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Spy shots inside Tesla’s giant tent suggest assembly line buildout in progress
Spy shots taken of Tesla’s giant tent at Fremont show that the buildout of the company’s new Model 3 assembly line is still ongoing. As could be seen in images showcasing the new structure, the giant tent still has a lot of open room despite machinery already in place.
The spy shots were uploaded and shared on Twitter by @skabooshka, who noted that the assembly line did not appear to be moving when he took photographs of the structure’s interior. He did note, however, that there was work still being done on the tent itself, as evidenced by a crane and employees in safety gear working at the roof of the structure.
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
Apart from spy shots, a number of videos featuring the giant tent and Tesla’s new Model 3 assembly line were also uploaded on Twitter, courtesy of @IspyTsla, who was able to capture more than 2 minutes of activity inside and around the structure. The footage taken of Tesla’s giant tent could be viewed below.
— IspyTSLA (@IspyTsla) June 19, 2018
Overall, the new spy shots and spy video of Tesla’s new Fremont structure suggests that Tesla is still working on completing its new assembly line. Considering the open space still available inside the tent, it appears that Tesla will be adopting Elon Musk’s idea of avoiding over-automation with the production of the Model 3.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has shown a particularly high level of optimism about the potential of the new tent-based Model 3 line. In a series of tweets, Musk stated that Tesla built a giant tent because constructing another building to house the machinery within the company’s target timeline would be impossible. According to Musk, the Tesla team was able to set up the massive structure in just two weeks, which was practically “miraculous.”
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
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- The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont Factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
The interior of Tesla’s massive tent on the grounds of the Fremont factory. [Credit: skabooshka/Twitter]
As noted in an Ars Technica report, a January 2018 geotechnical investigation report on file with the city building permit office states that Tesla has plans to construct a 500,000 square-foot “multi-story building north of the existing North Paint Building.” With this in mind, Tesla’s massive tent in Fremont might very well be a temporary solution designed to boost the company’s production capabilities of the Model 3 to help the company achieve profitability by Q3 and Q4 2018. As for the giant tent itself, journalist Edward Niedermeyer has revealed that Tesla’s permits for the structure are currently valid for “up to six months.”
With the end of Q2 2018 only a little more than a week away, Tesla is on a rush to attain its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week before the end of the quarter. The goal, which has eluded Tesla since the compact electric car started production, is closer than ever before. Considering that Elon Musk revealed that the company was producing the Model 3 at a rate of 500 vehicles per day during the 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, the addition of the new tent-based assembly line could very well be the deciding factor whether Tesla could finally achieve its Model 3 production targets or come up short once more.
Elon Musk
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
Elon Musk told investors Semi self-driving should start working by early 2027, per today’s earnings.
During Wednesday’s’ Tesla Q2 earnings call, an analyst asked Elon Musk when Tesla would look at autonomy for the Semi. His answer set a real timeline for the first time, noting that self-driving on the Tesla Semi is expected to start working “around the end of this year or early next year”.
Musk framed the delay as a matter of priority, not capability. Tesla’s self-driving team is currently focused on Model 3, Model Y, and Cybercab, the vehicles that make up the overwhelming majority of Tesla’s fleet. Since Semi trucks on the road remain a small fraction of that total even after the recent Nevada factory ramp, Musk said it made more sense to keep the software team’s attention on what he called “the march of nines of safety” for the higher volume vehicles first. Autonomous Semi development is “taking a bit of a backseat for the next six months or so,” he said, before adding that it “will definitely be working next year and in time for the scale-up to high production of the Tesla Semi.”
Tesla Semi’s official battery capacity leaked by California regulators
The timeline lines up with what’s already been showing up on public roads. In June, a Tesla Semi was spotted in Sunnyvale wearing a full validation rig, the same rooftop sensor array Tesla mounts on vehicles ahead of an FSD milestone.
A second unit was seen near Fremont days later with a matching camera suite and lens washers. Separately, Tesla analyst Nic Cruz Patane posted video this month of the production Semi’s exterior camera array, ten AI4 based units built directly into the truck rather than added later.
Tesla Semi AI4 cameras. The production version has 10 cameras on its exterior.
These trucks are designed to be autonomous. pic.twitter.com/GH3BamxIBQ
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) April 14, 2026
Musk also gave the reason autonomy on the Semi matters in the first place, a persistent shortage of qualified truck drivers. “There is a really serious shortage of truckers,” he said on the call, framing a self-driving Semi as important both for addressing that shortage and for improving safety and comfort for the drivers running the truck today.
The timing also tracks with the Semi’s production reality. Tesla’s Q2 shareholder letter, dropped language promising the Semi would reach volume production this year. Musk pointed to 4680 battery cell output as the near-term constraint on Semi and Cybercab production. A software timeline landing in early 2027 gives Tesla’s autonomy team room to work while the hardware ramp catches up behind it.
It’s worth nothing that this isn’t necessarily a promise the Semi ships driverless next year. Musk’s own language, self-driving “working” by early 2027, describes internal validation catching up to hardware already riding on every production truck, not a public unsupervised rollout.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
