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Tesla Motors 2015 Strategy to Fight Dealer Laws, Stay Aggressive

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Source: Associate Press

Would Tesla ever build cars in Michigan? Musk: “It’s not out of the question. Maybe Michigan shouldn’t stop us from selling cars here.” (Image: Courtesy of Associate Press)

I was following the Elon Musk press conference from the International Car show via the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday afternoon and a whole lot of topics were addressed, including the Model X, dealership strategy, China sales, the Gigafactory and GAAP financials, among others.

During the interview portion of the event, Musk had the whole room laughing when he said (paraphrasing) “if I keep talking, we’ll be out of business very soon,” referring to Tesla’s stock sell-off once he said China sales numbers for December were down.

Musk also stated that “Tesla can make a few million cars a year by 2025.” If that happens, one would presume Tesla will be selling in all 50 states by 2025.

Musk responded to a dealership question and made a point of stating, “we need to have our own stores first,” before selling via dealerships. Musk’s subtle insistence on having his own stores, at first, didn’t make impression but could signify its stance with state legislators going forward.

Today, Rep. Tony Guerrera, a Democratic co-chairman of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee of Connecticut, proposed a new bill to allow the Tesla Motors to sell directly to the consumer. A supporter of that bill, Republican Art Linares, says,” “I think that Tesla is an innovative business. They’re creating jobs across the country. It’s a great vehicle. Just by passing this bill, we can create jobs here in Connecticut.”

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Chen also counters the dealer association's assertion of what if Tesla goes out of business? Where will the Tesla owners go for service? According to the article, "Chen called it almost laughable that dealers are pitching themselves as the consumer’s advocate, saying there’s no guarantee they will remain in business."

So am I reading into his statement about "more of our stores" in Detroit and a more aggressive company response in Connecticut? Not sure yet, but as 2015 progresses, senators and ambitious representative might see the light in making the right call or aligning themselves with their principles, instead of ancient dealer laws.

And, I'll leave you this from yesterday's conference:

Reporter: Would Tesla ever build cars in Michigan?

Musk: "It's not out of the question. Maybe Michigan shouldn't stop us from selling cars here."

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God Save the Luddites, Anti-Tesla Opponents Exposed

"Grant Gerke wears his Model S on his sleeve and has been writing about Tesla for the last five years on numerous media sites. He has a bias towards plug-in vehicles and also writes about manufacturing software for Automation World magazine in Chicago. Find him at Teslarati

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Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’

“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.

During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.

While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.

Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.

He said:

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“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”

It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”

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With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.

This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.

Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.

But it is close.

That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.

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All we can say is, we’ll see.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms

However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.

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elon musk side profile
Joel Kowsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.

It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.

Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.

He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.

However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.

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Musk replied, basically confirming it:

Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.

AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.

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It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.

The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.

But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.

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Tesla adds 15th automaker to Supercharger access in 2025

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tesla supercharger
Credit: Tesla

Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.

BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.

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Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:

  • i4: 2022-2026 model years
  • i5: 2024-2025 model years
    • 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
  • i7: 2023-2026 model years
  • iX: 2022-2025 model years
    • 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026

With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.

So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:

  • Audi
  • BMW
  • Genesis
  • Honda
  • Hyundai
  • Jaguar Land Rover
  • Kia
  • Lucid
  • Mercedes-Benz
  • Nissan
  • Polestar
  • Subaru
  • Toyota
  • Volkswagen
  • Volvo

Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.

They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.

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