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Tesla Gigafactory 4's water consumption estimates hint at Model Y and Model 3 output beyond 500k/year

Tesla factory in Tilburg, Netherlands. (Credit: Tesla)

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Brandenburg Minister of the Economy Jörg Steinbach has given insight for how the city of Brandenburg will supply water to Gigafactory 4 during its first three phases of construction.

According to a report from Lausitzer Rundschau Online, Steinbach states the first production phase will require water consumption that can be handled by regional companies within Stausberg, Germany. The exact amount of water required for this initial phase is known by the Strausberg-Erkner water association, the party responsible for supply and disposal in the Freienbrink Industrial Park where Gigafactory 4 will be located. The first phase of car manufacturing at Gigafactory 4 will be responsible for building the Model Y crossover.

Gigafactory 4’s second and third production phases will require other sources of water due to the size of the overall operation. This means the electric car manufacturer will have to make arrangements and investments for water suppliers, according to Steinbach. This phase will reportedly see the production of the Model 3 sedan as well.

Considering the water supply estimates for the facility, it appears that Gigafactory 4 has the potential to produce nearly 250,000 cars in its initial phase, according to German media outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. To put this into perspective, Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, China, is expected to build 3,000 vehicles per week, or roughly around 156,000 vehicles a year.

In its second phase, the water supply and disposal required by the Gigafactory 4 complex suggests that the facility could produce up to 500,000 vehicles per year. This does not seem to be the endgame for Tesla, however, as a third phase was also hinted at in the recent report. Based on the amount of water that is expected to be used by the facility in Phase 3, it appears that Gigafactory 4 could actually be capable of producing up to 750,000 vehicles per year. That’s far above what Tesla’s Fremont factory is able to accomplish at its current setup today.

A spokesperson stated that Tesla still has work to do with the German government’s environmental organizations before any arrangements with water distributors are set into stone. Tesla reportedly reached an agreement with local government officials earlier this month to begin working on the initial construction phases of the European production plant in January 2020 after announcing the company’s decision to build its next Gigafactory in Berlin at the Golden Steering Wheel awards last month.

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The entire Gigafactory 4 complex will feature production, logistics, and design buildings is set to be built on 300 hectares of land Tesla is intending to buy soon. Steinbach stated the project is on time and that the removal of trees is expected to be completed by mid-March. Tesla has stated they will re-plant three times the number of trees in Brandenburg the company is required to cut down to make way for Gigafactory 4.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car

Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.

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Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)
Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)

The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.

The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.

The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.


Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.

The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.

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How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners

Tesla’s Roadster uses fans, active wings and cold gas thrusters to create grip at any speed.

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The Roadster’s rear wing, one of the aerodynamic elements Tesla pairs with a fan-based downforce system. (Image: Tesla)
The Roadster’s rear wing, one of the aerodynamic elements Tesla pairs with a fan-based downforce system. (Image: Tesla)

Tesla’s new Roadster is best known for flipping through the air in Texas, but the technology that matters most for a race track is the stuff that keeps it on the ground. Tesla’s Roadster page describes a multi-mode fan and ground sealing system that acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the car. Tesla says it provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.

That is the key difference from the wings and diffusers on a normal supercar. Conventional aero only makes downforce when the car is moving, and it grows with speed, so a car has the least grip in the slow corners and under hard braking. A fan system makes downforce at any speed. Tesla’s patent, which we covered last year, describes fans and deployable skirts that create sealed or partially sealed regions under the car, with the fans extracting air to lower the pressure and increase grip and stability.


Tesla pairs that with active wings, a next generation steer by wire system and a Track Mode that lowers the car and changes the suspension, with high downforce and low drag settings for the circuit. To keep weight down, Tesla points to magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, manual controls and a fixed seat position, which it says lets the car respond to driver inputs almost instantly.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

The cold gas thrusters are the other half. On the Thrust version they sit at the rear and Tesla says they take the car from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.9 seconds, while the Rocket version adds perimeter thrusters for forward, upward and lateral rotational movement. Tesla says the all electric actuators make micro adjustments within a fraction of a second.


Musk has been talking about records for years. In June 2019 he said, “We’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars.” That September, when a follower asked whether the Roadster would beat the Nürburgring production car record, he replied with one word, “Absolutely,” as we reported at the time. In February 2024 he said Tesla had “radically increased the design goals” for the car and that its sub one second 0 to 60 time would be “the least interesting part.”

There are caveats. Tesla has not published a lap time or a verified cornering figure, so the record talk is still a promise rather than a result. Tesla also says the car is not approved for public road use, and the thruster features are limited to the Rocket trim, which is invite only. Fan cars have also been banned or withdrawn before, and getting a sealed underbody to work on a rough public road is a harder problem than on a smooth track. The first real test will be an official lap at a circuit.

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