Elon Musk says Tesla’s new Cybertruck factory will be in Austin, Texas

By Meira Gebel Published April 25, 2023

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday in an earnings call that the electric car company is currently building a factory in Austin, Texas, for its highly anticipated Cybertruck.

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“We’re going to make it a factory that is going to be stunning — it’s right on the Colorado River,” Musk said of the new Gigafactory. “It’s going to basically be an ecological paradise.”

Reports earlier this year indicated Tesla was eyeing Austin for the factory, according to tax documents filed in the area. The location is 15 minutes from downtown Austin, and sits on roughly 2,000 acres of land in Travis County, where officials voted to give the company $14.7 million in tax incentives to build the factory. Musk also said the Austin factory will be open to the public and will have a boardwalk and hiking and biking trail.

Following the announcement, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said: “Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas will keep the Texas economy the strongest in the nation and will create thousands of jobs for hard-working Texans.”

Welcome to Texas, @Tesla.https://t.co/2QaZp4zmvF

— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) July 22, 2020

Tesla said it will continue to expand within Fremont, California, where the company is currently headquartered and where its current Tesla Model S and Model X are built for global sale. The Austin factory will be dedicated to building Tesla’s Cybertruck, Semi, Model 3, and Model Y for the eastern part of the U.S.

Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck last Novemeber, and since then it has made headlines and, more importantly, memes. A lot has yet to be announced about the design of the Cybertruck, but its body will be made with 30x cold-rolled stainless steel, which fends off dents and rust, and its glass panels will reportedly be bulletproof. It will also offer a 6.5-foot cargo box that Tesla refers to as a “vault.”

The Cybertruck will also offer a spacious cabin with six seats and a big storage bin under the rear bench. Its dashboard is an exercise in minimalist design that looks like an evolution of the layout seen in the Model 3 and the Model Y.

The news of Tesla choosing the Lone Star State for its new Gigafactory is too bad for Tulsa, Oklahoma, which recommissioned its Golden Driller Statue to look like Musk and added a Tesla logo to its chest and belt buckle.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Meira Gebel is a freelance reporter based in Portland. She writes about tech, social media, and internet culture for Digital…

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Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say

Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Cars

Robotaxi aside, a $25,000 EV would be pointless, Tesla CEO says

Blue Tesla Model 3 Highland on the road

Enthusiasts expecting to one day put their hands on the steering wheel of a $25,000 Tesla EV may feel like they’ve been taken for a ride.
CEO Elon Musk has just put a serious damper on those expectations, saying that outside of the driverless Robotaxi recently unveiled by Tesla, a regular $25,000 model would be “pointless” and “silly.”
During a conference call with investors, Musk was asked to clarify whether such a model was in the works.
"Basically, having a regular $25K model is pointless,” Musk said. “It would be silly. It would be completely at odds with what we believe." Tesla, Musk continued, has “been very clear that the future is autonomous.”
On October 10, Tesla unveiled its much-awaited robotaxi, called the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The company also unveiled the Robovan, a much larger autonomous vehicle expected to carry people or goods.
The automaker said the Cybercab is expected to be produced in 2026 and cost $30,000. Musk, meanwhile, said that it would be a $25,000 car without specifying if that price tag included federal tax credits.
Tesla’s ambiguity about an affordable entry-level model has been going on for years. In 2020, Musk signaled that a $25,000 Tesla would arrive within three years. It was later reported that Tesla had ditched the idea, instead favoring the development of a robotaxi.
Language within Tesla’s latest financial report still hints that new affordable Tesla models are on the way. But Musk’s latest comments are putting a floor on just how affordable these would be. So far, Tesla’s Model 3 Rear-Wheel-Drive remains the company’s cheapest model, with a base price of $38,990.
Some rival EV makers, meanwhile, are entering the affordable space more aggressively in the U.S.
General Motors has already put out its Chevy Equinox EV at a price of $27,500, including federal tax credits. Volkswagen America says it plans to release an under-$35,000 EV in the U.S. by 2027.

Cars

Tesla and Elon Musk sued over use of AI image at Cybercab event

tesla and spacex CEO elon musk stylized image

Tesla’s recent We, Robot presentation has run into trouble, with one of the production companies behind Blade Runner 2049 suing Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for alleged copyright infringement.

Tesla used the glitzy October 10 event to unveil its Cybercab and Robovan, and also to showcase the latest version of its Optimus humanoid robot.