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.
Cybertruck
Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
Tesla’s new Cybertruck offering has had its delivery date pushed back once again. This is now the second time, and deliveries for the newest orders are now pushed well into 2027.
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
🚨 Tesla has updated the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual Motor AWD’s estimated delivery date to April 2027.
First deliveries are still slated for June, but if you order it now, you’ll be waiting over a year.
Demand appears to be off the charts for the new Cybertruck and consumers are… pic.twitter.com/raDCCeC0zP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 26, 2026
Just three days ago, the initial delivery date of June 2026 was pushed back to early Fall, and now, that date has officially moved to April 2027.
The fact that Tesla has had to push back deliveries once again proves one of two things: either Tesla has slow production plans for the new Cybertruck trim, or demand is off the charts.
Judging by how Tesla is already planning to raise the price based on demand in just a few days, it seems like the company knows it is giving a tremendous deal on this spec of Cybertruck, and units are moving quickly.
That points more toward demand and not necessarily to slower production plans, but it is not confirmed.
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim will undergo massive change in ten days, Musk says
Tesla is set to hike the price on March 1, so tomorrow will be the final day to grab the new Cybertruck trim for just $59,990.
It features:
- Dual Motor AWD w/ est. 325 mi of range
- Powered tonneau cover
- Bed outlets (2x 120V + 1x 240V) & Powershare capability
- Coil springs w/ adaptive damping
- Heated first-row seats w/ textile material that is easy to clean
- Steer-by-wire & Four Wheel Steering
- 6’ x 4’ composite bed
- Towing capacity of up to 7,500 lbs
- Powered frunk
Interestingly, the price offering is fairly close to what Tesla unveiled back in late 2019.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
Elon Musk has clarified when SpaceX will first attempt to catch Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower. The CEO’s update provides the clearest teaser yet for the spacecraft’s recovery roadmap.
Musk shared the details in recent posts on X. In his initial post, Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
“Starship V3 SN1 headed for ground tests. I am highly confident that the V3 design will achieve full reusability,” Musk wrote.
In a follow-up post, Musk addressed when SpaceX would attempt to catch the upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms.
“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk clarified.
His remarks suggest that SpaceX is deliberately reducing risk before attempting a tower catch of Starship’s upper stage. Such a milestone would mark a major step towards the full reuse of the Starship system.
SpaceX is currently targeting the first Starship V3 flight of 2026 this coming March. The spacecraft’s V3 iteration is widely viewed as a key milestone in SpaceX’s long-term strategy to make Starship fully reusable.
Starship V3 features a number of key upgrades over its previous iterations. The vehicle is equipped with SpaceX’s Raptor V3 engines, which are designed to deliver significantly higher thrust than earlier versions while reducing cost and weight.
The V3 design is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability, a critical step if SpaceX intends to scale the spacecraft’s production toward frequent launches for Starlink, lunar missions, and eventually Mars.
News
Tesla FSD (Supervised) could be approved in the Netherlands next month: Musk
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared that Full Self-Driving (FSD) could receive regulatory approval in the Netherlands as soon as March 20, potentially marking a major step forward for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance rollout in Europe.
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin, noting that the date was provided by local authorities.
“Tesla has the most advanced real-world AI, and hopefully, it will be approved soon in Europe. We’re told by the authorities that March 20th, it’ll be approved in the Netherlands,’ what I was told,” Musk stated.
“Hopefully, that date remains the same. But I think people in Europe are going to be pretty blown away by how good the Tesla car AI is in being able to drive.”
Tesla’s FSD system relies on vision-based neural networks trained on real-world driving data, allowing vehicles to navigate using cameras and AI rather than traditional sensor-heavy solutions.
The performance of FSD Supervised has so far been impressive. As per Tesla’s safety report, Full Self-Driving Supervised has already traveled 8.3 billion miles. So far, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles.
In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
If approval is granted on March 20, the Netherlands could become the first European market to greenlight Tesla’s latest supervised FSD (Supervised) software under updated regulatory frameworks. Tesla has been working to secure expanded FSD access across Europe, where regulatory standards differ significantly from those in the United States. Approval in the Netherlands would likely serve as a foundation for broader EU adoption, though additional country-level clearances may still be required.