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Toyota, Stellantis, Ford, and other OEMs begin serious battery production push

Credit: Tesla/YouTube

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It seems like legacy automakers, including Toyota, Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, are starting to embrace the EV transition. Detroit’s Big 3 and Toyota all announced investments in battery plants these last few weeks. These indicate that veteran automakers are taking a serious step toward mass electric vehicle production. 

Toyota’s US Battery Plant

On Monday, Toyota announced plans to invest $3.4 billion in battery development and production within the United States. The Japanese automaker plans to strengthen its position in North America with the investment, including a $1.3 billion EV battery plant to produce in-house cells under a new company. 

The battery facility will initially produce batteries for hybrids. It will work with Toyota Tsusho Corporation, which has a Metals Division that focuses on vehicle weight reduction and electrification functionalities. Toyota expects the battery plant to start production in 2025 and expand through 2031, offering about 1,750 jobs. 

Stellantis & LG’s Partnership

On the same day Toyota announced its North American investment, Stellantis made one of its own. In a press release, Stellantis announced a joint venture with LG Energy Solution to produce lithium-ion batteries in North America. The automaker plans to start building a new battery plant by Q1 2024. 

Stellantis expects its new battery plant to have an annual production capacity of 40 GWh. The cells produced at the plant will supply Stellantis assembly plants in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to produce electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. 

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The remaining two automakers that make up the Detroit 3—Ford and General Motors—announced battery investment plans a few weeks before Stellantis. 

Ford plans to invest $11.4 billion in electric vehicle production, and most of the investment will go towards battery development. Along with SK Innovation, the legacy automaker plans to invest in three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Meanwhile, General Motors announced it would be building a battery cell research and innovation facility in Michigan called the Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center. The facility is already under construction. GM expects the center to be entirely built by mid-2022.

Legacy auto and the EV transition

The announcements mentioned above are a significant step for legacy OEMs in terms of the EV transition. It was only recently that traditional automakers even took the electric vehicle market seriously. Even now, some automakers are unsure about the future of EVs in the global car market. 

“All of us are trying to get a fix on how customers will accept electric vehicles,” said Chris Reynolds, chief administrative officer for Toyota in North America, to The Associated Press. “We don’t know for sure, but we have to be ready.”

However, consumers are showing more interest in new energy vehicles. According to consulting firm Alix Partners, EV sales could increase by 11% in 2025 and 24% in 2030. Currently, electric vehicles sales make up only ~4.8% of about 80 million new vehicles sales worldwide, based on LMC Automotive research. 

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Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla FSD V14.2 starts rolling out to initial batch of vehicles

It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Tesla has begun pushing Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 to its initial batch of vehicles. The update was initially observed by Tesla owners and veteran FSD users on social media platform X on Friday.

So far, reports of the update have been shared by Model Y owners in California whose vehicles are equipped with the company’s AI4 hardware, though it would not be surprising if more Tesla owners across the country receive the update as well. 

Based on the release notes of the update, key improvements in FSD V14.2 include a revamped neural network for better detection of emergency vehicles, obstacles, and human gestures, as well as options to select arrival spots. 

It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.

Following are the release notes of FSD (Supervised) V14.2, as shared on X by longtime FSD tester Whole Mars Catalog.

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Release Notes

2025.38.9.5

Currently Installed

FSD (Supervised) v14.2

Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 includes:

  • Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, leveraging higher resolution features to further improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
  • Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances.
  • Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
  • Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
  • Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
  • Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
  • Improve handling of several scenarios including: unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school busses.
  • Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
  • Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances).
  • Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
  • Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
  • Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
  • Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
  • Improve handling of several scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school buses.
  • Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and recover smoothly from degraded operation for enhanced reliability.
  • Added alerting for residue build-up on interior windshield that may impact front camera visibility. If affected, visit Service for cleaning!

Upcoming Improvements:

  • Overall smoothness and sentience
  • Parking spot selection and parking quality
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Tesla Model X lost 400 pounds thanks to these changes

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Credit: Tesla

The Tesla Model X has always been one of the company’s most loved vehicles, despite its low sales figures, which can be attributed to its high price tag.

However, the Model X has been a signature item on Tesla’s menu of cars, most notably recognized by its Falcon Wing Doors, which are aware of its surroundings and open according to what’s around it.

But recent improvements to the Model X were looking slim to none, but it appears most of the fixes actually happened under the body, at least according to Tesla’s Vice President of Powertrain, Lars Moravy.

In a recent interview with Car and Driver, Moravy detailed all of the changes to the 2026 iteration of the vehicle, which was about 400 pounds lighter than it was originally. The biggest change is a modification with the rear motor, switching from an induction-type motor to a permanent-magnet design and optimizing the half-shafts, which shed about 100 pounds.

Tesla also got “almost 80 pounds out of the interior bits and pieces,” which “included making parts thinner, different manufacturing process choices, and incorporating airbag-deployment requirements into the headliner fabric,” the report said.

Additionally, the standard five-passenger, bench seat configuration saved 50 pounds by ditching pedestal mounting. This also helped with practicality, as it helped the seat fold flat. Engineers at Tesla also saved 44 pounds from the high-voltage wiring through optimizing the wiring from the charge-port DC/DC converter and switching from copper to aluminum wiring.

Tesla makes a decision on the future of its flagship Model S and Model X

Tesla also simplified the cooling system by reducing the number of radiators. It also incorporated Nürburgring cooling requirements for the Plaid variant, which saved nearly 30 pounds.

Many Tesla fans will be familiar with the megacastings, manufactured in-house by presses from IDRA, which also saves more than 20 pounds and boosts torsional stiffness by around 10 percent. Tweaks to the suspension also saved 10 pounds.

People were truly disappointed with what Tesla did with the Model S and Model X, arguing that the cars needed a more severe exterior overhaul, which might be true. However, Tesla really did a lot to reduce the weight of the vehicle, which helps increase range and efficiency. According to Grok, every 200 pounds removed adds between 7 and 15 percent to range estimations.

This makes sense considering the range estimations both increased by 7 percent from the Model X’s 2025 configuration to the 2026 builds. Range increased on the All-Wheel-Drive trim from 329 miles to 352 miles, while the Plaid went from 314 miles to 335 miles.

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Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has officially launched its first branded Supercharger just months after initiating a new program that allows third-party companies to brand their own charging piles.

The site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, and features eight V4 Supercharging stalls offering up to 325 kW of charging speed. It appears it was purchased by a company called Suncoast Credit Union. This particular branch is located Northeast of Tampa, which is on the Gulf of Mexico.

It features graphics of Florida animals, like alligators:

Tesla launched this program back in September, and it basically was a way to expand its Supercharger presence and also allow companies to pay for the infrastructure. Tesla maintains it. When it announced the “Supercharger for Business,” it said:

“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business. Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”

The program does a few things. Initially, it expands EV charging infrastructure and makes charging solutions more readily available for drivers. It can also attract people to those businesses specifically.

Tesla launches new Supercharger program that business owners will love

The chargers can also be branded with any logo that the business chooses, which makes them more personalized and also acts as an advertisement.

The best part is that the customers do not have to maintain anything about the Supercharger. Tesla still takes care of it and resolves any issues:

“We treat your site like we treat our sites. By providing you with a full-service package that includes network operations, preventative maintenance, and driver support, we’re able to guarantee 97% uptime–the highest in the industry.”

It appears the Superchargers will also appear within the in-car nav during routing, so they’ll be publicly available to anyone who needs to use them. They are still available to all EVs that have worked with Tesla to utilize its infrastructure, and they are not restricted to people who are only visiting the business.

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