Tesla employees at the company’s Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, are aiming to unionize.
If successful, it would be the first Tesla facility to have an active union. Bloomberg reported that employees sent an email to CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday morning, communicating their intent to unionize, which would include better pay, more job security, and a reduction in production pressures.
“Unionizing will further accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy because it will give us a voice in our workplace and in the goals we set for ourselves to accomplish,” employees said in the letter to Tesla management.
Workers said Tesla’s tracking of how much time they spend on specific tasks and how much time they spend actively working has led to some employees skipping things as necessary as taking a bathroom break.
Forming a union at Giga Buffalo would help some of the over 1,900 employees at the factory secure better pay while also securing their jobs. Employees said they feel like they’re rushed to get things done and could potentially be sacrificing accuracy in an attempt to increase output.
More than 800 employees at the factory are involved in Autopilot labeling, and their pay starts at $19 per hour. These employees are evidently the ones who are pushing for potential unionization at the facility.
“People are tired of being treated like robots,” Al Celli of the union’s organizing committee said.
In the past, Musk has been looked at as someone who has not necessarily been supportive of establishing a union at the company’s plants. However, the CEO has never completely eliminated any possibility of the idea and has put the choice in the hands of Tesla employees.
In March 2022, Musk invited the UAW to hold a union vote at Tesla’s Fremont factory in Northern California. He has been critical of the organization in the past and maintains that workers already have better health insurance and safety records than when the Fremont plant was operated under union rules.
Tesla violated labor laws because it required employees to wear company uniform
Before Tesla took over the plant in 2010, it was owned by NUMMI, the joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. The UAW was present in the facility.
However, according to the Bloomberg report, SpaceX, another Musk-owned company, has also extended unionization requests. Some said that they were “illegally retaliated against” after writing an open letter to Musk last year. Additionally, a bipartisan group of U.S. labor board members said in 2021 that Tesla “coercively” interrogated union supporters and fired another because of his push to establish a union at the plant. Tesla is appealing this ruling currently.
Based on quotes from various workers, most want additional input and more of a say in what happens in the workplace.
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News
Tesla takes first step in sunsetting Model S and X with drastic move
Tesla won’t be taking custom orders of the Model S or Model X in Europe any longer.
Tesla has seemingly taken the first step in sunsetting two of its older vehicles, the Model S and Model X, by ending international orders.
The flagship sedan and SUV from Tesla are the two oldest cars in the company’s lineup. They account for a very small portion of overall sales, and several years ago, CEO Elon Musk admitted that Tesla only continues to build and sell them due to “sentimental reasons.”
Earlier this year, there were calls for Tesla to end the production of the two cars, but Lars Moravy said that the Model S and Model X were due to get some love later in 2025. That happened, but the changes were extremely minor.
Tesla launches new Model S and Model X, and the changes are slim
Some took this as an indication that Tesla has kind of moved on from the Model S and Model X. A handful of people seemed to think Tesla would overhaul the vehicles substantially, but the changes were extremely minor and included only a few real adjustments.
In Europe, customers are unable to even put a new order in on a Model S or Model X.
We noticed earlier today that Tesla pressing the ‘Order’ button on either of the flagship vehicles takes you to local inventory, and not the Design Studio where you’d configure your custom build:
🚨 Tesla has removed the Model S and Model X Design Configurators from European customers
It will now bring up available inventory for those two vehicles instead of allowing you to build your own config pic.twitter.com/sMnGAr2kuu
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2025
Tesla simply does not make enough Model S or Model X units to justify the expensive logistics process of shipping custom orders overseas. It almost seems as if they’re that they will essentially build a bunch of random configurations, send them overseas every few months, and let them sell before replenishing inventory.
Inversely, it could also mean Tesla is truly gearing up to sunset the vehicle altogether. It seems unlikely that the company will fade them out altogether in the next couple of years, but it could absolutely think about ending international orders because volume is so low.
Energy
Tesla inks multi-billion-dollar deal with LG Energy Solution to avoid tariff pressure
Tesla has reportedly secured a sizable partnership with LGES for LFP cells, and there’s an extra positive out of it.
Tesla has reportedly inked a multi-billion-dollar deal with LG Energy Solution in an effort to avoid tariff pressure and domesticate more of its supply chain.
Reuters is reporting that Tesla and LGES, a South Korean battery supplier of the automaker, signed a $4.3 billion deal for energy storage system batteries. The cells are going to be manufactured by LGES at its U.S. factory located in Michigan, the report indicates. The batteries will be the lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, chemistry.
Tesla delivers 384,000 vehicles in Q2 2025, deploys 9.6 GWh in energy storage
It is a move Tesla is making to avoid buying cells and parts from overseas as the Trump White House continues to use tariffs to prioritize domestic manufacturing.
LGES announced earlier today that it had signed a $4.3 billion contract to supply LFP cells over three years to a company, but it did not identify the customer, nor did the company state whether the batteries would be used in automotive or energy storage applications.
The deal is advantageous for both companies. Tesla is going to alleviate its reliance on battery cells that are built out of the country, so it’s going to be able to take some financial pressure off itself.
For LGES, the company has reported that it has experienced slowed demand for its cells in terms of automotive applications. It planned to offset this demand lag with more projects involving the cells in energy storage projects. This has been helped by the need for these systems at data centers used for AI.
During the Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja confirmed that the company’s energy division had been impacted by the need to source cells from China-based suppliers. He went on to say that the company would work on “securing additional supply chain from non-China-based suppliers.”
It seems as if Tesla has managed to secure some of this needed domestic supply chain.
Lifestyle
Tesla brings perhaps the coolest interior feature to cars in latest update
Tesla adds on to the “fun” aspect of its vehicles.
Tesla has brought perhaps the coolest interior feature to its cars in a new update that is rolling out to vehicles now.
The feature will require a newer vehicle that has interior ambient lighting, which is present on the new Model S, Model X, Model 3 “Highland,” and Model Y “Juniper.” The Cybertruck also has ambient lighting strips throughout.
Tesla Model Y’s ambient lighting design changes revealed in leaked video
With the Version 2025.26+ Software Update, Tesla is rolling out a new “Sync Accent Lights w/ Music” feature, which is available on the Tesla Toybox:
Turn your Tesla into a rave cave with the new Light Sync feature 🎶
Rolling out now in software update 2025.26+ pic.twitter.com/IIsQxZ9jDP
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 29, 2025
To enable the feature, you’ll access the Toybox, choose “Light Sync,” and then choose “Sync Accent Lights w/ Music.”
Although it does not improve the performance of the vehicle, it is yet another example of Tesla making one of the coolest cars out there. This is truly a cool add-on that can be used to impress your friends and family.
Tesla takes first step in sunsetting Model S and X with drastic move
Tesla inks multi-billion-dollar deal with LG Energy Solution to avoid tariff pressure
Tesla brings perhaps the coolest interior feature to cars in latest update
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