Volkswagen Auto Group CEO Herbert Diess has led his German car company to be one of the most respected in terms of large entities that have chosen to leave a long and successful past of producing gas-powered vehicles in favor of electrified models. Diess has worked long and hard to dissolve VW’s past mistakes, especially the Dieselgate scandal from several years ago. However, in 2021, VW has left its blemished past behind it and is the most popular electrified brand in Europe, leading companies like Tesla, Peugeot, and Renault in the world’s most robust market for electrified vehicles. Diess is a big part of this accomplishment and has one of the more keen eyes for the industry, self-admittedly behind Elon Musk.
Diess’ thoughts on the EV industry and how 2021 has shaped it to be one of the most difficult and challenging sectors of the year due to semiconductor shortages, along with his plans for Volkswagen’s electrified future and his respect for fellow auto CEO Elon Musk were discussed in a recent interview with CNN’s Anna Stewart who caught up with the VW frontman at the International Motor Show in Munich.
50% of sales electric by 2030
Diess responds to Stewart’s first inquiry, which regards VW’s goal to have 50% of its sales be electric by 2030. “In Europe, we are already leading,” Diess said, which is true based on the most recent figures from EU-EVs.com, showing Volkswagen has a comfortable lead over second-place Tesla by just over 20,000 vehicles. In other markets, Volkswagen is performing well. “Even in the US, we have been in second place for the last months, and in China, we are growing fast. We think we will become the market leader for EVs,” Diess adds.
Volkswagen has absolutely taken on the EV initiative better than 99% of other car companies, making its goals the most believable moving forward. The ID. family of vehicles has performed incredibly well, with Volkswagen offering specific models for specific markets to keep things fresh, exciting, and relevant. The question is, will VW be able to keep up its domination of the European market when Tesla begins production at Giga Berlin later this year?
Global semiconductor shortage
One of the biggest bottlenecks in recent history, the global semiconductor supply shortage, has plagued automakers to scrap basic functions like “push-to-start” features in ICE vehicles. Diess, a usually optimistic person, admits that Volkswagen is still struggling with the shortages, and he is not quite sure when things will get better.
“It has gotten worse already. We expected that we would have relief after the summer break, which didn’t happen because, in Malaysia, we had really quite significant problems with Covid,” Diess added. “Some of our suppliers, the back ends of our suppliers are mostly based in Malaysia, and three plants were hit hard. We think that we will overcome this situation towards the end of the month, and then we should see relief.”
Autonomy
In terms of autonomy, Diess is optimistic about the capabilities of self-driving cars. “We see a much bigger transition for the industry when cars are becoming autonomous because cars will be used differently, used by more people. You can send your children or your grandparents in a car somewhere. Now imagine!” Volkswagen previously claimed it could sell a self-driving system that charged by the hour, and it would be profitable doing it. However, Diess said the business still has a long way to go, and Volkswagen will likely roll out its first fleet in 2024 or 2026. “But it’s now time to invest and to prepare. And that’s what we are doing,” he stated.
Volkswagen says it can profitably sell a self-driving system for €7 an hour
Volkswagen vs. Tesla
Diess holds high regard for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The two are friends and have shared several compliments with each other on several occasions. Musk even took a ride in an ID.3 in Germany with Diess piloting the vehicle, which ignited rumors of a potential collaboration between the two automotive CEOs. Diess still holds the utmost respect for Musk and Tesla, calling the company’s frontman “a brilliant guy” who “makes a difference. He’s changing the world with his ventures.”
Despite the two companies combating to dominate EV sales across the globe, Diess does not see any parallels between VW and Tesla. “We are quite different. He is very focused on Tesla, on his story. I’m running a big traditional company, which we try to prepare for the future. And I think we also require different characters. I like him a lot, but I think we are quite different.”
As for whether Diess was ever offered the CEO job at Tesla, Herbert simply ended with, “I don’t know,” and a slight chuckle.”
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below, or be sure to email me at joey@teslarati.com or on Twitter @KlenderJoey.
News
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
