News
Tesla formally wins final environmental approval to open Gigafactory Berlin
The wait is finally over. After a long process that saw delays, controversies, and other drama, Tesla Gigafactory Berlin has won its final environmental approval from Germany. An official document confirming the update was published by the State of Brandenburg, outlining the next steps that the electric vehicle maker needs to do to start vehicle production in its Germany-based electric vehicle factory.
As per the state’s press release, the approval for Giga Berlin covers several activities, such as the production of up to 500,000 vehicles per year. The approval also includes battery cell production activities within the Giga Berlin complex, which should allow Tesla to manufacture its in-house cells from within Germany.
“The project, which was approved with the 536-page decision, includes the plant for the production of up to 500,000 vehicles per year, aluminum smelting plants and an aluminum foundry, plants for surface treatment, heat generation, and storage. The facility also includes battery cell production, an operational wastewater treatment plant, a fire brigade equipment house, a high-bay warehouse, as well as laboratories and workshops,” the press release read.
It should be noted that while it may have taken two years to get to this point, Gigafactory Berlin’s formal approval was still completed in a quick manner, at least relatively speaking. The past two years, after all, required the State Office of the Environment to not only inspect and approve the factory itself, but also the entire industrial area with several large-scale facilities. Environment Minister Alex Vogel expressed his thanks to the state’s employees and other authorities for Giga Berlin’s quick approval process.
“As a high-performing state administration, you have always focused on the technical requirements, the high level of protection of the environment, the protection of the general public and the neighborhood from dangers, even under the pressure of great public interest and unreasonable harassment as well as the legal certainty of the procedure. In times of climate crisis, the availability of water will play an increasingly important role for future developments and settlements. Above all, digitization can help to simplify and accelerate processes without restricting environmental standards and participation rights,” Vogel said.
District Administrator Rolf Lindemann emphasized that Giga Berlin benefits the region. The fact that the project faced much adversity, and was still able to achieve a milestone such as a final environmental approval in a relatively short time, proves that the project’s potential is vast. He also noted that Giga Berlin, as well as those that have been working with Tesla over the past two years to approve the project, shall face whatever challenges lie ahead with vigor.
“The Oder-Spree district described the Tesla Gigafactory as a real stroke of luck for the development of our region. We have therefore mobilized all our strength to help turn this unique opportunity into a visible success. It wasn’t always easy, and we’re anything but done when it comes to the final form of the overall project. But we all have reason to be proud of what we have achieved so far, despite all prophecies of doom.
“That is why we will face the further challenges that lie ahead with confidence and with undiminished vigor. I am referring to the official support of the further expansion stages, the completion of the battery factory and of great importance, especially for local politics: as far as possible, a stress-free integration of the Gigafactory into the traffic infrastructure . However, in order to be able to meet the sustainability aspect and smooth mobility in connection with production, it is of course necessary to start building housing close to the location and to create the associated social infrastructure. We trust in the same support from the state government that we have been able to rely on in the past,” Lindemann said.
While Giga Berlin’s final environment approval has been secured, Tesla still has to ensure that it meets the state’s requirements. These are highlighted by the mammoth size of its approval documents, which comprise over 23,700 pages in 66 files. More than 400 ancillary provisions are included, involving topics such as requirements for groundwater protection as well as water-saving and wastewater-reducing measures, species protection measures, limit values for air pollutants and regulations on their measurement as well as occupational safety requirements. Other specific rules on the plant’s operations, particularly with regards to how it affects the area’s groundwater, were also highlighted in the press release.
“There are 113 air pollution control requirements, which include respective chimney heights for each exhaust air stream. In addition, 22 requirements determine the methods and intervals at which the exhaust air is to be measured. 96 requirements for drinking water protection, waste water disposal and rainwater specify, among other things, limit values for discharge into the waste water pressure line and corresponding cleaning processes. When using building materials, it is important to ensure that no harmful substances get into the groundwater. With groundwater monitoring, both the formation of new groundwater and the quality of the groundwater must be checked regularly. In view of the tense water situation, not least due to climate change, it should be possible to react to changes as early as possible.
“After the inspection by the approval authority, the entire system falls under the provisions of the Hazardous Incidents Ordinance (12th BImSchV) and must therefore take special precautions to prevent incidents and limit the effects of incidents, as well as maintain an appropriate safety distance from adjacent protected objects. Tesla must draw up an incident concept and comply with special information obligations,” the press release read.
