Connect with us

News

Tesla’s Elon Musk visits Giga Berlin, hopes to begin production by end 2021

(Credit: elon.ai)

Published

on

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has landed in Germany for a “technical” visit to Giga Berlin, the European production facility Tesla plans to launch later this year. During an interview with local media, Musk stated that he hopes production can begin by the end of 2021.

According to Jörg Steinbach, the Minister of Economics, Labor, and Energy for the State of Brandenburg, his team was informed by Tesla directly last week that Musk would be visiting Germany on May 14th. This meeting didn’t take place, but Musk did arrive in Germany yesterday, May 16th, according to his plane tracker. Musk left London for Berlin Brandenburg Airport and arrived in Germany after a quick, 76-minute flight.

Steinbach said the nature of the visit is “mainly technical” and that Musk has not scheduled meetings with either him or Dietmar Woidke, who is Brandenburg’s Minister-President.

After visiting Giga Berlin on Monday, Musk indicated that he hopes the site will be ready for production by the end of 2021.

“It looks like we could start production at the end of the year,” Musk said. “You can only build cars when all the parts are in place.”

Musk has visited Germany on two previous occasions, with his first appearance being in September 2020 and the second in November, where he personally interviewed engineering applicants who desired to work at Giga Berlin. The factory has encountered exceptional support from local politicians, including Steinbach and Woidke. Steinbach recently confirmed to Teslarati that the rumored production delays until early 2022 were not accurate and that he expected Tesla to begin producing vehicles in Germany as early as late-Summer.

Advertisement

Tesla CEO Elon Musk receives rockstar welcome in first visit to Giga Berlin

Tesla’s application for Giga Berlin continues to work its way through the approval process. Local sources indicate that it could take anywhere from 3-5 years for Tesla to gain ultimate approval, but this will not prevent the automaker from producing its vehicles at the facility. Ultimately, the deliberate process that is utilized by politicians to approve a project gives the government plenty of time to examine all of the implications of allowing a massive industrial project to operate in the region. The chances for rejection are extremely slim, even though the process will take several years to be finalized.

Musk commented on the process during the interview at the Giga Berlin site today.

“I think it would be better if there was less bureaucracy. On the other hand,” Musk continued, “more and more rules accumulate over time, and in the end, you can’t do anything.”

Advertisement

Advertisement

Tesla recently added plans for a battery cell plant to the application, increasing its production rate for the new, less expensive, but more effective 4680 battery cells. Tesla will not build this factory in time for the initial production phase in a few months and will instead depend on cells from its Kato Road cell manufacturing plant in Northern California.

Tesla said it expects Giga Berlin to begin limited production by the end of the year in its Q1 2021 Earnings Call Update Letter. Volume production at the plant is expected to begin in 2022, the company said.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla intertwines FSD with in-house Insurance for attractive incentive

Every mile logged under FSD now carries a documented financial value—lower risk, lower cost—based on Tesla’s internal driving data rather than external crash statistics alone.

Published

on

tesla interior operating on full self driving
Credit: TESLARATI

Tesla intertwined its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite with its in-house Insurance initiative in an effort to offer an attractive incentive to drivers.

Tesla announced that its new Safety Score 3.0 will automatically have a perfect score of 100 with every mile driven with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) enabled.

The change is designed to boost customers’ average safety scores and deliver noticeably lower monthly premiums.

The move marks the clearest link yet between Tesla’s autonomous driving technology and its proprietary insurance product. Tesla Insurance already relies on real-time vehicle data—such as acceleration, braking, following distance, and speed—to calculate a Safety Score between 0 and 100. Higher scores have long translated into cheaper rates.

Advertisement

Under the previous system, however, even brief manual interventions could drag down the average, frustrating owners who rely heavily on FSD. Version 3.0 eliminates that penalty for supervised autonomous miles, effectively treating FSD-driven segments as the safest possible driving behavior.

