Latest news with #TeslaOwners
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Automotive
- Gizmodo
Tesla Tries to Save the Cybertruck With Its Most Desperate Offer Yet
Less than two years after its hyped-up debut, Tesla is making an aggressive, almost desperate, move to salvage the Cybertruck, a vehicle widely seen as one of the biggest busts in recent automotive history. Faced with production woes, quality control nightmares, and underwhelming sales, the company has added its polarizing truck to a massive sales event, offering a powerful incentive it has historically reserved for its most loyal customers: a free transfer of its $12,000 Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. It's a stunning concession and a clear signal that the company is willing to sacrifice a significant revenue stream to get the angular, stainless-steel behemoths off of lots and onto the road. The offer, quietly added to Tesla's 'Current Offers' page, allows existing Tesla owners who have already purchased FSD to transfer that capability to a new Cybertruck, free of charge. For years, FSD was locked to the vehicle, not the owner. Making it transferable has been the single most requested feature from Tesla's loyal fanbase, and until now, the company had only offered it for its high-volume Model 3, Y, S, and X vehicles during brief promotional periods. Adding the Cybertruck to that list is a strategic gamble. On one hand, it's a powerful lure for the thousands of dedicated Tesla owners who might be on the fence about the unconventional truck. On the other, it's an admission that the Cybertruck cannot sell on its own merits. Tesla's Cybertruck Is a Bust The move comes amid a broader sales blitz as Tesla braces for the September 30 expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. The company is offering deep inventory discounts and 10,000 free Supercharging miles across its lineup. But the Cybertruck's inclusion in the FSD transfer promotion is unique, targeting the only group of people who might still be interested: the Tesla faithful. Since its launch, the Cybertruck has been plagued by problems. Early models were criticized for inconsistent panel gaps, susceptibility to rust spots, and a host of software glitches. More importantly, its radical design and high price point have failed to attract mainstream truck buyers, who continue to flock to established models like the Chevrolet's Silverado EV, which leans into a more conventional design. While Tesla does not release specific sales figures for the Cybertruck, industry analysts and registration data suggest that deliveries have fallen far short of initial projections. The truck is a rare sight on American roads, a far cry from the ubiquitous presence of the Model Y or Model 3. In the second quarter of 2025, Tesla sold just 4,306 Cybertrucks, down a staggering 50.8% from the 8,755 units it delivered during the same period last year, according to new data from Kelley Blue Book. By offering the FSD transfer, Tesla is essentially subsidizing the Cybertruck with its most profitable product. It's a short-term solution to a long-term problem: how do you sell a vehicle that the market seems to have rejected? For now, the answer appears to be leaning on the loyalty of existing customers and giving away the family jewels to close the deal. Whether it's enough to turn the tide for the beleaguered truck remains to be seen.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla implements Grok AI chatbot into vehicles
(KRON) — Tesla owners are used to updating their vehicle's software every few weeks or so. Updates are usually minor and don't generally alter the overall driving experience. However, this latest update might just be a different story. Grok, an artificial intelligence system developed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is now available to use with the latest software update, according to emails sent to Tesla owners Monday. Tesla posted a demo video on X of what the Grok integration would look like with the user voice command. Tesla announced on social media Saturday that it would roll out the Grok tool for its vehicles in the United States. The automaker said vehicle owners do not need a Grok subscription to enable the chatbot inside the car. However, not every Tesla owner will be able to have Grok available to them. The AI chatbot will be available to vehicles delivered on or after July 12 or meet the following criteria, according to Tesla. An AMD processor A Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y or Cybertruck Vehicle software version 2025.26 Premium Connectivity or Wi-Fi connection This Tesla vehicle continues dominance in CA sales for third straight year Tesla robotaxi service coming to Bay Area 'in a month or two,' according to Musk Emails were sent to Tesla owners on Monday, informing them that their vehicle's latest software update will give them the ability to use the AI system. 'Just ask AI,' the email read. 'Press and hold the voice button on your Tesla vehicle's steering wheel and start talking. Ask Grok for news headlines, information on a topic you're curious about or a story for your kids where they're the main characters,' Tesla wrote in the email. 'To enable, open App launcher on your vehicle's touchscreen and tap Grok. The email sent to Tesla owners comes on the same day Grok landed a nine-figure deal with the United States Department of Defense (DOD). The federal agency's contact with the AI chatbot is worth $200 million. The DOD also awarded competitors, such as OpenAI and Google, a similar contract. Grok is a Musk-backed artificial intelligence tool that is widely seen on his social media app X. Grok's X account has more than 5 million followers. 'Grok is your AI companion, an advanced artificial intelligence built by xAI and now, is available in Tesla vehicles,' Tesla said on its website. 'Grok is designed to deliver accurate and insightful responses to questions of a wide range.' More information about Grok and its integration into Tesla vehicles can be viewed on the automaker's website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Reuters
