Investor's Corner
Tesla ends Q4 2018 with a flourish, passes 190k total Model 3 VIN registrations
Tesla started 2018 as an electric car maker struggling to ramp the production of its most ambitious vehicle. As Q4 2018 comes to a close, it is becoming apparent that Tesla is closing the year as a carmaker that can hold its own against the veterans of the hyper-competitive auto industry. Seemingly as a final flourish to an otherwise historic 2018, Tesla has registered what could very well be its final large batch of Model 3 VINs for the quarter, breaching the 190,000 barrier for filings of the electric sedan.
#Tesla registered 3,569 new #Model3 VINs. ~52% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 193556. https://t.co/ezA2Bas4Kh
— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) December 30, 2018
Twitter group @Model3VINs, which tracks registrations for the electric sedan, recently reported that Tesla filed a rather large batch of 3,569 vehicles, comprised of both Dual Motor and RWD units. With this latest batch, Tesla has broken the 190,000 mark in total Model 3 filings to date. Among this number, more than 75,000 were registered in the fourth quarter alone. As noted by this graph provided by the Model 3 VIN tracking group, the Q4 2018 is characterized by a massive influx of RWD filings, possibly as a result of the introduction, production, and deliveries of the Mid Range Model 3.
To keep the company’s Q4 Model 3 VIN registrations in perspective, it should be noted that Tesla was only able to breach the 75,000 mark back in mid-July, roughly a year since starting the production of the vehicle. For a company that encountered hiccups with the Model 3 ramp, being able to register 12 months worth of cars in the past 90 days is impressive.
Tesla’s Model 3 VIN registrations for the fourth quarter comes amidst reports that the company has reached a point where it is capable of producing 1,000 units of the electric sedan every day. As reflected by an alleged leaked email from Elon Musk late last month, as well as by social media posts from Tesla employees in the days and weeks after, it appears that the company’s Model 3 output continues to improve.
https://twitter.com/VickiSalvador/status/1074397006318120960
With Tesla at a point where it is capable of sustained levels of Model 3 production, the company is now starting to lay the foundations for the electric sedan’s international ramp in 2019. In Europe, for one, reports have emerged pointing to Tesla shipping 3,000 Model 3 per week starting in February. Deliveries of the Model 3 in China are also expected to begin within the next few months.
At the core of the Model 3, though, lies the vehicle and its demand. In several key regions such as the United States, after all, the Model 3 competes in a market that widely prefers SUVs and larger vehicles. Nevertheless, as the electric sedan’s sales in the US and Canada have shown so far, the Model 3 is capable of standing out despite being a passenger car in an SUV dominated region.
As the Model 3 prepares to breach the foreign markets, Wall Street analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities noted that demand for the vehicle would likely be strong in 2019. According to the analyst, the demand for the car in regions such as Europe — which still have notable passenger car markets — would likely reduce Tesla’s need to raise capital in the near future.
“Demand for Tesla’s Model 3 mid-size electric sedan looks very strong into 2019 and beyond. While there are worries that some European unit shipments might spill over into Q2 and out of Q1, we believe the Street is well aware of this potential timing dynamic as underlying pent-up demand looks robust on this new European frontier for Musk & Co heading into 2019, with China also a major growth catalyst on the heels of recent price cuts,” the analyst wrote.
As a cherry on top for the already successful vehicle, the Model 3 recently received the 2018 Car of the Year award from The Detroit News, with longtime gearhead Henry Payne stating that the electric sedan is “Apple on wheels.”
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.
Featured
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.
Tesla ruined other cars for me: one year Model Y ownership review
Elon Musk rips ABC News over fatal NYC Tesla crash report