The incentive is immediate and financial. Drivers who keep FSD engaged for the majority of their trips will see their overall score rise, potentially shaving hundreds of dollars off annual premiums.

Tesla framed the update as a direct response to customer feedback, many of whom had complained that the old scoring model punished the very behavior it was meant to encourage.

For now, the program applies only to new policies in six states: Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, and Illinois.

Advertisement

Existing policyholders are not yet included, a point that drew swift questions from the Tesla community. Many owners in other states, including California and Georgia, expressed hope that the benefit would expand nationwide soon.

The announcement arrives as Tesla continues to roll out FSD Supervised updates and push for regulatory approval of more advanced autonomy. By tying insurance savings directly to FSD usage, the company is putting its own actuarial weight behind the technology’s safety claims.

Every mile logged under FSD now carries a documented financial value—lower risk, lower cost—based on Tesla’s internal driving data rather than external crash statistics alone.

Tesla has not disclosed exact premium reductions or the full rollout timeline beyond the six launch states.

Advertisement

Still, the message is clear: the more drivers trust FSD Supervised, the more Tesla Insurance will reward them. In an era when legacy insurers remain cautious about autonomous tech, Tesla is betting that its own data will prove the safest miles are the ones driven hands-free.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla finalizes AI5 chip design, Elon Musk makes bold claim on capability

The Tesla CEO’s words mark a strategic shift. Tesla has long emphasized software-hardware co-design, squeezing maximum performance from every transistor. Musk previously described AI5 as optimized for edge inference in both Robotaxi and Optimus.

Published

on

Credit: Elon Musk | X

Tesla has finalized its chip design for AI5, as Elon Musk confirmed today that the new chip has reached the tape-out stage, the final step before mass production.

But in a brief reply on X, Musk clarified Tesla’s AI hardware roadmap, essentially confirming that the new chip will not be utilized for being “enough to achieve much better than human safety for FSD.”

He said that AI4 is enough to do that.

Instead, the AI5 chip will be focused on Tesla’s big-time projects for the future: Optimus and supercomputer clusters.

Advertisement

Musk thanked TSMC and Samsung for production support, noting that AI5 could become “one of the most produced AI chips ever.” Yet, the key pivot came in his direct answer: vehicles no longer need the bleeding-edge silicon.

Existing AI4 hardware, which is already deployed in hundreds of thousands of HW4-equipped Teslas, delivers safety metrics superior to human drivers for Full Self-Driving. AI5 will instead accelerate Optimus robot development and massive Dojo-style training clusters.

Advertisement

The Tesla CEO’s words mark a strategic shift. Tesla has long emphasized software-hardware co-design, squeezing maximum performance from every transistor. Musk previously described AI5 as optimized for edge inference in both Robotaxi and Optimus.

Now, with AI4 proving sufficient, the company avoids costly retrofits across its fleet while redirecting next-generation compute toward higher-value applications: dexterous robots and exponential training scale.

But is it reasonable to assume AI4 enables unsupervised self-driving? Yes, but with important caveats.

On the hardware side, the claim is credible. Tesla’s FSD stack runs end-to-end neural networks trained on billions of miles of real-world data. Internal safety data reportedly shows AI4-equipped vehicles already outperforming average human drivers by a significant margin in controlled metrics (collision avoidance, reaction time, edge-case handling).

Advertisement

Dual-redundant AI4 chips provide ample headroom for the driving task, leaving bandwidth for future model improvements without new silicon. Musk’s assertion aligns with Tesla’s pattern of over-provisioning compute early, then optimizing ruthlessly, exactly as HW3 once sufficed before HW4 scaled further.

Advertisement

Unsupervised autonomy, meaning Level 4 or higher, is not solely a compute problem. Regulatory approval remains the primary gate.

Even if AI4 achieves “much better than human” safety statistically, agencies like the NHTSA demand exhaustive validation, liability frameworks, and public trust.

