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Tesla Giga Texas is a clean slate for launching its next-gen manufacturing processes
Tesla’s new Giga Texas facility will the second United States-based location for the all-electric automaker to manufacture its vehicles. With its first being located in Fremont, California, which has been in operation for Tesla since 2010, it may be planning to use its new Texas plant as a “clean slate” for manufacturing testing. With a widespread focus of the company being primarily set on making its vehicles faster, in larger amounts, and with better quality than ever before, a fresh spread of production lines in a new plant that is close to home is ideal for CEO Elon Musk, who announced the Texas plant during the Q2 2020 Earnings Call.
But apart from the new plant, the Q2 2020 Earnings Call included another big piece of information that was repeatedly discussed: manufacturing efficiency. With engineers who can help Tesla solve the manufacturing puzzle in high demand, the automaker can begin to set its sights on reaching a more sizable annual production and delivery rate.
However, it starts with the right personnel, and Tesla is surely searching for some highly-capable individuals who can help introduce new techniques and processes to the supply chain.
Tesla has been seeking individuals to help revolutionize its manufacturing processes. It starts with Giga Texas.
Manufacturing is where Tesla begins its process of delivering a car to a customer. After rounding up all of the material and necessary parts and people, a car can be built on production lines. However, there is always room for improvement, and as demand continues to grow in the face of an ever-changing automotive industry, Tesla needs to adapt. Without a doubt, the company recognizes that the key to keeping up with demand is building vehicles faster than ever before.
Musk, for one, is all-too-familiar with the struggles of building cars. When the Model 3’s introduction of “production hell” brought Tesla to a crossroads in 2017, it was evident that things needed to be solved. More lines and more personnel were brought in, but there is a better strategy than just adding more volume. There is a chance to revolutionize the way cars are built, making the entire process easier, more refined, and better for the company as a whole.
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 Tesla, manufacturing half-a-million units of the same two cars every year is far from monotonous and repetitive. It is an opportunity to learn.
“…They sort of put manufacturing is like, oh, this is for some boring, just making copies, whatever. But actually, there’s far more opportunity for innovation in manufacturing than in the products itself, order magnitude,” Musk said during the company’s second-quarter Earnings Call. “If you work on manufacturing engineering, but you don’t just get force-fed a sandwich. You get to change the product design. So it’s super exciting.”
A focus on manufacturing has put Tesla at the forefront of automotive technology and design. Musk has even said himself that the company’s long-term sustainable advantage would be manufacturing. Eventually, other automakers will create and build a line of sustainable, functional, and operational EVs. However, Tesla will be able to put themselves ahead of the pack simply because the company’s manufacturing efficiency will be “head and shoulders” above everyone else.
Tesla will be absolutely head and shoulders above anyone else in manufacturing. That is our goal.” -Elon Musk
“Eventually, every car company will have long-range electric cars. Eventually, every company will have autonomy. But not every company will be great at manufacturing. Tesla will be absolutely head and shoulders above anyone else in manufacturing. That is our goal,” Musk said.
The problem is that testing these new techniques and ideas becomes difficult when you have two functional production plants and two others that are being constructed. Without a doubt, trying new things in terms of manufacturing could be detrimental to current lines and could interrupt the much-needed production efforts that are going on currently. So the only way to really test it is to build a new facility and try things on lines that have yet to be used.
This is where Tesla’s advantage lies with Giga Texas. It becomes the perfect place to test new techniques as lines have yet to be built, and none of the company’s current infrastructure is dependent on Giga Texas’ output. Not only is it a fresh start, but it is also close to home, and Musk will have the opportunity to oversee new production and manufacturing methods by simply hopping on his private jet and darting off to the Lone Star State.
Elon Musk giving YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee a tour of the Fremont factory. (Credit: MKBHD/YouTube)
Tesla is currently looking for proven manufacturing leaders to take charge of the Giga Texas plant as well. This job won’t be business as usual or the same monotonous challenges day in and day out. Tesla is looking for a change, and it is dead set on coming up with new ways to make cars efficiently. As the company nears a 1 million vehicle a year production rate, Giga Texas may be the way Tesla sets itself apart from all other car companies by showing new and innovative techniques that could drive the company’s manufacturing practices to become more efficient and groundbreaking for the future.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
