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Tesla’s race to full self-driving under pressure as GM Cruise gets $2.25B investment

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In a press release on Thursday, General Motors announced that SoftBank would be investing $2.25 billion in the automaker’s self-driving unit, GM Cruise Holdings LLC. The Detroit-based auto giant would also be investing an additional $1.1 billion into its self-driving division. These investments are aimed at boosting the unit’s capability to reach commercialization at scale by next year.

GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra lauded the additional investments into the company’s self-driving unit. Barra noted in the press release that the support from SoftBank adds an “additional strong partner” as the automaker pursues its “vision of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.”

GM Cruise currently operates a fleet of autonomous Chevy Bolt EVs in San Francisco that provide autonomous ride-hailing services to its employees. Plans are also underway to develop a Chevy Bolt EV variant that is specifically designed to be fully autonomous, with the vehicle not having pedals or a steering wheel.

SoftBank’s $2.25 billion investment into GM Cruise will be made in two tranches. SoftBank Vision Fund will first invest $900 million at the closing of the transaction. Once GM Cruise’s autonomous vehicles are ready to hit the market, Vision Fund will release the second tranche of $1.35 billion. This will ultimately result in SoftBank Vision Fund commanding a 19.6% stake in GM Cruise.

The new investment brings GM Cruise’s valuation close to $11.5 billion. The investment also brings to light the arguable undervaluation of Tesla’s Autopilot system, which has been on the consumer market for several years and has more than 150,000 vehicles from around the world that’s collecting data.

Still, GM Cruise’s new financial backing puts tremendous pressure on Tesla, which has seen its fair share of scrutiny as it steadily improves its Autopilot software in the public eye. Despite having collected reservation deposits for its Full Self-Driving capability that is yet to be released, Autopilot continues to improve and pacing toward full autonomy, according to CEO Elon Musk.

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During the Q4 2017 earnings call, Musk addressed the delays in the company’s planned coast-to-coast autonomous drive. The exhibition, which was set for December 2017, did not pan out, although Tesla could have accomplished the coast-to-coast trip, according to Musk. However, doing so would have required far too much “specialized code” that would only be fully effective on a particular route. During the earnings call, Musk stated that Tesla would likely conduct the autonomous coast-to-coast drive sometime this year. 

A Tesla Model 3 on Autopilot. [Credit: LivingTesla/YouTube]

One notable difference between Tesla and GM Cruise, and Google’s Waymo is the Tesla’s opposition to the utilization of LiDAR technology – a common fixture on self-driving cars. Instead of LiDAR, Tesla’s electric cars rely on a series of cameras, radar, and ultrasonic sensors to collect data on a vehicle’s surroundings. LiDAR, which is used in GM Cruise’s Chevy Bolt EVs and Waymo’s autonomous vehicles, boasts high spatial precision. Inasmuch as LiDAR can measure distances well, however, it performs poorly in bad weather.

Ultimately, Tesla’s ace-in-the-hole in the increasingly competitive self-driving car market could be its neural net and sharing of fleet data. There are roughly 150,000 AP2.0 vehicles on the road today, with each one providing valuable data to Tesla’s deep neural networks. Akin to the human brain, the more data that is available to train the neural network, the better its performance would be. 

Ultimately, Tesla’s neural net could be the difference-maker when the company goes all-in and competes in the self-driving race. Until then, however, the electric car maker could soon be taking a backseat to companies like GM Cruise and Waymo, both of which are accelerating their efforts at rolling out consumer-ready autonomous vehicles in the near future.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice

Tesla’s Robotaxi app now shows ETAs, wait times and availability for Cybercab and Model Y.

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

Tesla has rolled out a new vehicle selection screen in its Robotaxi app, and it puts the numbers riders care about most in front of them before they book.

Version 26.11.0 of the app shows the estimated arrival time, the expected wait and current availability for each vehicle option on a single screen, according to a video shared by @gheeunit  on X on November 7. Riders deciding between a Cybercab and a Model Y Robotaxi can now compare those figures side by side instead of picking a car first and learning how long it will take afterward.

Tesla first gave riders that choice on September 3, the day paid Cybercab rides began in Austin. The original version of the screen listed the Cybercab, which seats two, next to the Model Y, which seats four. A later build, 26.8.2, added a seating capacity indicator so groups knew which car would fit them. What it did not show was whether choosing the Cybercab meant standing on the curb a few extra minutes.

That question matters more now than it did two months ago. Tesla had 45 Cybercabs on the Texas DMV roster when rides started. By late October the state listed 573, alongside 631 Model Ys, and community trackers logged a record 1,576 Cybercab sightings across Austin on Halloween alone. With two large fleets sharing one service area, the closest car and the quickest pickup are not always the same vehicle.

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Inline availability also changes what happens when demand spikes. If no Cybercab is free nearby, the rider sees that on the selection screen rather than after trying to book one.

For now the comparison is mostly an Austin feature. Riders in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and the Florida markets are still matched with Model Y vehicles, though Tesla said on its third quarter earnings call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas this month.

The update follows a steady run of smaller changes to the rider experience. Late last month Tesla brought a quiet mode that blacks out the cabin screen to Model Y Robotaxis after first testing it in the Cybercab, and it has stretched Austin service to run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The Cybercab side of that selection screen is about to get much busier. Elon Musk said this week that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab output, and Tesla has said it is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year.

Tesla has not published official release notes for version 26.11.0.

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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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