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
Tesla to expand robotaxis to San Francisco area within two months, Musk says
SAN FRANCISCO, July 9 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab will expand its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area "in a month or two", depending on regulatory approvals, CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Tesla last month rolled out a test of the long-promised service in a limited area of Austin, Texas, with about a dozen vehicles, a select group of passengers and many restrictions, including a safety monitor in the front passenger seat. Tesla will expand the service to "a larger area in Austin this weekend," Musk said on his social media platform X in response to a post from a user about the lack of an update on expansion. Musk did not specify the location or size of the expansion. Another X user - Tesla Owners Silicon Valley - then asked about an expansion to the Bay Area, and Musk replied, "Waiting on regulatory approvals, but probably in a month or two." The successful expansion of robotaxis will be crucial to Tesla's future as sales of its aging lineup of electric vehicles have slumped amid rising competition and a backlash against Musk's embrace of far-right political views. Much of the company's trillion-dollar valuation hangs on Musk's bet on robotaxis and humanoid robots that are powered by artificial intelligence. Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been harder than anticipated with high costs, tight regulations and investigations forcing many, including General Motors' (GM.N), opens new tab Cruise unit, to shut down. Until Tesla's recent rollout, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Waymo was the only company running driverless robotaxis charging fees from passengers. Waymo with about 1,500 vehicles has been expanding its service cautiously for years and is currently available in San Francisco and other cities in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. Musk has said Tesla will ramp up the service rapidly to other U.S. cities. But while Tesla faced almost no regulation in Texas, California tightly controls where and how firms can operate autonomous vehicles and requires testing data for permits. In California, Tesla would need a series of permits from the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to operate a fully autonomous robotaxi service that charges customers. The CPUC in March gave Tesla the first in a series of approvals required to eventually launch the service. The DMV and CPUC did not respond to Reuters' requests for comments outside of regular business hours. Tesla's public test in Austin led to multiple traffic problems and driving issues, social media videos from the company-selected riders showed over the first few days.
CNA
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- CNA
Tesla to expand robotaxi service to San Francisco Bay Area within two months, Musk says
SAN FRANCISCO :Tesla will expand its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area "in a month or two", depending on regulatory approvals, CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Tesla last month rolled out a test of the long-promised service in a limited area of Austin, Texas, with about a dozen vehicles and many restrictions, including a safety monitor in the front passenger seat. Tesla will expand the service to "a larger area in Austin this weekend," Musk said on his social media platform X in response to a post from another user about the lack of an update on expansion. When Tesla Owners Silicon Valley asked about expansion in the Bay Area, Musk said: "Waiting on regulatory approvals, but probably in a month or two."
Forbes
08-07-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Elon Musk's Robotaxi Dream Could Be A Liability Nightmare
E lon Musk's tightly controlled Tesla robotaxi pilot program in Austin has managed to go 16 days without a major accident. But on June 24, a Model Y in its test fleet dinged a parked Toyota Camry outside a popular pizza parlor. It was a minor thing, but what if the car had hit a person instead? Bullish Tesla investors are counting on Musk's robotaxi dream to create a vast new revenue stream from autonomous rides. That may happen, but it also creates a risk the company hasn't faced before: legal liability from self-driving tech failures. Tesla owners hoping to make money Airbnb-ing their cars in a company-run robotaxi ride service Musk has touted for years could be on the hook as well. 'There will be some cars that Tesla owns itself … but then for the fleet that is owned by our customers it will be like an Airbnb thing. You can add or subtract your car to the fleet whenever you want,' Musk said at Tesla's shareholder meeting last June. 'Just one tap on the Tesla app and you can add your car to the fleet and it makes money for you while you're gone.' But Tesla owners hoping to cash in have more to consider. 'Can I imagine a lawsuit against the owner of the car? Absolutely,' said Mike Nelson, an attorney who says he's been involved in over a thousand Tesla-related accident cases and whose startup, QuantivRiv, analyzes sensor and computer data from crashes. In addition to suing Tesla in future robotaxi accident cases, he sees lawyers coming after Tesla owners: 'Plaintiff's attorneys are going to say something like, 'the car was not properly maintained' or 'you misrepresented the condition of the car.'' 'If a Tesla robotaxi is involved in a crash, does the owner have to get out of bed at 3 AM and drive across town to the scene to talk to the police?' Assuming Tesla's robotaxi tech is truly ready for commercial use, which many autonomous vehicle experts doubt, the pitch by the world's wealthiest person to owners to monetize their vehicles may excite some. It could also prove to be the latest in an impressive cascade of ill-starred Musk pipe dreams: hyperloops, solar roofs, $2 trillion in government DOGE cuts. And while Musk has been vocal about how game-changing Tesla's robotaxi plans are for the company's future, particularly as its EV sales stall, he's said little about how it will actually run. 