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Tesla & PG&E VPP Beta have over 2,000 homes in the program

Credit: Rick Davis/Last Bulb.

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Tesla and Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) virtual power plant (VPP) beta now have over 2,000 homes participating in the program. The VPP beta program has a total of 2,149 homes in the program today which is up 12.3% in 20 days.

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In July, the two companies announced that 25,000 customers were invited to participate in the program which allows homeowners with a Tesla Powerwall to send electricity to the grid when it’s needed.

To put into perspective how much energy these homes are contributing, @TeslaTydirium compared the energy being contributed to the grid by the participating households with that of a Tesla Megapack.

“2149 homes contributing 18 kWh each is functionally equivalent to a 39 MWh Megapack. Such a system is worth at least $16 million. And growing fast.”

Tesla VPP Tracker creator shares why he created the real-time app

Rick Davis, the creator of the Tesla VPP tracker which tracks the program in real-time said that he’d been estimating 7.2 kWh per Powerwall with an average of 2 per home. This reflects the on-demand discharge rate to which the network has access.

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I spoke with Rick who is one of the beta testers in the VPP program. He told me that he’d designed his home around the solar shingles which he thinks are being underreported as the future of solar. He has a 24 kWh system which enables him to contribute energy to the grid.

I asked Rick what inspired him to create the Tesla VPP tracker and he told me that he wanted to help people understand this drastically changing world.

“Like with my Tesla / SpaceX alumni tracker, I saw people really didn’t understand how drastically the world is going to change for the better.

 “People hang on to every ‘Elon said,’ headline, but vastly underestimate the power of the people, mindset, and imaginative products around him.  My trackers aim to shed light on what at this point feels like a first principles movement.” 

“The Tesla VPP beta tracker will show an impressive growth story in a couple of years from ground zero.”

 

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Disclaimer: Johnna is long Tesla. 

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Tesla starts preparing for Optimus in its smartphone app

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Tesla is starting to prepare for the launch of the Optimus robot in its smartphone app, new coding strings show. Elon Musk has referred to Optimus as what will be the greatest-selling product of any kind of all time, and now, Tesla is getting ready for its launch.

Tesla’s smartphone app had several first-time mentions of the Optimus program, according to Tesla App Updates, who intially reported on the appearance. Here’s what they found:

A Dedicated “Robot” Phone Key Authentication

Tesla is working on a Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, authentication that is specifically for robots. This does not only apply to Optimus, though, as Robotaxi, which is Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, might also identify vehicles within the fleet as robots as well.

Tesla shows rapid teardown of Model S and X lines, paving the way for Optimus at Fremont

Essentially, pairing your phone as a key to anything Tesla identifies as a robot to a “whitelist” of authorized devices. Optimus, Robotaxi, or other products that fall into this category will only respond if the device trying to communicate with it is authorized.

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This is a great security feature that will eliminate at least face-value and low-level threats.

Home Data Collection and System Alerts

This appears to be somewhat of a neural network for Optimus within your house. There will be a dedicated screen that asks for consent to collect both video and spatial data while Optimus performs in-home tasks. Everything from vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, and other activities will be tracked.

There will also be a comprehensive alert system that will track everything from low battery to mechanical issues.

Other Changes

Most of the changes tracked in this particular app update are related to Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, and include things such as image assets for new features, a preview of the new custom wraps feature, and other unique features.

You can check out our coverage on what is included with the 2026 Summer Update here:

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Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

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Investor's Corner

Tesla Q2 Earnings: Here’s what to expect

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the second quarter of 2026 this evening after market close, and investors and analysts are waiting anxiously to see what the company will report for the second three-month span of the year.

Analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s second quarter, but what’s unknown is what Tesla plans to discuss during the call.

Financial Expectations

Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.53, while revenues are expected to come in around $26.4 billion.

This would compare to an EPS of $0.39 and $22.19 billion compared to Tesla’s Q2 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.41 on $22.387 billion of revenue. Additionally in Q1, Tesla beat analyst expectations, but shares dropped over 3 percent the following trading day.

What We Expect

In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings are pretty sporadic and depend on a handful of things, including current events, investor questions, and more.

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Tesla uses a platform called Say to field questions from investors and analysts. These questions are what will be used during the call. Here are the top 5 from the Retail side and top 3 from the Institutional side:

Retail:

“Tesla has missed short-term guidance on robotaxi 3 earnings reports in a row, from 50% coverage of USA by end of 2025 to most recently 7 new cities in 1H26. What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short term goals that they’ve set for themselves?”

“What are the main constraints to expanding robotaxi operations faster, and how do you see that lining up with Cybercab production?”

“What’s the current status of Optimus Gen 3 production ramp, initial deployment in factories, and external sales timeline/volume for 2027? What tasks can we expect the Optimus to perform by end of 2027?”

“To reward long-term Tesla retail shareholders for their loyalty, can you commit to achieving at least half of the goals outlined in your 2025 compensation plan before considering any offers to acquire or merge Tesla?”

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“Why has growth of robotaxi vehicles stalled? When will we see cybercab start customer rides?”

Institutional

“Previously, you’ve said Tesla would lead the R&D while SpaceX would lead production for Terafab. Can you provide an update on how that division of responsibilities is evolving, and any additional clarity on the expected capital contributions from Tesla and SpaceX?”

“For autonomous driving, Tesla’s fleet created a huge data advantage by collecting billions of real-world miles. That advantage doesn’t yet exist for Optimus. How should we think about data availability and its impact on Optimus development?”

“Why is it necessary to limit robotaxi operations within specific zones within cities to start? Will every city have to be rolled out this way?”

Tesla will report earnings for Q2 this evening with the Shareholder Deck at 4 p.m. ET, with the call starting around 5:30 p.m. ET.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk handed Grok something no other AI company can get their hands on

Elon Musk says SpaceX will feed engineering data into Grok’s next model, avoiding restricted material.

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Artistic concept rendering of SpaceX data being incorporated into a Grok AI model

Elon Musk said Tuesday that SpaceX will feed its internal engineering data into the next major training run for Grok, the AI model now folded into SpaceX following February’s merger. In a post on X, Musk wrote that SpaceX’s “massive corpus of world-class engineering data,” excluding anything restricted under U.S. arms export law, will be added during supplemental training of what he called the “2T run,” a reference to a roughly two trillion parameter model that would nearly double the parameters behind the latest Grok 4.5 that’s rolling out.

The excluded material that Musk is referring to would fall under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which restricts export of technical data tied to defense and space hardware. That likely rules out propulsion specifics for Merlin and Raptor engines along with guidance and control details for SpaceX’s launch vehicles, but leaves manufacturing knowledge, materials science, and Starlink hardware design on the table.

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The announcement extends a pattern that has been building since SpaceX’s Nasdaq debut in June, when the company went public with Grok and xAI’s Colossus supercomputer folded into the pitch to investors.

Days after that listing, SpaceX closed its $60 billion all stock acquisition of coding startup Cursor, giving xAI both enterprise software distribution and a stream of real world developer data to train on. Grok 4.5 launched July 8 running partly on that Cursor training data, with Musk describing it as roughly comparable to Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 but faster and cheaper to run.

Feeding SpaceX’s own engineering data into the next AI model follows the same logic Musk has applied across xAI’s sister companies. Tesla supplies real world driving data and manufacturing expertise, X supplies conversational data, and now SpaceX supplies aerospace engineering data built up since 2002.

Musk did not give a release date for the upcoming AI model, referred to elsewhere as Grok 4.6. He has said the two trillion parameter run is in its final training phase and expected to wrap this week.

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