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Tesla’s Elon Musk will be hosting an AI hackathon party at his house
Elon Musk announced that Tesla will be hosting an AI hackathon, together with the company’s artificial intelligence and autopilot team, at his house in four weeks’ time.
The Tesla chief announced his plans via Twitter on Sunday. Despite impressive numbers revealed during the Q4 2019 earnings call and update, Musk and his Tesla team are not resting on their laurels and remain focused on pursuing advancements to its neural network, which is in the center of Tesla’s goal of achieving a full self-driving vehicle.
During the recent Q4 earnings call, an investor asked the Tesla chief executive for updates on FSD.
“I think that’s looking like maybe it’s going to be couple of months from now. And what isn’t obvious regarding Autopilot and Full Self-Driving is just how much work has been going into improving the foundational elements of autonomy,” Musk said.
Tesla will hold a super fun AI party/hackathon at my house with the Tesla AI/autopilot team in about four weeks. Invitations going out soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2020
Musk continued to explain how the Tesla team is making great strides in labeling efficiency.
“…in terms of labeling, labeling with video in all eight cameras simultaneously. This is a really, I mean in terms of labeling efficiency, arguably like a three order of magnitude improvement in labeling efficiency. For those who know about this, it’s extremely fundamental, so that’s really great progress on that,” Musk said.
Tesla vehicles rely on a custom chip that boasts of 144 tera operations per second (TOPS) for its self-driving capabilities. This two-chip FSD computer works in tandem with LPDDR4 RAM modules that come with a peak bandwidth of 68 GB/s. There are also two neural network accelerators that work in tandem to process as much as 1TB of data per second. This setup is roughly three times faster, about 80%, and about 1.25 times more power-efficient than the previous hardware. It is also able to process about 2,300 frames per second compared to the 110 frames per second processed by Tesla’s Hardware 2.5.
In his series of tweets on Sunday, Musk also mentioned Tesla’s “Dojo” supercomputer, which is speculated to be capable of processing vast amounts of data to train the company’s neural network. Through active learning, Tesla curates the most useful video clips from its fleet of connected cars and train the neural net to recognize things that it did not previously know.
“Our networks learn from the most complicated and diverse scenarios in the world, iteratively sourced from our fleet of nearly 1M vehicles in real-time. A full build of Autopilot neural networks involves 48 networks that take 70,000 GPU hours to train. Together, they output 1,000 distinct tensors (predictions) at each timestep,” Tesla wrote on the Autopilot AI section of its website.
“At Tesla, using AI to solve self-driving isn’t just icing on the cake, it the cake” – @lexfridman
Join AI at Tesla! It reports directly to me & we meet/email/text almost every day. My actions, not just words, show how critically I view (benign) AI.https://t.co/iF97zvYZRz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2020
The last major software update rolled out by Tesla allowed its vehicles to visualize more things while driving in inner-city streets. Teslas now render stoplights, stop signs, traffic cones, traffic pylons, and more.
With the upcoming AI hackathon, Tesla will get together with developers to seek out more efficient algorithms and overall improvements to the core logic for its Full Self-Driving suite through a time-boxed event. With fresh eyes working with the existing AI and autopilot team of Tesla, the carmaker may be able to accelerate the timeline and rollout of its full-featured Full Self-Driving suite sooner.
Further advances in FSD and its Autopilot feature will widen the gap between Tesla and its competitors and solidify the company’s position as one of the leading automakers in the world. These improvements will also take Tesla a step closer to the possibility of Robotaxis that they can deploy at scale.
The hackathon will also allow Tesla to fish for new AI talents to join the team. On Sunday, Musk also mentioned that the electric carmaker is looking for world-class chip designers and C++/C engineers for vehicle control and other functions of Tesla vehicles.
Musk reiterated that educational attainment is not important when joining Tesla but rather a clear understanding of how AI and neural networks function and the ability to build useful applications using that knowledge.
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Tesla Diner to transition to full-service restaurant as Chef heads for new venture
“I am leaving the Tesla Diner project to focus on the opening of Mish, my long-desired Jewish deli. Projects like Mish and the Tesla Diner require a sharpness of focus and attention, and my focus and attention is now squarely on Mish.”
Tesla Diner, the all-in-one Supercharging and dining experience located in Los Angeles, will transition to a full-service restaurant in January, staff said, as Chef Eric Greenspan said he would take on a new project.
A report from the Los Angeles Times says Greenspan confirmed through a text that he would leave the Diner and focus on the opening of his new Jewish deli, Mish.
Greenspan confirmed to the paper:
“I am leaving the Tesla Diner project to focus on the opening of Mish, my long-desired Jewish deli. Projects like Mish and the Tesla Diner require a sharpness of focus and attention, and my focus and attention is now squarely on Mish.”
