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Tesla’s next-gen Model Y from Giga Berlin aims to redefine ‘German engineering’
Tesla’s next-generation Model Y from Giga Berlin in Germany may redefine “German engineering.” A Tweet from CEO Elon Musk shows the company aims to improve build quality down to the micron, a unit of measurement that is equivalent to one-thousandth of a millimeter.
“German engineering” is a phrase that has been around for decades and commonly refers to the precision and accuracy that German products are known for. In the automotive industry’s history, German vehicles have highly been regarded as the most luxurious, highest quality cars that money can buy. In the early years of industry and engineering, Germany had the best machines and the most advanced processes for building basically anything, but cars were the specialty. Strict standards and an attitude that aimed toward perfection made German vehicles the cream of the crop in the automotive industry.
Tesla Gigafactory Berlin render (Credit: Tesla)
This theory still holds true in today’s industry in many ways. While other companies and other regions have highly effective processes for vehicle manufacturing, Germany still has a certain mystique about it. With brands like Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW, three of the most luxurious brands in the automotive market today, German engineering still holds a high standard.
However, Tesla has plans to reinvent the wheel when speaking about the term “German engineering.” In the last 18-or-so months since Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s first European Gigafactory would be in Germany, many developments have hinted toward Giga Berlin being the most advanced and most sophisticated factory that Tesla has in its arsenal. From a new, world-class paint facility to some of the most accurate automated machinery on the planet, Tesla is pulling out all the stops to keep up with Germany’s best brands.
In a Tweet earlier today, Musk said that Tesla is aiming for “extreme precision” with the next-gen Model Y. The company will aim for microns of accuracy, not millimeters, as Tesla aims to continue refining its manufacturing processes to make some of the highest-quality vehicles on Earth.
Aiming for extreme precision with next gen Model Y – microns, not millimeters
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2021
In the past, Tesla has been criticized for poor build quality with some of its vehicles. Some owners have highlighted panel gaps or paint quality issues with their vehicles, which has led to an overwhelming misconception that Tesla produces lackluster vehicles. The truth is that all vehicle manufacturers have issues with build quality from time to time. Things as simple as an increased production rate can affect the quality of a vehicle. Some, however, like automotive veteran Sandy Munro, have stated that Tesla’s build quality has improved significantly over the years. Munro went from highly critical of the Model 3 during a teardown several years ago to overwhelmingly impressed with the new builds of the car.
“This car has improved significantly,” Munro said. “The paint is great; it’s very impressive.”
The accuracy that Tesla is aiming for with the next-gen all-electric Model Y crossover is extremely precise. A micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter, so it’s a unit that is not necessarily visible to the human eye. If Tesla can refine its manufacturing lines in Berlin to reach this level, the definition of German engineering may once again be reconfigured to include Tesla’s near-perfect build quality.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below, or feel free to reach out to me directly at @KlenderJoey on Twitter or through email at joey@teslarati.com.
Tesla Cybercab is set to launch in Austin, Texas, on September 3, as the company has officially started sending out invitations to a dedicated event it will hold in the city where its headquarters is located.
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated ride-sharing vehicle: it features just two seats and has no steering wheel or pedals. It is aimed at fully autonomous passenger transport, and will operate in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Tesla Model Y, which has been performing driverless rides for real-world passengers for more than a year.
Thank you so much @Tesla for inviting us to the Cybercab launch in Austin! 🤠 pic.twitter.com/F1rAR8zd5O
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 22, 2026
The launch of the Cybercab marks the next chapter in Tesla’s autonomy story. The company has been developing autonomous transport for years with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform, which is available in any vehicle the company has built with the proper hardware and software capabilities.
Its capabilities vary by hardware and software version, but Tesla says its latest hardware version, known as AI4, can deliver full autonomy. However, future vehicles will operate with even more robust hardware packages, as Tesla will develop AI4.5 and AI5 for even more capability in its vehicles.
Following a report from The Information that surfaced earlier this week, the writing was on the wall that Tesla was set to launch Cybercab in the near term. The report stated Tesla could launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Tesla came close and has booked it for September 3.
The big thing with this event being scheduled is not necessarily that Tesla is launching a new vehicle, but instead that it is launching a vehicle that has no steering wheel or pedals and will operate exclusively on a self-driving program that is evidently nearing full autonomy. If the event allows vehicles to take passengers on public roads and drop them off wherever they please within the City of Austin, it will be a drastic advancement in the company’s self-driving story.
People have ridden in Cybercab previously: Tesla had the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, which allowed people to experience fully autonomous rides in a closed circuit at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
🚨 Ride in a Tesla Cybercab with us
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 11, 2025
Additionally, Tesla launched employee rides in Cybercab in July.
It’s a drastic step forward for Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, has promised for years that the company would release a fully autonomous vehicle and platform capable of allowing drivers to relinquish any responsibility behind the wheel.
Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
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The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla will launch Cybercab on September 3
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
