News
Tesla Giga Berlin employees bid farewell to ‘Mister Gigafactory’
Tesla employees that are working at the company’s Giga Berlin project in Germany are bidding farewell to Evan Horetsky, the company’s manager for the site.
Tesla reportedly relieved Giga Berlin Horetsky from his position on Thursday. The reasons for his dismissal are currently unknown.
However, last week, Tesla’s Global Supply Manager of Construction, Michaela Schmitz, was already saying her goodbyes to Horetsky. “it was my honor to work for and with you. We will finish it for you, Giga Meister. Take care!!” she said on one of Horetsky’s LinkedIn posts.
According to Rbb24, a German media site, people close to the Giga Berlin project stated that Horetsky was relieved of his duties. Some are speculating it is because of the water bill fiasco that took place last week.
However, Schmitz’s post was published on Horetsky’s LinkedIn before the water bill issue took place. This indicates that Horetsky may have been let go before the water was shut off at the construction site, and could be an indication of why the bill wasn’t paid.
Teslarati reported the rumors of a water shutoff at the Giga Berlin site. However, the water was still seen running normally, and the project never halted, local sources said.
I was at the GIGABERLIN at 17:00 pm
and could see that the cement mixing plant was still working and cement transporters were cleaned, WITH WATER.
it looks like the water is running.!!!! pic.twitter.com/LYLdHZ9g0Z— Gigafactory Berlin News (@Gf4Tesla) October 15, 2020
However, the report from Rbb24 says that the Strausberg Erkner water association did have a past due amount that went unpaid. Tesla paid the balance, and the water service was reactivated shortly after.
The site reported:
“Last week, the Strausberg Erkner Tesla water association had temporarily shut off the construction water because a payment deadline had expired. After the money was received, the water ran again.”
While the water bill was quickly taken care of because there appeared to be no interruption in Giga Berlin’s construction, the project manager’s responsibility would likely be to ensure that no possibility of interruptions could occur. This starts with the routine paying of bills that keep the site operating as usual.
If Horetsky was let go on early last week, there may have been nobody to handle paying the bill, which could be the reason as to why the water was shut off at the site temporarily.
Interestingly, Horetsky has supervised other Tesla projects, including the completion of Tesla Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, Nevada, and the initial construction phases of Giga Shanghai in China. Horetsky also oversaw the Fremont plant’s preparations for vehicle production. It is possible that Horesky could be assisting with other Tesla projects, as Giga Texas is also in its construction stages.
During Tesla’s Q3 Earnings Call on Wednesday, October 21st, the company outlined the timeline for Giga Berlin’s first phases of production, which are expected to begin in Summer 2021.
The company said in its Update Letter:
“Construction of the Gigafactory in Berlin continues to progress rapidly. Buildings are under construction, and equipment move-in will start over the coming weeks. At the same time, the Giga Berlin team continues to grow. Production is expected to start in 2021.”
According to Tesla’s Senior VP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering Drew Baglino, Giga Berlin’s initial ramp will require assistance from its pilot 4680 battery cell production line in Fremont.
Tesla’s pilot 4680 battery cell line in CA will support Giga Berlin’s initial ramp
“We will incorporate 4680 design solutions into many applications in time across both energy and vehicle, and we can use our pilot production facility in Fremont to support the new factory in Berlin as it ramps,” Baglino said.
Tesla will introduce the Model Y to Giga Berlin’s production lines initially but plans to manufacture other vehicles at the German plant in the future.
News
SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
SpaceX’s Crew-13 Dragon reached the ISS in under eight hours, and NASA confirmed a record.
SpaceX now owns every spot on the list of the five fastest trips a U.S. spacecraft has ever made to the International Space Station, and its newest entry beat the old mark by more than four hours.
Crew Dragon Grace docked to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. ET on October 1, just 7 hours and 55 minutes after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. NASA confirmed the milestone in a space station blog update, writing that the flight “marked the fastest launch‑to‑docking of a U.S. spacecraft in the history of the International Space Station.”
The previous U.S. record also belonged to Dragon. SpaceX’s uncrewed CRS-31 cargo mission reached the station in a little over 12 hours in November 2024. The fastest crewed trip before last week was Crew-11, which took 14 hours and 43 minutes in August 2025, according to Space.com.
A post that Elon Musk reposted on Monday filled out the rest of the ranking. Behind Crew-13, CRS-31 and Crew-11 sit Axiom’s Ax-2 mission at 15 hours and 35 minutes and NASA’s Crew-4 at 15 hours and 44 minutes. All five flew on Dragon.
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Crew-13 carried NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. NASA had projected a docking around 8 p.m. ET, as Teslarati reported the day before launch, and Dragon arrived nearly an hour early. Our launch day coverage noted that the flight was lined up to be the quickest Crew Dragon transit yet.
The speed came from timing more than hardware. SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman said the station “was in an opportune spot in space,” which let Dragon start closing the gap almost immediately after reaching orbit. “This is close to the fastest it could be,” she added. Most Crew Dragon flights still take close to a day, using a series of Draco thruster burns to raise and phase their orbit before arrival.
Dragon’s next job at the station is a departure. NASA said Monday it is targeting 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 7, for Crew-12 to undock, setting up a splashdown off the coast of California around 11:34 a.m. on Thursday. Clearing that port makes room for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final set of iROSA solar arrays.
Dragon remains NASA’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner stays grounded, and the agency recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
