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Tesla-obsessed German automakers look to solve multi-year tech deficit
Tesla’s electric vehicle technology is head and shoulders above the rest of the industry. Now, German car companies who are chasing after them are trying to figure out how the multi-year lead Tesla maintains over other automotive companies can be reduced. CEOs are becoming more vocal about the Elon Musk-headed company’s dominance in the electric vehicle sector.
Perhaps the most prominent relationship between Tesla and a German car company lies within Volkswagen’s executives. VW chairman Herbert Diess is an outspoken fan of Elon Musk and has admired the work the South African Tesla frontman has done to combat the spread of dangerous greenhouse gases.
Despite the respect that Volkswagen has for Tesla and Musk, the German car company has admitted that they trail by at ten years. However, Volkswagen executives believe they can catch up.
“Tesla is an impressive manufacturer,” Volkswagen’s electromobility board member Thomas Ulbrich said. “It is a motivator for us. Tesla has ten years more experience. But we are very quick in catching up.”
Volkswagen has combated software woes throughout the development of its ID.3 electric car. These delays have inevitably slowed down Volkswagen’s chase after Tesla, but the company continues to transition some of its German production plants toward electric vehicle manufacturing.
Audi is another German car company that has looked at Tesla as the leader in EV development. This company has focused on its e-Tron EV as its transitionary vehicle. Still, its CEO, Markus Duesmann, has stated that improving combustion engine vehicles will be the main focus moving forward. Electrification can come later.
Duesmann does believe the gas-powered engines that Audi manufactures can be improved and become more sustainable. “They have to be great,” he said. But ultimately, reducing emissions and increasing sustainability and eco-friendly transportation starts with ditching fossil fuels in general.
Duesmann also recently admitted that Tesla has a two year lead in critical areas of the industry, and said that the electric automaker is not ahead in terms of lithium-ion battery technology.
Nevertheless, Tesla’s fleet of EVs continues to improve, while Audi’s focus relies on extending the development of gas and diesel-powered machines.
Finally, BMW is ready to battle Tesla with its rendition, an all-electric 5-series sedan. The company plans to have around five million fully-electric vehicles on the road by 2030, which would mean half a million EVs sold per year.
BMW wants to take a chunk out of Tesla’s market, just like the other two automakers. But BMW’s 5-Series is one of its most popular cars. It sold 350,000 units in 2019, according to Barron’s, and the company believes it could be the key to catching up to Tesla within the next few years.
Tesla has a future in Germany that could end up being bad news for the domestic automakers who continue to set up shop in the European country. With Giga Berlin set to begin producing 500,000 vehicles annually starting July 2021, Tesla could dominate the German market for years to come. Especially considering Tesla’s intentions to manufacture a “completely new battery” at the German plant, automakers in the country must remain on notice.
Giga Berlin has been one of Elon Musk’s main points of focus since announcing the company’s plans to open a facility in November. The announcement and subsequent developments of the Berlin facility may have surged the German car giants to begin paying a little more attention to the next phase of the business.
All indications point toward sustainable and eco-friendly cars being the focus of consumers for years to come. Adapting to and developing these cars takes plenty of time, and while German companies are getting started, the saying “better late than never” comes to mind.
News
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.
The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.
Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:
🚨 Tesla has officially moved the outright purchase option for FSD on its website pic.twitter.com/RZt1oIevB3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 15, 2026
There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.
Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.
Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.
Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.
Elon Musk
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.
Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.
The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.
The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.
Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”
That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.
X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.
SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”
The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.
News
Tesla pushes Full Self-Driving outright purchasing option back in one market
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
Tesla has pushed the opportunity to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright in one market: Australia.
The date remains February 14 in North America, but Tesla has pushed the date back to March 31, 2026, in Australia.
NEWS: Tesla is ending the option to buy FSD as a one-time outright purchase in Australia on March 31, 2026.
It still ends on Feb 14th in North America. https://t.co/qZBOztExVT pic.twitter.com/wmKRZPTf3r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 13, 2026
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
If you have already purchased the suite outright, you will not be required to subscribe once again, but once the outright purchase option is gone, drivers will be required to pay the monthly fee.
The reason for the adjustment is likely due to the short period of time the Full Self-Driving suite has been available in the country. In North America, it has been available for years.
Tesla hits major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions
However, Tesla just launched it just last year in Australia.
Full Self-Driving is currently available in seven countries: the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
The company has worked extensively for the past few years to launch the suite in Europe. It has not made it quite yet, but Tesla hopes to get it launched by the end of this year.
In North America, Tesla is only giving customers one more day to buy the suite outright before they will be committed to the subscription-based option for good.
The price is expected to go up as the capabilities improve, but there are no indications as to when Tesla will be doing that, nor what type of offering it plans to roll out for owners.
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
