News
Tesla will be shipping 3k Model 3 to Europe every week by Feb 2019: report
Tesla’s global assault with the Model 3 is set to hit its stride next year, as the electric car maker starts rolling out the vehicle to territories beyond the United States and Canada. In Europe, Tesla has recently invited Model 3 reservation holders to configure their vehicles, with the company setting an estimated delivery date of February 2019 for orders of the Model 3 Performance and the Long Range AWD.
Reports have now emerged from local media that Tesla would be shipping 3,000 vehicles per week to Europe starting February 2019. Belgian news agency Focus-WTV, for one, stated that the electric cars would be arriving every week in the port of Zeebrugge, which is located on the coast of Belgium (special thanks to Tesla owner-enthusiast Hans Noordsij, who tipped Teslarati off about the Focus-WTV report). The local news outlet noted that the electric cars are shipped through the services of transportation firm International Car Operators (ICO), which operates a site on the Zeebrugge docks.
ICO’s operations are particularly notable as the company uses RoRo (roll-on, roll-off) ships, which are capable of loading and unloading cargo in a quick manner. The transportation of Tesla’s vehicles from the United States to Zeebrugge will reportedly take about 15 days, with the route going through the Panama Canal. Upon arriving at the coastal port, the electric cars would be distributed across Tesla’s delivery centers in Europe. ICO is reportedly investing 2.5 million euros ($2.83 million) to accommodate the influx of Tesla’s vehicles as well.
Elon Musk has noted that Tesla is now at a point where it is capable of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week without straining its facilities or its workforce. That said, reports have emerged stating that Tesla is already closing in on a pace equal to 1,000 Model 3 per day. This was mentioned by Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research, who noted that Tesla’s path towards higher production outputs seems to be clear. The Wall Street analyst even noted that Tesla is likely capable of hitting a pace equal to 7,000-10,000 Model 3 per week with limited CapEx.
“The road to 7,000 units per week seems easy, and limited capital expenditures will be required (in the low tens of millions) to get to 10,000. We don’t know for sure what demand will ultimately be, but we know that from here, Tesla will expand its price range, introduce leasing, and expand internationally. All these levers combined have a lot of depth and should be more than enough to get to 10,000 Model 3 per week at the end of next year,” Ferragu wrote.
With production of the Model 3 hitting sustainable levels, Tesla is now able to start preparing the vehicle for deliveries to foreign markets. Apart from Europe, Tesla has also opened the Model 3 configurator to reservation holders in China. The reception among Chinese electric car buyers has been notable so far, despite Tesla’s business in the country being weighed down by the 40% import tariffs placed on vehicles due to the US-China trade war. With recent reports stating that China will likely reduce import tariffs to just 15%, Tesla’s presence in the Chinese market would likely be even more notable in the coming quarters.
The Tesla Model 3 is a “bet-the-company” project, with Elon Musk putting the electric car maker’s future on the success of the electric sedan. Despite a trip through “production hell,” the Model 3 has been proving itself in the US market, ranking among the best-selling vehicles in the country over the past few months despite America’s preference for larger vehicles like SUVs and pickup trucks. In foreign territories, the Model 3 might actually have even more potential, with Tesla noting in its Q3 2018 Update Letter that the mid-sized premium sedan market in Europe is “more than twice as big as the same segment in the US.” With this in mind, the auto industry would likely soon come to terms with the notion that while the electric sedan is already making waves in the US and Canada, the Model 3’s real potential has not even been fully tapped yet.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
News
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
