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Tesla forces Volkswagen CEO to act fast and avoid similar fate as Nokia
Will automotive giant Volkswagen have the same fate as Finnish cellphone manufacturer Nokia? VW CEO Herbert Diess says that the carmaker is heading that way if it doesn’t do anything soon and quickly.
Even for a tried and tested automotive brand such as Volkswagen, things can be overwhelming. Frightening, in fact, if its chief executive compares it to a once-dominant phone brand that was not able to keep up with the times.
Germany who wants to switch to greener vehicles and lower its emissions footprint implemented tighter rules following Volkswagen’s admission in 2015 that it cheated with emission tests. The “Dieselgate” problem though is just the tip of the iceberg. The carmaker has no choice but to comply with the stringent guidelines and needs to develop electric vehicles and this requires the company to revamp its assets, cut costs, and catch up with needed technologies.
“The big question is: Are we fast enough? If we continue at our current speed, it is going to be very tough. In summary, this is probably the most difficult challenge Volkswagen has ever faced,” Deiss told his senior managers during a global board meeting as reported by Reuters.
Last September, the environment committee of the European parliament pushed to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent from 2021 through 2030 and to have 20 percent quota of electric vehicles come 2025 and by 50 percent in 2030. If Volkswagen misses these quotas in 2021, PA Consulting firm estimates that Volkswagen might face a fine of as much as 4.5 billion euros.
Just like what Diess emphasized, it is not an easy task and the brand needs to improve its productivity and lower its costs. It’s a massive overhaul that will push the German carmaker to refocus so they can produce EVs and batteries to comply with set emission rules and while keeping profit margins.
Analysts from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie predicts that Volkswagen could be the biggest EV manufacturer by 2030, producing 14 to 16 million green cars. However, this will be a long shot since Volkswagen would need to take a 53 percent share of the global market for electric cars from now and through the next eight years. It also needs to produce about 57 percent of battery packs for EVs.
There’s another problem for Volkswagen. One that might force them to be a Nokia — Tesla.
Tesla has been pushing the right buttons across markets. It became the most valuable car brand in the world eclipsing other American automotive predecessors and has been converting naysayers to believers of late.
The Silicon Valley-based electric car manufacturer has set its foot on Volkwagen’s backyard. It’s moving fast to start building its Gigafactory 4 in Brandenburg that will produce 150,000 EVs initially and will eventually ramp up to 500,000 units per year. Once Model Ys and Model 3s roll out of GF4, it will surely bite a good chunk of Volkswagens market share in Germany and the rest of the region. Tesla would have thrown a ton of punches to knockdown (or knockout) Volkswagen and other German car brands before they even know it. Elon Musk and his team already have the technologies to dominate the EV market.
Likewise, Tesla has established a strong presence in China with its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai and the Chinese government has been pouring its support to Tesla, seeing the brand as a catalyst for the EV industry. Recently, Tesla was able to cut the price of locally-made Model 3s and the mass-produced sedan will most likely be a cash cow for Musk’s car brand. It has also pushed the gear to design Chinese-style Teslas, perhaps entry-level cars that it needs to even get a better share of the pie. And as the Tesla chief said, these cars will not be only for China but for the rest of the globe.
If Volkswagen doesn’t want to be a Nokia, it has to be smart and lightning-quick to catch and outplay Tesla in a game that the latter knows by heart. Volkswagen has no room to commit errors in the EV game. But for now, Tesla is in a very strong position and Deiss and the rest of his team can only look and scratch their heads.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
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Tesla AI team burns the Christmas midnight oil by releasing FSD v14.2.2.1
The update was released just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla is burning the midnight oil this Christmas, with the Tesla AI team quietly rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2.1 just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla owner shares insights on FSD v14.2.2.1
Longtime Tesla owner and FSD tester @BLKMDL3 shared some insights following several drives with FSD v14.2.2.1 in rainy Los Angeles conditions with standing water and faded lane lines. He reported zero steering hesitation or stutter, confident lane changes, and maneuvers executed with precision that evoked the performance of Tesla’s driverless Robotaxis in Austin.
Parking performance impressed, with most spots nailed perfectly, including tight, sharp turns, in single attempts without shaky steering. One minor offset happened only due to another vehicle that was parked over the line, which FSD accommodated by a few extra inches. In rain that typically erases road markings, FSD visualized lanes and turn lines better than humans, positioning itself flawlessly when entering new streets as well.
“Took it up a dark, wet, and twisty canyon road up and down the hill tonight and it went very well as to be expected. Stayed centered in the lane, kept speed well and gives a confidence inspiring steering feel where it handles these curvy roads better than the majority of human drivers,” the Tesla owner wrote in a post on X.
Tesla’s FSD v14.2.2 update
Just a day before FSD v14.2.2.1’s release, Tesla rolled out FSD v14.2.2, which was focused on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing. According to the update’s release notes, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures.
New Arrival Options also allowed users to select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the ideal spot. Other refinements include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and Speed Profiles for customized driving styles.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
