News
Tesla’s newest Autopilot Vision head: Who is Andrej Karpathy?
The EV world was rocked when it was announced that Tesla replaced its Vice President of Autopilot Software, Chris Lattner, with Andrej Karpathy. Karpathy is the company’s new Director of AI and Autopilot Vision, but who he is?
Karpathy most recently worked as a research scientist with Elon Musk’s OpenAI, specializing in deep neural networks.
He also had three summer stints at Google. In 2011 and 2013, Karpathy interned for the tech behemoth working on large scale deep learning and video content analysis. In 2015, he was with Google DeepMind, focusing on deep reinforcement learning.
In 2009, Karpathy graduated from University of Toronto with a Bachelor’s of Science in computer science and in physics. From there, he went to the University of British Columbia and got Master’s Degree in computer science and researched motor control, primarily learning controllers for physically simulated figures.
After finishing graduate school in 2011, Karpathy went to Stanford University to pursue a Ph.D in computer science. He researched machine learning, with an emphasis on deep learning for computer vision and natural language processing. He worked under adviser Fei-Fei Li, the director of Stanford’s AI lab and chief director of Google Cloud. According to his Stanford profile, Karpathy graduated in 2015 before jumping to Google DeepMind and eventually OpenAI.
Karpathy has been published in scholarly journals and for conferences, including the International Conference on Learning Representations. He also published a couple of blogs to keep his followers posted on research development and a lighter one on topics such as a survival guide to a Ph.D.
In February of this year he joined the steering committee of distill.pub, a journal focusing on machine learning research.
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Karpathy will report directly to Musk, and work closely with chip expert and Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Jim Keller on advancing Tesla’s self-driving technology.
Tesla released the following statement regarding the hiring of Karpathy:
Andrej Karpathy, one of the world’s leading experts in computer vision and deep learning, is joining Tesla as Director of AI and Autopilot Vision, reporting directly to Elon Musk. Andrej has worked to give computers vision through his work on ImageNet, as well as imagination through the development of generative models, and the ability to navigate the internet with reinforcement learning. He was most recently a Research Scientist at OpenAI.
Andrej completed his computer vision PhD at Stanford University, where he demonstrated the ability to derive complex descriptions of images using a deep neural net. For example, identifying not simply that there is a cat in a given picture, but that it is an orange, spotted cat, riding on a skateboard with red wheels on brown hardwood flooring (http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/main.pdf). He also created and taught “Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition,” the first and still leading deep learning course at Stanford.
Andrej will work closely with Jim Keller, who now has overall responsibility for Autopilot hardware and software.
To see Karpathy in action discussing deep learning, check him out here:
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Tesla Energy has introduced the Powerwall Lease in conjunction with Tesla Electric, making the service available in Texas. This new option delivers whole-home backup power using two Powerwall units for a net monthly cost of $35 after credits, accompanied by a low fixed electricity rate.
Under the lease terms, customers pay a one-time order fee of $100. The base lease payment for the two Powerwalls is approximately $122 per month during the first year, subject to a 3 percent annual escalator thereafter. Enrollment in a qualifying Tesla Electric Backup plan or Virtual Power Plant plan provides an $87 monthly credit.
Powerwall Lease is now available with Tesla Electric in Texas
Whole-home backup for $35/month, with a low fixed electricity rate
– Two Powerwalls, $0 installation
– Storm Watch outage protection
– One app to manage it all pic.twitter.com/oTzqc6K3aF— Tesla Energy (@teslaenergy) August 13, 2026
This credit lowers the effective cost to roughly $35 per month plus applicable tax.
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Installation of the standard system carries no additional charge. The package features Storm Watch for outage protection and allows complete management through a single Tesla application. The system supplies continuous whole-home backup capability.
The Powerwall system enables households to maintain electricity during severe storms that disrupt the utility grid. When outages occur, the batteries automatically provide seamless backup power to the home.
Tesla announces 100k Powerwalls are participating in Virtual Power Plants
Tesla Storm Watch monitors weather forecasts and ensures the units are fully charged ahead of anticipated severe weather events so that power remains available throughout the disruption, keeping lights, refrigeration, and other essential systems operating without interruption.
Availability is restricted to select Texas locations where retail electric choice exists. Participants must lease exactly two Powerwall units and maintain continuous enrollment with Tesla Electric. Solar panels cannot be included under this particular lease arrangement.
The monthly credit activates automatically once the system is installed, receives permission to operate, and enrollment is confirmed. To retain the credit, customers are required to stay enrolled in Tesla Electric and fulfill all program conditions.
Nonstandard installations that involve electrical upgrades or special permitting may lead to extra expenses and might impact eligibility for the credit, so be sure to check with either your installer or Tesla to ensure you will still qualify.
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Elon Musk continues to tease the unveiling event for the Tesla Roadster, a continuing trend that has grown into a bigger game of “When” for fans who have been waiting years for the car to finally enter production.
A video shared on X of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Musk appeared on last year, teasing the Roadster unveiling, was shared once again on the social media platform. The poster said the Roadster event will be “unforgettable.”
Musk agreed:
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The timing is interesting because just yesterday, Musk said that we will be getting flying cars, and for years, Tesla has hinted that it could develop a SpaceX cold gas thruster package that would help the car float or fly for a short period of time.
It would be reasonable to assume Tesla’s major delays with this unveiling event are likely caused by the company’s need to break the rules and push the envelope on nearly everything. Last July, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s VP of Vehicle Engineering, said:
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“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind blowing. We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on and he got a little excited.”
The latest updates that Tesla has given us are that the Roadster is in design development, and it did have several potential dates for an unveiling event this year, including April. It was then pushed to August.
However, there are no clues as to when Tesla will be ready, and fans are certainly getting frustrated with the delays.
For what it is worth, Franz von Holzhausen told Jay Leno this week that the event would be “very soon.”
We sure hope.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
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Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Tesla launches Powerwall Lease for affordable home backup
Elon Musk teases Tesla Roadster unveiling once again
