A recent episode of Sandy Munro’s Tesla Model Y teardown series has revealed that the electric car company utilized friction stir welding (FSW) for the crossover’s thermal management system. The welding technique is commonly used among aerospace companies, like SpaceX, as a way to maintain the strength of aluminum parts while securing a reliable bond between pieces.
Munro’s analysis of the Octovalve coolant system revealed Tesla’s techniques for the revised thermal management portion of the Model Y. Munro discovered the Octovalve on April 4 after digging into the Model Y’s internal build. The new coolant assembly seemed to be a revised version of the Model 3’s “Superbottle,” which served as the heart of the sedan’s thermal management system.
A car’s thermal management apparatus is responsible for controlling and maintaining proper temperatures in critical portions of the vehicle. In the case of the Model Y, the Octovalve is responsible for motor, battery, and cabin cooling, according to Munro. The Detroit auto veteran said that typically, these systems should not be cooling the cabin if they are controlling battery or motor temperature. The thermal management system in the Model Y seems to be controlling the cabin, the battery, the electronics, and the motor nonetheless.
The Octovalve seems to be a state-of-the-art system as it uses, “some clever little ball valves that open and close to make sure that everything’s getting heated or everything’s being cooled to where it needs to be,” Munro said.
With the assembly overlooking the temperature for these many parts of the vehicle, the system is subjected to drastic and sharp temperature changes. Over time, the difference between heat and cold can begin to weaken portions of the car part, especially if it was exposed to excessive temperatures during manufacturing. This is where some SpaceX-grade solutions come into play.
Tesla chose to utilize friction stir welding for its aluminum portions of the coolant assembly. “This is a cool way of putting two parts of aluminum together, some other materials as well, but aluminum is kind of the most suited for it. And in essence, what happens is you have a stylus that spins around very very quickly. It pokes through the two pieces of metal that you want to friction stir weld. Then, it goes around the outside edge, and what it does is it uses the plastic state or thixotropic state of the aluminum to bind it together,” Munro said.
Simply put, the process allows aluminum to reach a temperature that allows two pieces of metal to come together with a strong bond, but it never turns the metal into a soft, liquid-like state. “It’s like soft butter, butter that you could see is firm, but you could cut it with a knife.”
The advantage of using this process is that the heat from the welding process only applies to the outer edges of the metal. The additional material that is not bonded to anything does not see the heat and is not weakened by the welding process. Stir welding is also time effective as it can be completed in a short period, but it is a careful process that does not apply unneeded stress upon the rest of the assembly.
SpaceX uses friction stir welding for its rockets, as it increases strength by exposing only the bonded portions of two pieces of metal to each other. Friction stir welding was used by SpaceX back in 2008 when the company was combining barrel sections of the Falcon 9’s second stage. “The FSW joins metal without flames, sparking, inert gasses, or fumes, and produces a far superior weld in aluminum-lithium alloys as compared to traditional methods,” SpaceX said in a news update.
In the spirit of humor, Tesla and Elon Musk saw the Octovalve as a perfect opportunity to not only improve the performance of the vehicle temperature regulation system but also as an appropriate time to sprinkle in some additional humor in the form of an Easter Egg. The Model 3 donned a cape-wearing bottle-figured superhero for its “Superbottle” system, while the Model Y includes a snowflake-stamped Octopus as an Easter Egg.
Tesla has increased the effectiveness of its thermal management with the introduction of the Model Y’s Octovalve system. Elon Musk stated that it was some of the best engineering he had ever seen. The welding process could increase the longevity of the machine through its lack of exposure to excessive heat and stress during manufacturing.
Watch Munro’s video on the Model Y’s Octovalve welding below.
News
Tesla Roadster livestream: everything Tesla has revealed before Thursday night
Tesla will stream the Roadster event Thursday at 7:55 p.m. Central. Here is what’s known.
Tesla will stream its next generation Roadster event live this Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. Central, according to a post from the official Tesla account shared late Monday. Texas is on daylight time, and outlets have read the post as local Central time, which puts the Tesla Roadster livestream at 8:55 p.m. Eastern and 5:55 p.m. Pacific. The stream is expected on Tesla’s X account, where the announcement went up.
This is the second date for the event. Tesla posted a “Go for launch” image on September 12 that set the unveil for October 1, and invitations sent to reservation holders placed it in Waco, Texas, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, for guests 21 and older with tickets that could not be transferred. Until this week, Tesla had not said the event would be broadcast at all.
Roadster event streaming live this Thursday at 7:55pm CST https://t.co/AbsmpVucui
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 14, 2026
On September 28, Tesla moved the event to October 15, citing severe weather and the fact that the demo can only be held outdoors. Elon Musk then said the cause was high winds, a comment that pushed speculation that the car will leave the ground on stage.
The event will be held in Waco, which sits close to SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site, where the FAA closed airspace up to 10,000 feet from September 18 through October 2 for the original date. Another restriction covering Wednesday, October 14, has been reported near the site, which could mean a rehearsal, though that is unconfirmed.
What Tesla will actually show comes from speculative reports that the vehicle will be unmanned, and spectators will be kept several hundred yards back for safety. A SpaceX package is reportedly code named A71, and linked to what Musk has hinted at in the past – thrusters that could bring 0 to 60 mph down to about one second, compared with the 1.9 seconds quoted for the base car in 2017. Tesla also closed its Semi event with a Roadster teaser suggesting a design that looks different from the original prototype, and has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.
The 2017 figures remain the only official ones: 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, and prices of $200,000 for the base car and $250,000 for the Founders Series. Tesla reopened reservations last month with a $5,000 card payment followed by a $45,000 wire within ten days, and the deposit is refundable. Production is expected at Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028.
Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, six days after the stream, so whatever price or timeline appears Thursday night will land just ahead of that call.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan
SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.
SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.
There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.
We’ve unified plans across Grok, Cursor, and X Premium.
Introducing The X Subscription. https://t.co/SvkrVvBa0p
— SpaceX Super Intelligence (@SpaceXSI) October 12, 2026
The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.
That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.
The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.
The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.
Energy
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.
A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.
The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.
Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.
Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.
Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.
The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.
Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.
Tesla Roadster livestream: everything Tesla has revealed before Thursday night
SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
