Tesla will give the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) access to FSD Beta, according to a recent tweet from Elon Musk. Elon responded to a tweet from @WholeMarsBlog who pointed out that even the NHTSA was complaining about having to participate in the safety score process that all of Tesla’s FSD Beta testers have to do.
🤣 ok we’ll turn it on
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 16, 2022
In the tweet, @WholeMarsBlog shared a screenshot of a letter from the agency to Tesla that read:
“As you know, NHTSA owns a Tesla vehicle with the FSD option.”
“With over 700 miles of driving this year and a Safety Score of 99 (including a score of 100 for the most recent 107 miles on January 21), we have not received the OTA update to fully enable FSD in our vehicle.”
“We request some of your time and expertise to asses our situation and help us understand what additional steps we might need to take.”
The letter was dated in January 2022 but is now being brought into the public spotlight on Twitter. This comes after some drama over the weekend. The CEO of Green Hills Software and founder of the Dawn Project, Dan O’Dowd, has been relentlessly campaigning against Tesla’s FSD Beta. The billionaire has recently published television ads claiming that Tesla’s FSD Beta is not stopping for children.
These claims have been debunked several times over the weekend and I wrote about two instances. In the first one, I interviewed @TeslaDriver2022 who performed a test with child-sized Amazon boxes.
“The FSD Beta has just been getting better exponentially even since I’ve been using it. Just some of the predictions it’s got and the capabilities to understand when things are getting in their path. Not even that. Some of the most impressive stuff is just when I’m driving down the road at 45 miles an hour and there’s a car that will turn in front of me to get into a parking lot.
“Its ability to understand whether or not that car is gonna make it or not and whether or not it needs to slow down. It’s becoming very human-like.”
In the second article, @WholeMarsBlog tested FSD Beta on a child-sized mannequin and allowed Tad Park to test it on his son. In each test, FSD Beta recognized and stopped for pedestrians. He told me that the test showed that FSD Beta has no problem detecting pedestrians of all ages.
However, critics claim that the Tesla owners are vile for testing it on their children, yet are refusing to acknowledge that O’Dowd’s claims were disproven. The idea of testing such software on a child may seem horrifying to those who don’t understand the software or know how to drive.
A father who loves his child would quickly take over and brake if the software were to refuse to stop. And in the video, you can see clearly see the screen recognizing the child and stopping at a very safe distance.
In O’Dowd’s videos, the screen is hard to see and you can see some type of error message as the driver refuses to disengage. Many in the Tesla community have pointed out that the driver was accelerating. If this is the case, then FSD Beta would have to allow the driver to take over. This includes acceleration.
Aka, something like "Accelerator pedal is pressed – car will not brake" or "Front camera blocked or blinded".
Why do you keep driving with errors? Why do you keep "coincidentally" posting videos with them too blurry to read?
People have been asking you this from Day 1, Dan.
— Nafnlaus 🇮🇸🇺🇦 (@enn_nafnlaus) August 15, 2022
With Tesla granting the NHTSA access to FSD Beta, the agency will most likely do testing of its own. This, I think would be a very good thing considering that the agency and its employees aren’t running for political office for the sole reason of taking down Elon Musk.
The agency and Tesla may have gone head to head a few times, however, safety is important for both Tesla and the NHTSA so it makes sense to grant the agency FSD Beta for its vehicle.
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
Tesla recently received its largest order for the all-electric Semi from Einride, a Swedish transport service, for 500 units, a groundbreaking invoice to receive before the first deliveries begin.
Even more remarkable, Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said in a recent interview that he expects his company to take delivery of all 500 — the entire order — before the end of 2027. He even expects to have 75 Tesla Semi units in the Einride fleet before the end of this year.
🚨 Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli on the Tesla Semi partnership:
“If we start with the Amazon announcement that we did earlier this year, that was on the back of having gone through a proving period together with them and proving out our technology. Then we took that next step in… pic.twitter.com/oazkXjwoig
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 28, 2026
Charli said the Tesla partnership was part of a broader push, along with its earlier partnership with Amazon. Einride is assisting Amazon with the use of its Saga AI platform, which helps eliminate questions about budgeting and forecasting for logistics companies.
