parking spot to pick. It’ll drop you off at the entrance of the store, then go find a parking spot. It’s going to spot empty spots much better than a human. It’s going to use reasoning to solve things.”
Musk said in the same month:
“By v14.3, your car will feel like it is sentient.”
Amazingly, Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.2.2, which is the most recent iteration released, is very close to this sentient feeling. However, there are more things that need to be improved, and logic appears to be in the future plans to help with decision-making in general, alongside other refinements and features.
On Thursday evening, Elluswamy revealed that some of the reasoning features have already been rolled out, confirming that it has been added to navigation route changes during construction, as well as with parking options.
He added that “more and more reasoning will ship in Q1.”
🚨 Tesla’s Ashok Elluswamy reveals Nav decisions when encountering construction and parking options contain “some elements of reasoning”
More uses of reasoning will be shipped later this quarter, a big tidbit of info as we wait v14.3 https://t.co/jty8llgsKM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 9, 2026
Interestingly, parking improvements were hinted at being added in the initial rollout of v14.2 several months ago. These had not rolled out to vehicles quite yet, as they were listed under the future improvements portion of the release notes, but it appears things have already started to make their way to cars in a limited fashion.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 – Full Review, the Good and the Bad
As reasoning is more involved in more of the Full Self-Driving suite, it is likely we will see cars make better decisions in terms of routing and navigation, which is a big complaint of many owners (including me).
Additionally, the operation as a whole should be smoother and more comfortable to owners, which is hard to believe considering how good it is already. Nevertheless, there are absolutely improvements that need to be made before Tesla can introduce completely unsupervised FSD.
Tesla Model Y Standard Long Range RWD launches in Europe
Elon Musk’s xAI bets $20B on Mississippi with 2GW AI data center project
