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Tesla is considering a significant expansion of its Fremont Factory
Tesla’s Fremont Factory could have its production capacity increased, according to CEO Elon Musk. Tesla is “considering expanding [Fremont] significantly,” Musk said in a Tweet last night.
Following Musk’s heavily publicized jab at President Joe Biden on Tuesday night for not mentioning Tesla in the State of the Union Speech with the likes of Ford and GM, who received Biden’s praise for electric vehicle projects resulting in employment opportunities. While Biden commended Ford for $11 billion invested and 11,000 new jobs and GM for $7 billion and 4,000 new employment opportunities in Michigan, Musk hit back with a valid point.
“Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined,” he said, alerting “the person running this account” to give Tesla more credit.
While Biden finally gave Tesla its praise last month, more public figures are called for the President to give the automaker credit. Former Kiss bassist and co-lead singer Gene Simmons said, “Actually, @elonmusk makes a solid point to Pres @JoeBiden. The President doesn’t mention Tesla, perhaps because Tesla is non-union and moved to Texas, a “right to work” state. Give Elon Musk/Tesla its due. They are game changers and should be heralded.”
Musk clarified Simmons’ comment, stating that Tesla still operates its Fremont facility in Northern California. Tesla did move its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas, late last year. In California, Tesla produces all four of its current vehicles, and the plant has been responsible for handling all demand in North America for several years. The Model S and Model X are also shipped from this plant globally, as Gigafactory Shanghai in China, Tesla’s other active manufacturing plant only produces builds of the Model 3 and Model Y.
Actually, we still operate our California factory, which is the largest auto plant in North America, at full capacity and are considering expanding it significantly.
It has built 2/3 of all electric vehicles in North America, twice as much as all other carmakers combined.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 3, 2022
Musk said that Tesla is considering an expansion of the Fremont Facility, which has 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space already. However, Fremont is responsible for such a substantial piece of Tesla’s manufacturing footprint, that the automaker may need to expand operations at the plant to keep up with demand. While the Texas factory is set to begin deliveries soon and Gigafactory Berlin is rumored to be receiving final approval tomorrow, production at both factories could begin before the end of the quarter. Gigafactory Shanghai is also expected to have its capacity doubled, adding to Tesla’s considerable additions to its manufacturing output
Tesla says its current production output for Fremont is 600,000 vehicles annually: 500,000 Model 3 and Model Y with 100,000 Model S and Model X.
Nevertheless, Tesla will still need more facilities and more manufacturing space. In Fremont over the past several years, Tesla has expanded production lines and made some temporary manufacturing spaces permanent. Tesla’s Sprung Structure, which contained General Assembly line 4.5, was made permanent last Summer, according to filings found by Teslarati.
“This is the final straw,” or is it?
In May 2020, Musk stated that Tesla will move its Headquarters to Texas and its future programs to Texas and Nevada immediately. Unhappy with the treatment at the time, Tesla was working to reopen the factory when the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting businesses nationwide. Musk stated a potential lawsuit against Alameda County would be filed if Tesla’s Northern California facility was not allowed to reopen. Musk said Tesla would move its operations. “If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all,” Musk said, “it will be dependent on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.”
Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2020
Several months later, Musk said that Tesla’s headquarters would remain in California “for the short term.” About fifteen months later, Tesla moved its HQ to Austin.
Evidently, Musk plans to keep Fremont in Tesla’s manufacturing plans and may expand the factory altogether. Interestingly, although Fremont has been a ramped factory for several years and produces all four vehicle models, it contributed less to Tesla’s 2021 delivery figures. Gigafactory Shanghai was responsible for 51.7 percent of all deliveries for Tesla last year, outpacing the Fremont factory.
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For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
