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Tesla gets green light from German court to resume clearing operations at Giga Berlin site

Credit: Emil Senkel

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Tesla takes a step closer to laying the first brick of its first Gigafactory in Europe as a German court ruled that the electric carmaker can resume clearing trees at the forest where it plans to build Giga Berlin.

The Berlin-Brandenburg court gave Tesla the green light to continue its work, noting that Brandenburg authorities did not violate laws and did not take any shortcuts when they allowed work to begin in Grunheide.

State authorities gave Tesla the initial go signal to clear about 90 hectares of land that will be used for the first phase of Giga Berlin. On Feb. 15 the clearing operation was halted after a complaint was filed by environmental group Gruene Liga Brandenburg that voiced concerns on the local water supply. The group also appealed that the carmaker must not clear trees until after March 5 when the deadline was set for the community and concerned groups to comment about Tesla’s project.

The favorable decision of the court would help Tesla keep to a proposed timeline to begin construction by mid-March. An unfavorable decision would have delayed construction by six to nine months and risk plans to vehicle production slated for July 2021. Tesla aims to produce 10,000 Model Y crossovers per week and expected to create 12,000 job opportunities for Germany and nearby countries.

The ruling was seen as a positive development by state Economics Minister Jorg Steinbach. “We are very pleased to see the verdict,” Steinbach said.

Tesla tried to address concerns of local residents and environmental groups in Grunheide by opening a community center where it held talks to inform locals that the carmaker is taking all the necessary steps to take care of the environment such as replanting trees three times the number it would cut and relocating wildlife as necessary.

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Amid environmental protests, Tesla has won the heightened support of the economic minister and industry leaders who all called for faster review processes in Germany so as not to delay big projects such as Tesla. They warned that such long delays may weaken the appeal of Germany to investors.

German government’s Green Party also voiced out displeasure with the complaints lodged by the environmental groups.

You don’t always have to be against everything,” Green Party member and Berlin’s deputy governing mayor Ramona Pop said.

A curious soul who keeps wondering how Elon Musk, Tesla, electric cars, and clean energy technologies will shape the future, or do we really need to escape to Mars.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving will now overtake manual driving to avoid disaster

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is beginning to roll out Full Self-Driving Supervised v14.3.9 with a new active safety layer that can take control even when the driver is operating the car manually.

Tesla AI said the software can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when an imminent collision is detected and Automatic Emergency Braking may not be enough. It may also engage if the system detects heavy distraction or an accidental FSD disengagement.

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The capability is essentially Automatic Collision Evasion. However, unlike conventional AEB, which mainly applies the brakes in a straight line, this feature can use steering, braking, and acceleration together if the car calculates that stopping alone will not prevent impact and a safer path exists. The system may change lanes or move toward a shoulder when conditions allow, then continue driving after the immediate threat is handled rather than simply coming to a stop.

The intervention is meant as a last-resort safety net, not a replacement for attentive driving.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 early review: FSD saved me from an accident

Tesla’s own description still frames FSD as supervised assistance. Secondary reports on internal release notes say the feature can fire while the car is being driven manually if cabin-camera monitoring suggests the driver is not sufficiently attentive, such as reaching toward the back seat, or if FSD appears to have been turned off unintentionally.

After the emergency maneuver, the car is expected to alert the driver and request a return to manual control.

The safety case is straightforward. Many collisions happen in the last second because a driver is looking away, fumbles a control, or faces an obstacle that braking cannot fully solve. A system that can both recognize that AEB is insufficient and execute a coordinated evasive path can reduce those remaining high-severity events.

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Re-engaging after accidental disengagement also addresses a practical failure mode: a small steering nudge that drops FSD at the worst moment. The advantage is a background safety net that uses the same vision stack already running in v14, instead of leaving the car solely to emergency braking once the driver is no longer in command.

The feature still depends on FSD being enabled and, according to reports, an active FSD purchase or subscription. It does not make the vehicle unsupervised. Drivers remain responsible, and Tesla has not published how often the system is expected to intervene or how it will handle false positives.

If the rollout is conservative and the false-alarm rate stays low, the update is a meaningful step: FSD is no longer only a feature the driver turns on. In the rare moments when disaster is already forming, it can step in.

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Tesla Cybercab launch catches NHTSA’s attention who wants to know more

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(Credit: Teslarati)

Tesla launched the all-electric, steering wheel-less, and pedal-less Cybercab last night at a quiet and small event in downtown Austin, Texas.

The launch, which marked the beginning of unsupervised ride-hailing for Tesla’s Robotaxi platform with Cybercab, has already caught the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) who has more questions.

NHTSA opened an Audit Query (AQ) into the Cybercab’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) certification that Tesla gave the vehicle. Manufacturers self-certify vehicles much of the time to avoid excessive regulatory delays.

Tesla Cybercab interior, note the lack of steering wheel and pedals. (Credit: @niccruzpatane/X< /a>)

However, the agency needs more information; it said in a summary:

“On September 3, 2026, Tesla began commercial deployment with a small number of its Cybercab vehicles in Austin, Texas. Tesla notified the Agency that it certified those Cybercab vehicles as compliant with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Tesla also notified the Agency that it plans to gradually expand commercial deployment of the Cybercab to include additional vehicles and locations.”

It also went on to state that the Cybercab lacks traditional automotive controls, which is a groundbreaking move. The process is entirely new to the NHTSA, which gives the agency some leverage to put Tesla’s launch under a microscope:

“The vehicles lack permanently attached, conventional manual controls, such as a brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel, and mirrors. NHTSA is opening this AQ to examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues. Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the Cybercab.”

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Tesla has added 45 Cybercab units to its fleet of Robotaxi-enabled cars in Austin, according to public documents the company submitted to the State of Texas over the past week. Enabling this level of self-driving is something Tesla has worked toward for many years, and now that it is finally here, it seems more than reasonable that regulatory agencies will have some questions.

Many outlets might try to frame this as a negative, but it is truly an agency looking to gain more information about groundbreaking tech that Tesla has been developing for years.

In an effort to keep riders, pedestrians, and property safe, any and all data accumulated from these first days, weeks, and months of rides will likely be shared with the NHTSA to enable broader rollout strategies across the United States and more in the future.

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Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins

Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.

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Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok
Concept image of Tesla Cybercab in the streets of Hong Kong via Grok

Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.

Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.

The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.

Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.

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