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Tesla is primed for Formula E while its rivals are working in reverse
Tesla and Formula E: Will it ever happen? Probably not. At least, that’s what Elon Musk says, and he believes that production and scalability are more important. For the global EV scene, they certainly are, while professional motorsports are really just a trivial part of what Tesla does. While the company does build and create some of the fastest and highest-performing cars on Earth, it has no intentions of bringing them to a track or becoming a car company dedicated to winning shiny trophies. However, this didn’t stop other car companies from adopting different strategies.
Some companies, like BMW and Audi, for example, did their work in reverse. Years ago, when the Formula E Series became a real thing, these two companies were among the first to build a single-seat, all-electric powertrain that was extremely similar to the blazing fast F1 circuit. The only difference was that these new, sustainable racecars weren’t blaring loud motors for everyone to hear.
Instead of developing mass-market vehicles that would benefit the company in a multitude of ways, these automakers chose to work in reverse. Not focusing on building a reliable EV software infrastructure or production facilities to manufacture them in, German car companies went to their roots and focused o a few fast cars that would compete on the weekends at some of the toughest circuits in the world. But the problem is, they could have killed two birds with one stone by doing things in the correct order, which brings me to my next point: Tesla is already primed for Formula E, and it never had any intentions of competing.
A recent article from Bloomberg shows that BMW has decided to officially scrap its Formula E team at the end of this season, shifting its focus from racing and toward an intensifying EV market. The money it will save from not focusing on turning out fast laps at world-famous circuits will now be dedicated to developing EVs for consumers.
In the time that BMW has been racing in Formula E, it has only released one car: the i3, a boxy, widely unpopular car aesthetically. With plans to launch the iX, which it unveiled just last month, there are plenty of opportunities to establish a competitive lineup of all-electric cars in the future. But the focus has been all wrong from the start.
BMW didn’t have an overwhelmingly successful time in Formula E. Since it started racing in the series, which held its first race seasons ago, it has won only four races. But the company stated that it has “exhausted the opportunities to transfer Formula E’s pioneering racing technologies into passenger models.”
This is where the order of development may have been more advantageous for BMW. Now that their Formula E run is over, they have nothing to base passenger models off of, which pretty much puts them at square 1 if you take into account the i3 is not a widely popular or successful EV, to begin with.
This is where Tesla gains a real advantage in a hypothetical scenario where it would build cars for a racing series. Tesla has passenger vehicles now that could compete in several racing series, and other cars that actually have competed in racing forums like the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.
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For example, the Roadster is 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, has a quarter-mile acceleration of 8.8 seconds, and seats four people. The powertrain is already powerful enough to compete in some racing circuits, but if Tesla were to refine it slightly and build a new, more reliable chassis that would benefit racing scenarios, there is no reason that the Next-Gen Roadster wouldn’t be extremely competitive in some racing series.
The Model S Plaid is another example. It has broken multiple records, including one at the Nürburgring in Germany (which is unconfirmed) and the Laguna Seca Raceway in California. It already has the handling, speed, and downforce to take on tough tracks that are windy and difficult to maneuver. It would just take some minor refinements to make it a “racecar.”
This is where Tesla gains a significant advantage in its structure. It is irrelevant whether the company will actually race some of its cars or not, but it would be ready today if it chose to. Meanwhile, other car companies decided to build racecars first, and after seven years of R&D, they have nothing that would contribute to a highly-effective passenger car. It is like baking a cake before putting any of the ingredients together.
It doesn’t bode well for these foreign automakers, either. Unfortunately for them, Tesla is pulling away. Every day, it seems like the company is improving in range or performance or battery tech that makes its lead in the EV sector a little bit bigger than before. Now, it has four passenger cars on the road: Two sedans, a crossover, and an SUV. It has a Supercar on the way, a truck coming in the next year, a Semi that will be launched shortly. The list goes on and on, it seems, and if Tesla wanted to race a car this weekend and be competitive, it could.
It almost sounds like the priorities of these highly-complex German car companies were simply out of line. They chose to do the fun stuff first instead of focusing on the real task at hand: Getting gas cars off the road and putting electric ones on it. Instead of worrying about the issues surrounding the manufacturing processes of EVs, which took Tesla several years to figure out (and it is still a work in progress), BMW will be forced to make a full-scale commitment if it wants to be competitive within the next ten years. The decision it made could be detrimental to the future development of the company’s EV fleet. It certainly has its work cut out for it.
And if you’re wondering, Musk said Tesla would not get into racing. The big picture deals with manufacturing and scalability, and racing is really the last of the CEO’s concerns.
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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.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.
The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.
next month or so. the next tech to merge on the v15 plan will enable it.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 4, 2026
That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.
Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.
Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.
By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.
Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.
Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.
If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.
That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone
