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Tesla closing in on Lower Saxony, Germany as final Europe Gigafactory location: report

(Credit: Tesla)

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Recent reports have emerged stating that Tesla is closing in on finalizing the location of its European Gigafactory. According to local German media, Tesla is particularly interested in Emden and Emsland, both of which are located in Lower Saxony, as potential sites for Gigafactory 4.

The update was recently shared by a spokesman for Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann, who confirmed that the ministry had presented “potential locations” in Lower Saxony to Tesla executives. Prior to this, Tesla had reportedly approached the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economics with the aim of securing a site that was close to the coast. Both Emden and Emsland fit this criteria. 

Tesla’s intentions to establish a Gigafactory in Europe has been known for years. References to a Europe-based Tesla facility were initially teased by Elon Musk in late 2016, following the electric car maker’s acquisition of Grohmann Engineering. In June 2018, Musk noted on Twitter that Germany was the “leading choice” for Gigafactory 4’s location. “Perhaps on the German-French border makes sense, near the Benelux countries,” Musk explained. 

Lower Saxony has reportedly expressed its interest as a potential site for Tesla’s upcoming factory. Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann contacted CEO Elon Musk last September 2018 to highlight the advantages of Lower Saxony for the electric car maker. “A good location in the European transport network including port connections, a dynamic research landscape and renewable energies on the doorstep: Lower Saxony is one of the world’s top regions of the automotive industry, which is also Tesla known,” Althusmann said.

The details for Tesla’s upcoming European Gigafactory remain unknown for now, though the facility will likely involve the creation of 1,000 to 2,000 jobs, according to a Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ) report. “I would be delighted about the company’s commitment and the new jobs it will create in our country. We will continue to accompany Tesla’s search positively and promote Lower Saxony as an innovative automotive location,” Althusmann noted. 

Tesla has released updates on Gigafactory 4’s construction recently. During the second-quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk noted that the location of the European Gigafactory will be finalized before the end of the year. Tesla also appears to be expecting Gigafactory 4’s development to be quick, similar to the rapid progress of Gigafactory 3 in China. This was highlighted by Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn in a statement. 

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“With a continued focus on execution and cost management, the next 12 to 18 months should be the most exciting yet. During this time, we believe that Gigafactory Shanghai will be producing at scale. Model Y will be in production, addressing the most popular vehicle segment. Our European Gigafactory will be well underway,” he said during the earnings call.

H/T Alex Voight.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Tesla starts teasing and hyping groundbreaking Cybercab event

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Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.

Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.

The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:

The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.

However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.

Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.

Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.

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SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit

SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.

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SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.

Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.

The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.

SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’

Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.

Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.

The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.

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Tesla Cybercab Event: what to expect from Austin

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is set to launch Cybercab on Thursday at an event in Austin, Texas, which will officially bring the company’s first steering wheel-less and pedal-less vehicle to a limited number of consumers for the first time.

The event, which is invite-only, is still thin on details: we’ll be there, and it seems the event will be held at Gigafactory Texas, but the launch of this vehicle truly relies on it being operational outside of the factory and on public roads.

Nevertheless, there are some big things to expect, and other things to temper expectations on. For what it’s worth, we believe this event could be perhaps the biggest indication that Tesla is ready to truly enter a new phase and chapter in its historic story.

Tesla Cybercab’s First Foray into the Public with Real-World Riders

Cybercab will likely hit the streets of Austin and the surrounding areas, likely in the established geofence that Tesla has expanded on for the past 14 months. Just yesterday, Tesla expanded it once again by 9 percent.

Tesla will put, for the first time, a vehicle without any manual controls on public roads, likely without any help from teleoperators. This is a truly groundbreaking development if it comes through in this fashion: it would be groundbreaking for Tesla to roll out a truly driverless ride-hailing vehicle.

Cybercab Has Already Been Unveiled

This is not an unveiling event. Cybercab has been released for nearly two years, as Tesla first showed it to the public on October 10, 2024.

FIRST LOOK: Tesla ‘Cybercab’ Robotaxi makes its global debut

While there is some small speculation that Tesla could release the Roadster at the event as a surprise, it seems more likely the focus will be on the Cybercab and the huge accomplishment that will come with releasing a vehicle with no manual controls.

There Will Be a Lot of Hype

What’s important to remember about the Cybercab event is that Tesla will continue to prioritize safety and the rollout will likely be slow, just as it has been with Robotaxi.

One of the biggest complaints about Robotaxi is vehicle population, and the fact that the wait for a ride, at least in some instances, has been longer than most want to admit.

Tesla Cybercab fleet grows in Austin ahead of launch event

It will take time for this project to truly scale. It will take time for Tesla to roll this out in a large fashion. The important thing to note is that they are doing it, and they’re doing it with a vehicle that is completely engineered and built internally. That’s something no other ride-hailing service can say.

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