The Semi, as well as Tesla’s production and subsequent delivery of the units to Einride, will help the company “to have a good supply of vehicles that we can deploy on the [Saga AI] platform,” Charli said. “Tesla is also a relationship we’ve had for a while, and as the Tesla Semi deliveries are firming up, we decided to do a larger commitment to that and deploy that on our platform.”
In its initial announcement, Einride said it anticipated taking delivery of the trucks over the next two years, but now it appears the company is expecting all 500 units within the next 16 months.
Built at a dedicated factory in Sparks, Nevada, the Tesla Semi has been perhaps the biggest and most intensive testing process the company has ever had for a single vehicle model. For the past several years, Tesla has been working with many companies, most notably Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, to gain knowledge on the performance on regional routes.
Tesla plans to launch the Semi officially on September 24, five months after production started ramping.
Additionally, drivers have said they are happy about the Semi’s performance and that its numerous safety and productivity features have made their jobs and routes much easier.
Tesla Cybercab is using a unique strategy for picking up the correct rider, which is a crucial part of ride-hailing to ensure people end up in the right place and are charged the correct price.
Cybercab will utilize an RGB strip in its front light bar that will illuminate in a variety of different colors to mark itself.
This identifying mark will also appear in the Robotaxi app, giving riders in the same location a notable distinction in an effort to avoid any confusion regarding who should get in each vehicle.
🚨 Tesla is using different light bar colors to help riders understand which vehicle is theirs
Pretty cool strategy pic.twitter.com/eGMpEMeRpc
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2026
Other ride-hailing services use similar strategies: Lyft and Uber rides are recognizable through driver identity, vehicle type and color, as well as license plate. Waymo will display the rider’s initials on top of the vehicle, letting them know that the specific vehicle for them has arrived.
Tesla’s strategy is unique and interesting, but there are some flaws. Cybercab’s main purpose is aimed toward being an autonomous ride for all, including those who have disabilities like being blind or even color blind.
Tesla will likely have something in the pipeline for those who cannot see colors or have limited vision. There will definitely be multiple ways to identify which vehicle is the one that “you” specifically ordered.
Cybercab is set to start giving public rides next Thursday, September 3, in Austin, as it announced a dedicated event last week and invited many members of the Tesla community.
Additionally, members of the public will be invited as well. Tesla has been offering employee rides in Cybercab for nearly two months.
Tesla has said goodbye to one customization option for its vehicles: the wrap service it launched several years ago.
After launching an in-house wrap service in August 2020 for the first time in China. In the U.S., it launched in October 2023. Tesla continued to expand the program and adjust it with better pricing and fewer options for the Cybertruck.
By December 2023, it was giving owners of the Model 3, Model Y, and the Cybertruck the opportunity to give their vehicle a fresh look with a vinyl wrap.
Tesla revamps in-house vinyl wrap service with better pricing
It was only available in five locations: Costa Mesa, Oceanside, Santa Clara, West Covina, all in California, and Seattle, Washington.
However, Tesla made some big adjustments to its shop, and the wrap service is officially gone:
Tesla has made a LOT of changes to its online shop recently — price increases, price cuts, new options, and several products being removed entirely.
Some of the biggest increases are wheel covers. 👀
📈 PRICE INCREASES
• 2017-2023 | Model 3 Aero Wheel Cover — Style: Refresh…— Phoenix Self-Driving 🐦🔥 (@PhoenixFSD) August 25, 2026
Wraps are very popular across the Tesla lineup, especially since the company offers relatively few colors. Many choose to wrap their Teslas with interesting colors, patterns, or even finishes, turning their cars from glossy to satin or matte.
However, Tesla’s wrap service was so limited geographically that it never really had a chance to get off the ground or compete with local shops. Every area in the United States is now overflowing with detailing shops, mobile detailers, and other automotive specialists, many of whom perform wrap services.
Tesla’s service was confined to the Pacific time zone and only spanned across two states. It was never going to be something Tesla was a major competitor in, nor was it going to disrupt the wrapping industry. Now that the program has ended, it seems pretty ideal to believe it was always going to be a short-term thing.
Along with the wrap service, Tesla removed several other products, but nothing too crazy. The Model 3 Door Pocket and Cupholder Liners, the Model S 19″ Magnetite Wheel and Winter Tire Package, Model X/Y Ski/Snowboard Carrier for Hitch Rack, Tesla’s Electric Summer Party Tee, and the Electric Summer Tee were the other items the company totally eliminated from its online shop.
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