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Tesla to explore the limits of casting with Cybercab line

Tesla expects to produce 2 million units of the Cybercab per year.

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Credit: @serobinsonjr/X

Tesla tends to push the limit of automotive manufacturing processes. This was true for the Model Y and its front and rear megacasts, and it will likely also be true for the Cybercab, which is expected to start volume production sometime in 2026.

This was, at least, as per CEO Elon Musk during the company’s Q1 2025 All-Hands meeting.

Cybercab Potential

While the Model Y and Model 3 are already high-volume vehicles, Tesla expects to produce vastly more Cybercabs per year. During the Q3 2024 earnings call, the CEO explained that Tesla is aiming to produce at least 2 million Cybercabs annually

At 2 million units per year, Musk noted that the Cybercab will be produced in more than one factory. In 2026, however, expectations are high that the Cybercab will be produced in Gigafactory Texas

One Cybercab every 5 Seconds

Tesla has highlighted in its Q4 2024 Update letter that the Cybercab will be produced using the company’s revolutionary “unboxed” process, which is optimized for speed and efficiency. Musk highlighted this during the Q1 2025 All-Hands meeting, when he stated that the Cybercab’s lines don’t even look like a regular automotive production line. 

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“We do want to scale up production to new heights obviously with the Cybercab. Cybercab is not just revolutionary car design. It’s also a revolutionary manufacturing process. So I guess we probably don’t talk about that enough, but if you’ve seen the design of the Cybercab line, it doesn’t look like a normal car manufacturing line. It looks like a really high-speed consumer electronics line. 

“In fact, the line will move so fast that that actually people can’t even get close to it. I think it’ll be able to produce a car ultimately in less than 5 seconds. Can you imagine a car coming off the line in less than 5 seconds? That’s like, ‘Whoa.’ Which means casting’s got to happen fast. I mean we got to jam the the liquid metal in and cool it down real fast,” Musk said.

The Limits of Casting

Hitting an insane target such as one Cybercab every 5 seconds would require Tesla to completely rethink vehicle production. During the All-Hands meeting, Musk noted that Tesla would probably require even larger casting machines that would be capable of producing multiple components at once. Overall, the CEO seemed excited about the idea, as he noted that it would be fun to see just how big casting machines could be.

“I guess maybe we need to just get even bigger casting machines? Sure why not, you know, I’m down. 50,000 tons. Cause then we could do like five at a time or something. I’m trying to think like how do you scale castings, because you got liquid metal, metal’s got to cool, and you’ve got to automate getting all the bits and pieces off the casting so it’s usable?

“And that’s actually kind of how they do it in small-volume castings. They have a casting block that’ll make, you know, 100 Matchbox cars at a time. Maybe we can just make that real big. I mean, we have the Cathedral of Castings back there. So yeah, let’s do that. I mean, let’s see what is the limit of physics of how big can a casting machine be. Let’s find out. I’m down. Let’s have some fun here, push the limits of technology,” Musk stated.

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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’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations

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tesla diner
Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.

The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.

Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:

On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.

Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.

Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand

Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings

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A red Tesla Roadster driving around a turn
(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.

Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to BloombergShares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.

Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.

However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.

S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.

Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue

Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.

Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.

At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.

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Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming

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Credit: Tesla | Model 3 Owner's Manual

Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.

On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.

NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.

Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.

Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix

In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.

The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.

It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.

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