News
Tesla Gigafactory UK? Elon Musk’s quick stop in England drives rumors
Rumors of a Tesla Gigafactory in the United Kingdom are surging after a brief visit from CEO Elon Musk in Luton, a town in South East England. Musk made the visit on his way to Germany, where he was set to visit Tesla’s Giga Berlin production facility.
Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited Giga Berlin, but he stopped in the UK for a short time, according to his plane tracker. Musk landed at London Luton Airport on May 14th and stayed for two days before loading back up into his Gulfstream G650 and heading off to Berlin Brandenburg Airport on Sunday.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk receives rockstar welcome in first visit to Giga Berlin
Questions surfaced about the reason for Musk’s two-day stay in the UK, and it may have something to do with a potential UK Gigafactory that could help supplement European demand for Tesla’s electric cars. According to a report from The Telegraph, regional authorities in Teesside and the West Midlands were given 48 hours to prepare a 250-hectare site. The report stated that the entities in control of the land were not informed of who or what was visiting the land or what company would potentially bid on the land that they had prepared.
The communications to the landowners, along with the rest of the process, were set up by the newly-formed Office for Investment, a government office that handles discussions between private foreign investors and the public sector.
Speculation regarding a potential Tesla Gigafactory in the UK started last year in May when a Department for International Trade (DIT) in the UK was leading a search for a plot of land that was big enough to house a large-scale electric vehicle manufacturing facility. A spokesperson for the DIT indicated that it was “working closely with partners to scope out sites for new investment into electric vehicle research, development, and manufacturing across the UK.”
According to the May 2020 report, one business park in Somerset, a county in South West England, attempted to lure Tesla to its 650-acre site, which is slightly smaller than the 740-acre Giga Berlin property, comfortably bigger than Tesla’s Fremont Factory that sits on only 370 acres. Earlier this year, Minister of State for Business Kwasi Kwarteng offered his support for the potential Tesla facility. Kwarteng said that Somerset has the “manufacturing skill and competence to be able to sustain an excellent Gigafactory.”
Neither Tesla nor its CEO Elon Musk has commented on the potential for the UK Gigafactory, nor is it confirmed that either entity is planning to purchase land for a new factory in the region.
Currently, Tesla has five Gigafactories; three of them are currently active: Gigafactory Nevada, Gigafactory Buffalo, and Gigafactory Shanghai are currently active. Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas are still under construction, and plans for a new Gigafactory in India have also circulated for the past few months.
Europe is one of the largest markets for electric vehicles, and Tesla could handle demand without issue if it had two Gigafactory facilities in the region. As electric vehicles take off in popularity, Tesla leads the charge globally and plans to expand its already impressive lineup of production facilities will only accelerate the transition to electrification.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below, or you can email me at joey@teslarati.com or Tweet me @KlenderJoey.
News
Tesla Model Y and Model 3 named safest vehicles tested by ANCAP in 2025
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025.
The Tesla Model Y recorded the highest overall safety score of any vehicle tested by ANCAP in 2025. The Tesla Model 3 also delivered strong results, reinforcing the automaker’s safety leadership in Australia and New Zealand.
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025. ANCAP’s 2025 tests evaluated vehicles across four key pillars: Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection, Vulnerable Road User Protection, and Safety Assist technologies.
The Model Y posted consistently strong results in all four categories, distinguishing itself through a system-based safety approach that combines structural crash protection with advanced driver-assistance features such as autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring.

This marked the second time the Model Y has topped ANCAP’s annual safety rankings. The Model Y’s previous version was also ANCAP’s top performer in 2022.
The Tesla Model 3 also delivered a strong performance in ANCAP’s 2025 tests, contributing to Tesla’s broader safety presence across segments. Similar to the Model Y, the Model 3 also earned impressive scores across the ANCAP’s four pillars. This made the vehicle the top performer in the Medium Car category.
ANCAP Chief Executive Officer Carla Hoorweg stated that the results highlight a growing industry shift toward integrated safety design, with improvements in technologies such as autonomous emergency braking and lane support translating into meaningful real-world protection.
“ANCAP’s testing continues to reinforce a clear message: the safest vehicles are those designed with safety as a system, not a checklist. The top performers this year delivered consistent results across physical crash protection, crash avoidance and vulnerable road user safety, rather than relying on strength in a single area.
“We are also seeing increasing alignment between ANCAP’s test requirements and the safety technologies that genuinely matter on Australian and New Zealand roads. Improvements in autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring systems are translating into more robust protection,” Hoorweg said.
News
Tesla Sweden uses Megapack battery to bypass unions’ Supercharger blockade
Just before Christmas, Tesla went live with a new charging station in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm, by powering it with a Tesla Megapack battery.
Tesla Sweden has successfully launched a new Supercharger station despite an ongoing blockade by Swedish unions, using on-site Megapack batteries instead of traditional grid connections. The workaround has allowed the Supercharger to operate without direct access to Sweden’s electricity network, which has been effectively frozen by labor action.
Tesla has experienced notable challenges connecting its new charging stations to Sweden’s power grid due to industrial action led by Seko, a major Swedish trade union, which has blocked all new electrical connections for new Superchargers. On paper, this made the opening of new Supercharger sites almost impossible.
Despite the blockade, Tesla has continued to bring stations online. In Malmö and Södertälje, new Supercharger locations opened after grid operators E.ON and Telge Nät activated the sites. The operators later stated that the connections had been made in error.
More recently, however, Tesla adopted a different strategy altogether. Just before Christmas, Tesla went live with a new charging station in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm, by powering it with a Tesla Megapack battery, as noted in a Dagens Arbete (DA) report.
Because the Supercharger station does not rely on a permanent grid connection, Tesla was able to bypass the blocked application process, as noted by Swedish car journalist and YouTuber Peter Esse. He noted that the Arlandastad Supercharger is likely dependent on nearby companies to recharge the batteries, likely through private arrangements.
Eight new charging stalls have been launched in the Arlandastad site so far, which is a fraction of the originally planned 40 chargers for the location. Still, the fact that Tesla Sweden was able to work around the unions’ efforts once more is impressive, especially since Superchargers are used even by non-Tesla EVs.
Esse noted that Tesla’s Megapack workaround is not as easily replicated in other locations. Arlandastad is unique because neighboring operators already have access to grid power, making it possible for Tesla to source electricity indirectly. Still, Esse noted that the unions’ blockades have not affected sales as much.
“Many want Tesla to lose sales due to the union blockades. But you have to remember that sales are falling from 2024, when Tesla sold a record number of cars in Sweden. That year, the unions also had blockades against Tesla. So for Tesla as a charging operator, it is devastating. But for Tesla as a car company, it does not matter in terms of sales volumes. People charge their cars where there is an opportunity, usually at home,” Esse noted.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Downdetector reports
Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.
As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.

Previous disruptions
Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.
In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.