Tesla Archive

Last month, we reported that Tesla had purchased $2 million worth of lidar sensors from Luminar, a surprising deal given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s very public disparagements of autonomous vehicle companies that partly rely on the laser sensor. This week, a reader sent us this photo of a Tesla Model Y with Luminar’s Hydra sensors mounted on the roof. The back of the vehicle says “Engineering Vehicle,” which could mean the company is using lidar to validate its self-driving software (although Musk has claimed that wasn’t necessary “anymore”).

Tesla recently filed a $1 billion lawsuit against a former supplier, Matthews International, alleging trade secret theft of its EV battery technology. Matthews has been supplying Tesla with machinery since 2019, and the company says it has been been swiping trade secrets related to dry electrode battery manufacturing. Tesla got those secrets by acquiring a company called Maxwell Technologies back in 2018.

Posts on the Cybertruck Owners Forum, Reddit, and on X say that Tesla has notified them their Cybertruck deliveries are being pushed back. Some say they were told it was a wiper blade issue, while others say they weren’t given a reason.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk got his big compensation package approved yesterday, but how many really voted in favor? Well, it seems 1.78 billion shares voted in favor of Musk’s payday, while 529 million voted against — a 72 percent margin, excluding shares held by Musk and his brother Kimbal, as The New York Times reports. Musk took a victory lap on the mic at the shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas.

The shareholder meeting ends with several people pitching Musk on their personal business ideas. He adds another note about FSD’s rate of improvement. And that’s the end.

Musk kind of sidesteps a question about whether there’s a succession plan in place in the event that he gets hit by a car — or just decides to leave. “I think Tesla has a good future without me,” he said. “I think I’m a helpful accelerant to that future.”

“People will have super helpful humanoid helper robots,” Musk says in response to a question about robot personalities. “And, yeah, you’ll be able to customize the personality, customize the voice and really kind of, the robot will kind of get to know you as well and know your preferences.”