Tesla’s supervised FSD has shown rapid gains in recent versions, yet real-world edge cases, like construction zones, emergency vehicles, and adverse weather, still require driver intervention in many jurisdictions. Competitors like Waymo operate limited unsupervised fleets, but only in geofenced areas with extensive mapping. Tesla’s vision-only, fleet-scale approach is more ambitious—and harder to certify globally.

In short, Musk’s post is both pragmatic and bullish. AI4 is likely capable of unsupervised FSD from a technical standpoint. Whether regulators and consumers agree, and how quickly, will determine if Tesla’s bet pays off.

Advertisement

The company’s capital-efficient path keeps existing cars relevant while pouring future compute into robots. If the safety data holds, unsupervised autonomy could arrive sooner than many expect.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk signals expansion of Tesla’s unique side business

Long envisioning the Tesla Diner as more than a charging stop, Musk has clearly adopted the idea that the Supercharger and Restaurant combo is a good thing for the company to have. It’s a blend of classic American drive-in culture with futuristic Tesla flair, complete with a 1950s-inspired design, movie screens, and on-site dining.

Published

on

tesla diner
Credit: Tesla

Elon Musk has signaled an expansion of Tesla’s unique side business, something that really has nothing to do with cars or spaceships, but fans of the company have truly adopted it as just another one of its awesome ventures.

Musk confirmed on Wednesday that Tesla would build a new Diner location in Palo Alto, Northern California. After hinting last October that it “probably makes sense to open one near our Giga Texas HQ in Austin and engineering HQ in Palo Alto,” it seems one of those locations is being set into motion.

Advertisement

Long envisioning the Tesla Diner as more than a charging stop, Musk has clearly adopted the idea that the Supercharger and Restaurant combo is a good thing for the company to have. It’s a blend of classic American drive-in culture with futuristic Tesla flair, complete with a 1950s-inspired design, movie screens, and on-site dining.

He first floated broader expansion plans shortly after the LA opening in July 2025, noting that if the prototype succeeded, Tesla would roll out similar venues in major cities worldwide and along long-distance Supercharger routes.

Earlier hints included a confirmed second site at Starbase in Texas, tied to SpaceX operations, underscoring the Diner’s role in enhancing Tesla’s ecosystem behind vehicles.

The Los Angeles location on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood has served as a high-profile test case. Opened in July 2025 at 7001 Santa Monica Blvd., it features the world’s largest urban Supercharging station with 80 V4 stalls open to all NACS-compatible EVs, over 250 dining seats, rooftop views, and 24/7 service.

Advertisement

The retro-futuristic building replaced a former Shakey’s and quickly became a destination. Tesla reported selling 50,000 burgers in the first 72 days—an average of over 700 daily—drawing crowds with Cybertruck-shaped packaging, breakfast extensions until 2 p.m., and movie screenings.

Palo Alto stands out as a logical next step for several reasons. As Tesla’s longstanding engineering headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley, the city is home to thousands of Tesla employees, engineers, and executives who could benefit from a convenient, branded gathering spot.

The area boasts high EV adoption rates, dense tech talent, and heavy traffic along key corridors, making a large Supercharger-diner an ideal fit for both daily commuters and long-haul travelers.

Proximity to Stanford University and the innovation ecosystem would amplify its appeal, potentially serving as a showcase for Tesla’s vision of integrated mobility and lifestyle experiences. It could be a great way for Tesla to recruit new talent from one of the country’s best universities.

Advertisement

If Tesla and Musk decide to move forward with a Palo Alto diner, it would build directly on the LA prototype’s momentum while addressing Musk’s earlier calls for expansion near core Tesla hubs.

Whether it materializes as a full confirmation or evolves from these hints remains to be seen, but the pattern is clear: Tesla is testing ways to make charging stops memorable. For EV drivers and enthusiasts alike, a Silicon Valley outpost could blend cutting-edge tech with nostalgic comfort, further embedding Tesla into everyday culture. As Musk’s comments suggest, the future of the Diner looks promising.

Continue Reading