Tesla has reportedly resumed deliveries of the Model S Plaid and Long Range variants just days after reports of a hold were rumored to be delaying customer deliveries of the automaker’s flagship sedan. Several days ago, numerous Model S reservation holders were told Tesla would deliver their vehicles at a later time.
After initial reports of the Model S being held at Tesla’s Fremont production facility in Northern California circulated, many customers wondered why. A video flyover of Tesla’s lot at Fremont revealed hundreds of Model S builds were sitting and simply collecting dust. Curious onlookers were questioning why these vehicles were not being delivered to customers. This question also stumped the community several months ago, when Tesla had not yet held the Model S Plaid delivery event at Fremont on June 10th.
Credit: Tesla
Citing “one more week of tweaks,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the vehicle just was not quite where it should have been. The additional week proved to be monumental in Tesla’s case, as customers were finally able to accept delivery of their fastest and arguably most-anticipated car to date.
However, after the Model S deliveries began, there was another holdup in deliveries just several weeks later. One owner told his story on the r/TeslaMotors subreddit and claimed that, despite his Model S being in a nearby delivery center, he could not pick up the vehicle. Another owner received a text message from a Tesla representative in Austin, Texas. This outlined the “updated inspection process” that Tesla had recently adopted, which had ended up delaying customer deliveries. It was unknown why Tesla adopted the additional inspection process for the Model S Plaid, but it was undoubtedly a non-negotiable process that would not be optional for owners.
Several sources indicate that Tesla has lifted the ban in Fremont, with reports of firmware issues being the culprit for the delayed deliveries. Teslarati contacted Tesla showrooms, and employees were unable to confirm nor deny whether the company did lift the hold, but did indicate there was a hold on the deliveries. The employees just didn’t indicate whether the hold was still active or not.
An updated post from u/MrExitStrategy, who initially talked about the nationwide delivery hold on Model S builds, said that several reservation holders reported that the hold has been lifted and that customers are being told they can pick their vehicles up.
The Redditor wrote:
“Looks like several people have now reported that the hold has been LIFTED! And that we all should get our cars in the next couple of days!!! Someone mentioned it was a firmware update and that they needed to validate the cars. This Model S buying experience has been surreal, after 4+ months of constant delays and almost no communication from Tesla. I hope it will be worth it. On a positive note, I’m glad Tesla is taking the time to validate and make sure it is safe, even knowing they might get some bad press in the process; I just wish the communication was a bit better.”
Additionally, several members of the TeslaMotorsClub forum said that the Model S hold had been lifted. One said that the manager of the Washington D.C. showroom said a nationwide memo was sent out stating that the hold was over, but no additional details were given.
It appears that questions regarding the Model S hold still remain, but deliveries are resuming without much incident. Tesla may still have some minor changes to make to the Model S in the future, but these will likely be performed through routine software updates that can fix a wide multitude of issues.
Tesla has entered an interesting situation with its Full Self-Driving suite in California, as the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles had adopted an order for a suspension of the company’s sales license, but it immediately put it on hold.
The company has been granted a reprieve as the DMV is giving Tesla an opportunity to “remedy the situation.” After the suspension was recommended for 30 days as a penalty, the DMV said it would give Tesla 90 days to allow the company to come into compliance.
The DMV is accusing Tesla of misleading consumers by using words like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving on its advanced driver assistance (ADAS) features.
The State’s DMV Director, Steve Gordon, said that he hoped “Tesla will find a way to get these misleading statements corrected.” However, Tesla responded to the story on Tuesday, stating that this was a “consumer protection” order for the company using the term Autopilot.
It said “not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.” It added that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”
This was a “consumer protection” order about the use of the term “Autopilot” in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.
Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) December 17, 2025
Tesla has used the terms Autopilot and Full Self-Driving for years, but has added the term “(Supervised)” to the end of the FSD suite, hoping to remedy some of the potential issues that regulators in various areas might have with the labeling of the program.
It might not be too long before Tesla stops catching flak for using the Full Self-Driving name to describe its platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi suite has continued to improve, and this week, vehicles were spotted in Austin without any occupants. CEO Elon Musk would later confirm that Tesla had started testing driverless rides in Austin, hoping to launch rides without any supervision by the end of the year.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Tesla enters interesting situation with Full Self-Driving in California
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
