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Hertz’s 100k Tesla Model 3 order was bought at full price, confirms Elon Musk

(Credit: Hertz)

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Elon Musk has confirmed that Hertz paid full price for its massive Tesla Model 3 order. Recently, news broke that the American car rental giant ordered 100,000 Model 3 vehicles for its fleet. “To be clear, cars sold to Hertz have no discount. Same price as to consumers,” Elon Musk pointed out on Twitter.

Musk’s comment highlighted the strong demand that’s being experienced by Tesla’s vehicles worldwide. Typically, carmakers tend to implement discounts for orders as large as Hertz’s. The fact that Tesla had the car rental giant pay full price for its 100,000 Model 3s shows that the company is treating Hertz like a regular customer, similar to any other EV buyer in the market.

On its official website, Hertz calls the Tesla Model the “flag bearer for the electric cars market.”

“Look at the reviews of Model 3 and you’ll find this best-selling electric vehicle has 5-stars nearly across the board. A sleek and compact sedan, it competes with and surpasses many equivalent gas-engine models from rival manufacturers and has the advantage of zero emissions. And, because it’s from Tesla, you can be confident that it offers the most advanced tech you’ll find in any car,” Hertz said about the Model 3.

The car rental company claims that it now has the largest electric vehicle rental fleet in North America. With 100,000 Model 3 in its fleet, Hertz certainly seems confident about Tesla and its best-selling sedan. Hertz’s Model 3 purchase also seemed to instill confidence in Tesla as a company.

After the Hertz deal was announced, TSLA stock moved up, breaking the $1,000 barrier and resulting in the company’s market cap hitting the $1 trillion mark. Elon Musk noted that the stock’s rise was strange.

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“Strange that moved valuation, as Tesla is very much a production ramp problem, not a demand problem,” Musk tweeted.

Tesla’s demand is as potent as ever, especially since the pandemic proved the need to transition to renewable energy in almost all markets. As Musk pointed out, Tesla is still working on ramping production to meet demand.

At the last earnings call, Tesla VP of Engineering Lars Moravy pointed out that the company is focusing on ramping and improving production on its current line of products. He added that adding more vehicles to the lineup is not Tesla’s main focus for now. Moravy further mentioned the supply chain challenges Tesla has faced and possible supply chain headwinds in the future.

However, Tesla seems to be handling supply chain challenges very well, especially as it continues to raise its production capabilities, most notably with its Gigafactories. Giga Shanghai has already proven quite effective as an export hub, dealing with demand in Asia and Europe. Giga Berlin and Gigafactory Texas will likely do the same once they begin operations.

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

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Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade

Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.

The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”

The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.

It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.

The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.

For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.

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Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next

Tesla confirms its first official Cybercab fleet number as Austin scales fast and Dallas looms.

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Tesla says more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, the first time the company has put an official number on its active Cybercab fleet. The figure came from the Robotaxi account on X on Saturday, which wrote that one month after launch the service had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days.”

Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, quoted the post with a line that carried the bigger news. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote. It is the first time Tesla has named the next city for public Cybercab rides.

Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the public in Austin on September 4, as Teslarati reported, a day after an invite only launch event. The ramp since then has been steep. Our September 28 report had the fleet at well over 100 units after availability jumped from 58 to 125 in a single week. On Thursday, Tesla added 150 Cybercabs to the Texas automated vehicle registry, lifting its registered count to 319 from 169. The first seven appeared on the registry on August 31.

RobotaxiTracker, a community site that counts vehicles from sightings and state records, listed 275 vehicles in unsupervised service in Austin on Saturday, 105 of them Cybercabs, which is well below Tesla’s figure. Tracker counts can lag official numbers, though Sawyer Merritt noted that Cybercab wait times in Austin stayed short on Saturday evening even with more than 2,000 fans in town for X Takeover.

Regulators are watching the rollout. NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards, and sworn answers are due October 30. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, which gives the company a natural venue to define its fleet numbers and put a date on Dallas.

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Elon Musk roasts India’s billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Starlink fight heats up

Elon Musk sarcastically calls Mukesh Ambani ‘Prime Minister’ as the Starlink India standoff escalates again.

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Elon Musk escalated his public fight over Starlink’s launch in India on Friday, addressing Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani as “Prime Minister Ambani” in a sarcastic post on X. “Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” Musk wrote, before accusing Ambani of “monopolistic exploitation” and asking whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete.” In follow up posts, he said Starlink has proven essential during natural disasters and would help parts of India with no internet access.

The post came two days into a fight that Musk sparked up on Wednesday, when he said Starlink was “being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people.” He called it “a crime against the people of India” and left the names out, adding only, “You can guess who they are.” Jio and Airtel together hold more than 80% of India’s telecom market. On Thursday, Musk asked whether Ambani is “the real boss of India” and said Starlink has spent five years complying with “every single law and requirement” of the Indian government.

India’s government has pushed back each time. The Ministry of Communications called the suggestion that its framework is unfair or discriminatory “baseless and misconceived.” Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Friday that three companies hold satcom licenses: Starlink, Jio Satellite Communications, and Bharti backed Eutelsat OneWeb. Amazon’s Kuiper, now Amazon Leo, is still going through the process. None can launch until regulators finalize satellite spectrum pricing and the Home Ministry signs off on each company’s security compliance. Scindia said the telecom regulator and the Department of Telecommunications are close to a decision on pricing, The Hindu reported. Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal also said OneWeb is still waiting on approvals.

Starlink received its operator license in 2025 after a three year wait, and the space regulator IN-SPACe granted what industry executives called the last approval needed in July. The holdup since then centers on security, particularly concern that foreign operators could bypass Indian gateways.

Musk and Ambani have been on opposite sides of this before. In late 2024, Ambani argued for auctioning satellite spectrum, which Musk criticized as out of step with the rest of the world, and India chose administrative allocation instead. By March 2025, the two sides had signed a deal to sell Starlink devices in Reliance stores, and Starlink secured its telecom license that June. That partner is now also a competitor. Jio is reportedly weighing a constellation of 1,600 to 1,650 satellites costing an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion, while Akash Ambani has told shareholders Jio plans to lease capacity from global providers to move quickly.

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