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Tesla starts Model 3 customer deliveries in China, formally launches Model Y program

Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Model Y program launch at Gigafactory 3 China (Source: @JaysoninShanghai | Twitter)

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Tesla officially opened the floodgates in China as it made its first mass delivery of locally-made Model 3 on Tuesday during an event at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai. The electric car maker also announced the kick-off of its Model Y program in the country.

CEO Elon Musk flew in from the United States to personally hand over Made-in-China Model 3s to the first local customers. This is a big milestone for Tesla as the MIC Model 3s are the first units delivered by Tesla’s first factory outside of the United States.

“Ultimately Model Y will have more demand than probably all of the other Tesla cars combined. Model Y will also have advanced manufacturing technologies that we will reveal in the future,” Musk said.

Musk also expressed his gratitude to the Chinese government, the Tesla China team, and all of the customers in the country.  At one point during the ceremonies, Musk even showed some dance moves and emphasized how the company knows how to have fun despite all the work that needs to be done. Musk also did not forget to thank the early adopters who paid a premium to own their Teslas.

During a speech at the event, the Tesla chief also disclosed plans to have a Tesla engineering center in China that will design vehicles for the local market and the rest of the globe.

With the kick-off of the Model Y program in China, Tesla now has a powerful one-two punch combination that can potentially deal heavy blows to other automotive giants operating in the country. The Model 3 sedans will attract those looking for an entry-level electric vehicle while the Model Y will appeal to those looking for an all-electric crossover that offers more space at a practical price.

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Tesla will be facing no pushovers in the local market. Daimler has released the Mercedes-Benz EQC in China and sells it for about $83,100 while Audi has rolled out the e-tron in late 2019 and plans to introduce more green vehicles in the next 24 months. BMW is also planning to join the EV rumble with its iX3 crossover next year.

The first public MIC Model delivery event happened exactly one year after the first wholly-owned car factory by a foreigner in China broke ground. Gigafactory 3 achieved the amazing feat of producing its first vehicles in just 10 months and making a symbolic delivery to local Tesla employees before the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, the production of the Model Y alongside the Model 3 will not be an issue for Tesla since these vehicles share 75% of their parts. Tesla also started accepting Model Y orders a few days ago, an early indication that the electric car maker is ready for this move.

Earlier this week, Tesla confirmed that Gigafactory 3 has achieved a run-rate of 3,000 vehicles per week to meet Model 3 demand in China. The government has also been very supportive and has exempted the locally-made sedan from a 10% purchase tax as announced recently.

Shanghai-based analysts are optimistic with their forecast for Tesla in China. Managing director of consultancy firm AutoForesight Yale Zhang sees the Palo Alto, California-based electric vehicle manufacturer selling around 100,000 MIC Model 3s while China International Capital’s Wang Lei sees around 120,000 combined sales of Model 3 and Model Y.

With the Model 3 and Model Y entering the largest automotive market in the globe, Tesla can become a strong foothold for the brand as it aims to achieve sustained profitability.

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Here’s are some snapshots from the event:

A curious soul who keeps wondering how Elon Musk, Tesla, electric cars, and clean energy technologies will shape the future, or do we really need to escape to Mars.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk weather update tips Tesla Roadster speculation into Plaid Mode

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elon musk
Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.

For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.

However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.

“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”

Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”

With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.

FAA Airspace Restriction

The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.

Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges

Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.

Elon Admits High Winds

“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.

A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.

All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.

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Tesla snags $30B in fresh credit lines for expanding its biggest projects

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Credit: Grok

Tesla has secured $30 billion in fresh credit lines from Citibank and Wells Fargo in an effort to scale its biggest current projects.

Tesla agreed to a $20 billion three-year delayed-draw term loan facility from Citibank, it announced on Tuesday. Additionally, it signed a five-year, $8 billion revolving credit facility and a $2 billion, 364-day term credit facility with Wells Fargo.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it “may draw” from the $20 billion delayed-draw term “from time to time” and “no more than ten times during the 18 months following the closing date.” This loan matures on September 29, 2029.

The five-year revolving facility from Wells Fargo will also be accessed by Tesla “from time to time,” and will become due and payable on September 29, 2031. Tesla can request two separate one-year extensions.

On the $2 billion, 364-day revolving loan, it becomes due and payable on September 28, 2027. Tesla can also increase its additional commitments to an additional $4 billion across the Revolving Facilities. This would increase the total facilities to $14 billion. Tesla said it does not plan to utilize any of these loans in 2026.

Tesla plans to utilize the money to help prop up its ambitions to scale its biggest products, each of which is either in early launch phases or still in development. Of course, we’re talking about Cybercab and Semi, which have launched, and Optimus, which is still under heavy development and working toward initial release.

All three Tesla products have one thing in common: they’ve all required Tesla to build new manufacturing lines for them.

For the Semi, Tesla built a brand new factory in Sparks, Nevada, adjacent to the Tesla Gigafactory. For Optimus, Tesla sunset Model S and X production at the Fremont Factory, which brought an end to the two flagship models, thus creating manufacturing space for the humanoid robot. Finally, Cybercab is being built at Gigafactory Texas and officially entered production earlier this year.

Tesla Cybercab fleet doubles to well over 100 units

The cash will help Tesla bolster its finances for the continuing development of these products. Tesla said that it forecasts its CapEx to be over $25 billion, up from just over $8.5 billion last year. These loans surely help with that spending.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner

Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.

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Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.

A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.

Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.

SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center

 

Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.

The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.

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