Greenspan took on the job at the Tesla Diner and curated the menu back in March, focusing on locally-sourced ingredients and items that would play on various company products, like Cybertruck-shaped boxes that hold burgers.
Tesla Cybertruck leftovers are the main course at the Supercharger Diner
The Tesla Diner has operated as somewhat of a self-serve establishment, where Tesla owners can order directly from their vehicles through the center touchscreen. It was not exclusive to Tesla owners. Guests could also enter and order at a counter, and pick up their food, before sitting at a booth or table.
However, the report indicates Tesla is planning to push it toward a sit-down restaurant, full of waiters, waitresses, and servers, all of which will come to a table after you are seated, take your order, and serve your food.
It will be more of a full-featured restaurant experience moving forward, which is an interesting move from the company, but it also sounds as if it could be testing for an expansion.
We know that Tesla is already considering expanding locations, as it will be heading to new areas of the country. CEO Elon Musk has said that Tesla will be considering locations in Palo Alto near the company’s Engineering HQ, and in Austin, where its HQ and Gigafactory Texas are located.
Musk said that the Diner has been very successful in its first few months of operation.
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Tesla adds new surprising fee to Robotaxi program
“Additional cleaning was required for the vehicle after your trip. A fee has been added to your final cost to cover this service. Please contact us if you have any questions.”
Tesla has added a new and somewhat surprising fee to the Robotaxi program. It’s only surprising because it was never there before.
Tesla shocked everyone when it launched its Robotaxi platform and offered riders the opportunity to tip, only to tell them they do not accept tips. It was one of the company’s attempts at being humorous as it rolled out its driverless platform to people in Austin.
As it has expanded to new cities and been opened to more people, as it was yesterday to iOS users, Tesla has had to tweak some of the minor details of the Robotaxi and ride-hailing platforms it operates.
First Look at Tesla’s Robotaxi App: features, design, and more
With more riders, more vehicles, and more operational jurisdictions, the company has to adjust as things become busier.
Now, it is adjusting the platform by adding “Cleaning Fees” to the Robotaxi platform, but it seems it is only charged if the vehicle requires some additional attention after your ride.
The app will communicate with the rider with the following message (via Not a Tesla App):
“Additional cleaning was required for the vehicle after your trip. A fee has been added to your final cost to cover this service. Please contact us if you have any questions.”
The cost of the cleaning will likely depend on how severe the mess is. If you spill a soda, it will likely cost less than if you lose your lunch in the back of the car because you had a few too many drinks.
This is an expected change, and it seems to be one that is needed, especially considering Tesla is operating a small-scale ride-hailing service at the current time. As it expands to more states and cities and eventually is available everywhere, there will be more situations that will arise.
The messes in vehicles are not a new situation, especially in a rideshare setting. It will be interesting to see if Tesla will enable other fees, like ones for riders who request a ride and do not show up for it.
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Tesla Model Y sold out in China for 2025
Customers who wish to get their cars by the end of the year would likely need to get an inventory unit.
It appears that the Model Y has been sold out for 2025 in China. This seems to be true for the four variants of the vehicle that are currently offered in the country.
Tesla China’s order page update
A look at Tesla China’s order page for the Model Y shows a message informing customers that those who wish to guarantee delivery by the end of the year should purchase an inventory unit. This was despite the Model Y RWD and Model Y L showing an estimated delivery timeline of 4-8 weeks, and the Model Y Long Range RWD and Model Y Long Range AWD showing 4-13 weeks.
As per industry watchers, these updates on the Model Y’s order page suggest that Tesla China’s sales capacity for the remainder of 2025 has been sold out. The fact that estimated delivery timeframes for the Model Y Long Range RWD and AWD extend up to 13 weeks also bodes well for demand for the vehicle, especially given strong rivals like the Xiaomi YU7, which undercuts the Model Y in price.
Tesla China’s upcoming big updates
What is quite interesting is that Tesla China is still competing in the country with one hand partly tied behind its back. So far, Tesla has only been able to secure partial approval for its flagship self-driving software, FSD, in China. This has resulted in V14 not being rolled out to the country yet. Despite this, Tesla China’s “Autopilot automatic assisted driving on urban roads,” as the system is called locally, has earned positive reviews from users.
As per Elon Musk during the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting, however, Tesla is expecting to secure full approval for FSD in China in early 2026. “We have partial approval in China, and we hopefully will have full approval in China around February or March or so. That’s what they’ve told us,” Musk said.
Tesla Diner to transition to full-service restaurant as Chef heads for new venture
Tesla adds new surprising fee to Robotaxi program
