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Tesla will give the NHTSA access to FSD Beta Tesla will give the NHTSA access to FSD Beta

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Tesla will give the NHTSA access to FSD Beta

Credit: @WholeMarsBlog

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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.

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.”

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“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.

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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.

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

 

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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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Elon Musk

Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access

Musk says Roadster owners can command the unveiling stunts autonomously, with a Texas looping track.

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Elon Musk says owners of the new Tesla Roadster will be able to ask the car to perform the stunts Tesla showed at its unveiling, with the car doing the driving itself. Musk made the comment Saturday in a reply on X to tech blogger Robert Scoble, and he added a promise of a looping track at Tesla’s Texas headquarters.

Scoble had argued that the person in the Roadster is not really driving it. In his description, the driver operates a computer that tells another computer what to do, with steering, braking and acceleration all handled by wire. Musk answered, “True. You will be able to ask the Roadster to perform any of the tricks shown autonomously, as it will be sentient. Also, we will have a wild looping track (crazier even than Hot Wheels) at our Texas HQ where you can test out your Roadster.”

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At the October 15 event outside Waco, the car drove up a curved ramp until it was upside down, flew off on cold gas thrusters, flipped and landed. It also hovered over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Semi, Model Y and Model 3 while moving. As we noted in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations, Musk said at the event that the car “literally is just going to puff itself up” to perform the maneuvers whenever an owner wants. Saturday’s reply adds that the car would run them on its own.

Tesla has described some of the hardware that would make that possible. The Roadster uses steer by wire with a yoke, and its cold gas thrusters rely on electric actuators for small adjustments in flight. A fan system under the car creates suction, which Tesla says is strong enough to hold it upside down, a setup we covered in our look at the Roadster’s fan system and thrusters.

Musk did not say when an autonomous stunt feature might arrive, how it would work, or what he means by sentient. He also gave no size, location or opening date for the Texas track. Production is planned for Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028, and Tesla says the car is not approved for public road use. The Rocket version, the one built to fly, is invite only.

The comment follows a week of Musk teasing the event, including his claim that the demo would be a banger, which we covered before the stream. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, and shareholders can submit and vote on questions through the Say portal until 4 p.m. EDT on October 20, according to our earnings Q&A preview. A question about autonomous Roadster stunts and the Texas track would be a quick way to get specifics from management.

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car

Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.

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Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)
Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)

The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.

The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.

The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.


Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.

The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.

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