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VW Works Council Chair talks Herbert Diess and Tesla’s growing influence on German auto
Tesla is not yet producing electric vehicles at Gigafactory Berlin, but the EV maker’s presence is already being felt in Germany’s auto sector. According to sociologist Andreas Boes, director of the Munich Institute for Social Science Research (ISF), Tesla has practically become the “elephant in the room” during interviews with managers and experts from Germany’s auto industry.
The sociologist looked into Tesla’s effects on the country’s auto industry on behalf of IG Metall, one of Germany’s most notable unions. During the Hannover Messe, Boes noted that the auto industry as the world knows it today would likely not exist in ten years due to changes being brought upon the segment. And Tesla, with its all-electric cars and unorthodox approach to car-making, is serving as the harbinger of change in the country’s auto sector.
This change is already being embraced by some notable automakers, among them Volkswagen. Led by executives such as Herbert Diess, who has seen direct support from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Volkswagen has dedicated a good part of its resources to its shift towards electromobility. As per a report from Welt, Diess regularly uses the competition from Tesla to put pressure on Volkswagen’s employees, and to help push the massive, legacy automaker towards the direction of sustainability.
This strategy, however, has not sat well with the Chairman of the Volkswagen Group Works Council. In a statement to German media, Bernd Osterloh, the Works Council Chair noted that he disagrees with Diess’ optimism about Tesla. “I think the hype is an overstatement of Tesla’s actual situation,” Osterloh said. He also remarked that when it comes to things like the chassis, Volkswagen is simply better than the American EV maker.
Osterloh also spoke about Tesla’s lead in the EV sector. “Where Tesla is ahead of us at the moment – and the Volkswagen board doesn’t like that – is their own expertise within the company. They build their own chips and make their own software. We buy all that in,” the VW Works Council exec said.
Not all of Germany’s unions have taken a rather cold stance on Tesla. Thorsten Gröger, district manager of the Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt trade union, noted that it is a positive sign when a company like Tesla settles in an area like Brandenburg. “Co-determination, collectively agreed working conditions make companies more innovative and more successful. I would advise Mr. Musk to recognize that,” Gröger said.
Regardless of how Tesla is perceived among Germany’s auto veterans, the country’s shift to electric mobility has begun nonetheless. Apart from Volkswagen’s development and release of its ID line of vehicles, Daimler is also poised to present its long-awaited flagship all-electric sedan, the EQS, later this week. The vehicle, which would be priced at a premium and will likely compete with upcoming cars like the Model S Plaid and the Lucid Air, would be a key vehicle for Daimler’s immediate future. “We are at the forefront of movement with the vehicle… We are in the process of defining a segment,” Christoph Starzynski, Head of Electric Vehicle Architecture at Mercedes-Benz said.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