The state noted that Tesla may now start or continue with the further construction of Giga Berlin and that objections to the project now have “no suspensive effect.” It should be noted, however, that before Tesla can actually put its Model Y production facility into operation, several ancillary provisions must be met first. These provisions, which include the installation of measuring devices for air pollutants and precautions for fire protection and accidents, will be checked by the responsible authorities. Once Tesla completes this step, Model Y production for customer vehicles could finally commence.
Needless to say, all eyes are now focused on how quickly Tesla can meet the requirements for Giga Berlin’s operational permit.
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Elon Musk
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at Thursday’s White House summit.
Elon Musk is set to receive the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers.
President Donald Trump will present Musk with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s Science: A New Golden Age Summit, Fox News Digital first reported on Wednesday. Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su will receive the same medal, while Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. A White House official later confirmed the list to Reuters.
“The Trump administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told Fox News.
FIRST ON FOX: Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at the White House Thursday.
Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su will also receive the science medal, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella will receive the technology medal.
It marks Trump’s first time presenting the awards across either administration.
Full story here https://t.co/omnrLV0EwS
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) October 7, 2026
It will be the first time Trump has presented either medal in his two terms. Congress created the National Medal of Science in 1959, and the National Science Foundation, which administers it, says 529 scientists and engineers have received it since. A presidential committee reviews nominees, but the president makes the final call.
Thursday’s group of medalists run or founded companies, and three of them sit at the center of the Super Intelligence hardware race that Musk competes in. Huang’s Nvidia supplies the GB300 chips filling SpaceX’s Colossus 2 cluster, while Su’s AMD is Nvidia’s biggest rival in data center GPUs.
Worth noting that Trump’s uncle, MIT physicist John G. Trump, received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan for his work on ionizing radiation and its uses in medicine and industry.
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
For Musk, the medal is the latest sign of how far his relationship with Trump has come since their 2025 split over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and his exit from DOGE. Last week, he sat at Trump’s left during a White House lunch where AI executives signed a voluntary safety accord, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named him to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare. Musk has also adopted the administration’s new vocabulary, saying on Sunday that SpaceXAI will be renamed SpaceXSI after Trump ordered federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence.”
Musk has collected science honors before, including the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019.
Lifestyle
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
Tesla shares dashcam footage of FSD Supervised stopping mid intersection to avoid a T-bone crash.
Tesla is putting another Full Self-Driving save in front of its 24.8 million followers on X.
On Tuesday morning, Tesla’s main account shared a dashcam clip with the caption “FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash.” The footage came from an owner posting as TheNewGrid, who described what happened at a stop sign: “I looked at the car coming to the stop sign figured they would stop, my car went, then came to a stop mid intersection as they flew by. Had I been manually driving this would have resulted in a crash.”
The sequence is the notable part. FSD had already started crossing when the other driver ran the stop sign. Instead of pressing on, the car braked hard in the middle of the intersection and let the crossing vehicle pass in front of it. By the owner’s own account, they had made the same assumption the software initially made, that the other car would stop, and would not have corrected in time.
FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
The clip is the latest in a run of safety posts Tesla has amplified over the past several days. On Saturday, the company shared a video from Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who sold his Bentley for a Model Y and said he was buying Teslas with FSD for 10 of his employees. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, followed up by writing that Tesla self-driving “reacts to other people cutting into your path with super-human response times.” On Monday, a Cybertruck owner posted footage of FSD moving across three lanes from a red light to clear a path for an ambulance approaching from behind.
This recent clip also lands a few weeks after Tesla began shipping Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD v14.3.9, a feature that can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when a frontal collision is imminent or the driver appears distracted. Elluswamy said in September that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” are coming with v15, the release Tesla has tied to round the clock Robotaxi operation.
The safety messaging matters beyond social media. Tesla has said FSD Supervised was 4.1 times less likely to crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on European roads, and it has been putting those figures in front of regulators. Eight EU countries have now approved FSD Supervised, with Croatia the most recent, but the EU’s bloc-wide vote originally set for October 6 has been pushed to December at the earliest.
FSD Supervised is still a Level 2 system, and the driver remains responsible at all times. Even heavy users find reasons to step in. Teslarati’s Joey Klender, who uses FSD for about 76 percent of his driving, laid out five recurring issues on Tuesday that still prompt him to intervene. Clips like this one show the other column of that ledger: moments where the software caught a mistake a human was about to make.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