'The big question is whether Tesla will provide a support organization as part of the robotaxi network arrangement,' said Phil Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who studies autonomous vehicle technology. 'If a Tesla robotaxi is involved in a crash, does the owner have to get out of bed at 3 AM and drive across town to the scene to talk to the police?' Robotaxi Liability For a decade, Tesla has warned drivers using its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) features that they don't truly provide either. Drivers must be vigilant and ready to take control of the vehicle at all times. That's why the company wasn't held legally responsible for famous Autopilot failures, including the 2016 crash in Florida that killed Tesla owner Joshua Brown or a March 2018 accident when Walter Huang died after his Model X drove straight into a concrete median in Mountain View, California. That won't be the case if someone is injured or killed in a Tesla operating in robotaxi mode since the company's tech is solely in control. 'Robotaxi is a mobile lounge where you can relax with a drink, and watch a movie, even sleep,' Musk said in a post on Facebook. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment on how it will handle liability issues if a passenger drinking or sleeping in one of its self-driving vehicles is involved in a crash. 'Liability should be on the manufacturer or the designer, and the standard for liability should be the same as for a human' Waymo, the leading robotaxi operator, has a simple policy. In the event of an accident in which it's deemed to have responsibility, it assumes liability, the company said. It also provides medical payment coverage to all of riders, regardless of who's at fault in a collision. William Widen, a law professor at the University of Miami who studies and writes about legal implications for autonomous vehicles, said that's the right approach. But the bigger question is: 'What is the standard for liability with this technology?' In the case of robotaxis, the technology is running ahead of laws and regulations for how to deal with them when things go wrong. Widen argues that we need a new nationwide standard for AI software: when accidents happen, we should treat it exactly like a human. 'Liability should be on the manufacturer or the designer, and the standard for liability should be the same as for a human,' Widen said. In court, 'you'd reconstruct the accident for a jury–that's who we trust with an ordinary fender bender to judge whether a human driver behaved reasonably or not. Have them do exactly the same thing with a computer driver.' 'Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi.' Tesla Robotaxi Terms of Service Despite Musk's hype, it's not clear when Tesla's Austin robotaxi pilot, so far opened to only a small number of pre-selected riders, will scale up. The company created a dedicated app for those early riders to hail cars in the service area, with users having to agree to terms that most are probably not reading closely. For example, they're warned that 'riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi.' Additionally, the terms state that robotaxis shouldn't be used to provide emergency transportation and that riders in the pilot program will need to arbitrate any dispute. Currently, both Uber and drivers on its platform can be liable when an accident occurs while carrying a passenger or delivering food, and industry experts expect the same to be true for Tesla and vehicle owners who place their cars in its future robotaxi network. But given how new the idea of Airbnb-ing your autonomous vehicle is, those owners may have trouble insuring their would-be moneymakers. 'I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to get a friendly response from insurers on that' 'To have a personal auto insurance customer who's going to build up a fleet of self-driving cars and let them out onto the road to generate some money, that combination I think would confound people a little,' said Ben Lewis, a vice president with Simulytic, which helps insurance companies create policies for autonomous vehicle fleets. 'I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to get a friendly response from insurers on that, at least for a bit.' Another issue would be ensuring that individually owned vehicles are in good condition when they're put into service in a Tesla-run network. Waymo's 2,000 or so robotaxis in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta are closely maintained and monitored, cycling into depots for recharging, cleaning and minor maintenance throughout the day. Tesla has not detailed plans for a similar system, but it would be critical to attract some owners. 'Door dings, wheel scrapes, dirt in the car, wear and tear on the seats, germs. Those things would drive us crazy,' said Loren McDonald, a long-time Tesla owner. 'While in theory it could make financial sense to put your car into the robotaxi network, for our family the negatives would outweigh any financial gain.' Musk boasts that Tesla has a sharp cost advantage over Waymo, owing to how inexpensive its tech is, relying on low-cost digital cameras as its primary sensor, rather than laser lidar, radar and thermal cameras the Alphabet Inc. unit uses that cost thousands of dollars more. But that could be an additional risk in the event of accidents, allowing a plaintiff's attorney to argue that Tesla cut corners on safety by not using the kinds of sensors that competitors say are essential. 'I would be shocked if it was not alleged,' said lawyer Nelson. More from Forbes Forbes Elon Musk's Tesla Robotaxi Rollout Looks Like A Disaster Waiting To Happen By Alan Ohnsman Forbes As Tesla Begins Austin Robotaxi Tests, Waymo's Ride Service Expands To Atlanta By Alan Ohnsman Forbes Forget Tesla. Amazon's Zoox Is On Track To Be Waymo's Biggest Robotaxi Rival By Alan Ohnsman
