Hardware

On 12 October 2026 Polish developer Maciej P. Wilczyński showed Tesla's Automations app, the if-this-then-that tool China has had since February, running on a European Tesla after a feature flag was switched on. The build is fully translated, matches the Chinese feature set and blocks any action that controls FSD. Tesla has not announced it for Europe or given a date.

Elon Musk confirmed on 3 October 2026 that Tesla and SpaceX's Terafab chip project is in discussions with TSMC, saying only 'Just discussions, but something may come of it'. The report behind it, by Tim Culpan, says the likeliest outcome is TSMC owning and operating the fab - which would reverse the vertically integrated design Terafab was announced with. Nothing is agreed and TSMC has not commented; its earnings call is on 15 October.

South Korean outlet The Elec reports LG Energy Solution will build a new 46100 cylindrical cell — 46 mm by 100 mm, 20 mm taller than Tesla's 4680 — at its Wrocław plant in Poland, with lines set up in 2027 and Mercedes deliveries from 2028. The format was not in LGES's disclosed line-up, and neither company has confirmed the customer.

Elon Musk has cut the memory on Tesla's AI5 and AI6 chips to secure supply and lower cost for Optimus mass production. AI5 was to drop from 144GB to 72GB before being nudged back up to 96GB; AI6 goes from 216GB to 144GB. Musk says bandwidth, not capacity, is the limit.

At the World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei, Volkswagen-backed Gotion High-Tech announced commercialisation targets for its Jinshi solid-state cells: energy density above 400 Wh/kg, up from a previous 350 Wh/kg target, and a cost of 150 dollars per kWh — the Chinese industry's 'one-yuan-per-watt-hour' threshold. A 2 GWh line is under construction, with small-batch vehicle integration targeted for end-2026 and mass production in 2030.

Tesla was granted US patent 12,746,987 B1, "Electric Fan Car", on 29 September 2026. Four electric ducted fans in the rear diffuser draw air from an underbody inlet through internal ducts and expel it at the rear, creating downforce that does not depend on vehicle speed. The drawings show a Model S. It is a separate document from the active rear-wing application published on 24 September, and it arrives about two weeks before the Roadster reveal on 15 October.

In an interview published on 28 September 2026, Tesla Semi programme lead Dan Priestley placed European test and demonstration trucks in the first half of 2027 and targeted customer deliveries for the second half, later than the start-of-2027 timing widely reported since IAA Transportation. The first European trucks are built in Nevada, with European localisation described only as probably relevant at some point. Tesla will sell direct to fleets of any size and is building its own Semi service and maintenance network in Europe. Autonomous driving is an intention for Europe with no date attached.

On 25 September 2026 Nigel Raynard, who runs a limousine service in Byron Bay, New South Wales, posted that his Model S 75D had reached 600,000 miles — about 965,000 km — in roughly eight years. He says it has needed one battery, replaced under warranty at 666,666 km and upgraded to a 90 kWh pack, and one set of brake pads. It is a self-reported figure, but it supplies the per-car battery history that the million-kilometre Kelowna taxi did not have.

Stella Li, BYD's executive vice-president, said in an interview published on 28 September 2026 that BYD will have its first solid-state model next year. She named no model, market or specification. BYD's formal timeline, unchanged since February 2025, puts demonstration fitment in 2027 and mass production around 2030 — and its chief scientist has flagged dry-room manufacturing as the unsolved step.

A Stellantis patent application published in late September 2026 describes severing a burning high-voltage battery from the car with explosive bolts, letting it fall through the floor, and then driving the vehicle clear on its 12-volt system. Triggering can be automatic, by lever, or by a touchscreen button. It is a patent, not a product, and the drawings show a combustion-engined Dodge Challenger. The interesting part is the philosophy: where Tesla publishes engineering meant to stop one bad cell taking the pack with it, this design accepts the pack is lost and tries to save the car.

Hyundai Motor Group's head of R&D, Manfred Harrer, told reporters the industry cannot give up on solid-state batteries and expects small-volume cars with the cells within five years - while warning that raw material costs stay extraordinarily high for many years, keeping them out of the mass market. It is the least flattering of three recent solid-state claims, after Mercedes secured ProLogium Gen4 rights and Geely claimed 500 Wh/kg pilot cells. Tesla has no announced solid-state programme.

A decompile of Robotaxi app build 26.8.2 on 24 September 2026 turned up unreleased code for X Money payments, a Stop Now command that halts an approaching car without cancelling the ride, and a cellular fallback for opening a Cybercab when the phone cannot reach it. Tesla has confirmed none of it.

CATL says lithium iron phosphate cells recovered from China's decommissioned Zhangbei grid battery came back from fourteen years of service with most of their capacity intact and roughly a decade of second life left. It matters to Tesla owners because CATL supplies the LFP cells in Standard Range Model 3s and Model Ys — but the testing was done in CATL's own laboratory, and the published retention figures disagree with one another.

Footage from Tesla's Alexandria showroom in Sydney shows a Cybercab running a full Tesla operating system with driver profiles, seat memory and Tesla Theater — features a robotaxi passenger would never use. Tesla has not commented on what the build represents.

A report in The Information, summarised by Electrek on 25 September 2026, says Tesla has ramped Optimus output at Fremont from a few dozen units a week in Q2 to several hundred in August, with an end-of-year target above 1,000 a week. The robots still cannot handle generalised tasks, take several days to learn a basic one, and are mostly used internally for testing and data collection. Hands with 100-plus parts are still assembled by workers, and suppliers cannot hold quality at volume.

The USPTO published Tesla application US 2026/0285418 A1 on 24 September 2026, describing a two-piece active rear wing that sits flush with the deck lid and deploys in under three seconds to make up to 700 kg of downforce above 100 mph. The drawings show a low fastback 2+2 coupe, but the patent never names the Roadster. Tesla unveils the new Roadster on 1 October in Texas.

3D design assets pulled from Tesla's public Android APK appear to show a next-generation Optimus, with enclosed joints, a unified torso and forearms suggesting tendon-driven fingers. Tesla has confirmed nothing, and has delayed the Gen 3 reveal four times since late 2025 on the stated grounds of withholding the design until production is close.

Tesla's robotics team has been auditing component suppliers in Zhejiang province ahead of Optimus mass production, per the South China Morning Post citing two executives with ties to the manufacturers. The three named firms — Tuopu (chassis and actuators), Ningbo Joyson (sensors) and Zhejiang Sanhua (thermal management) — all already supply Tesla's vehicle business. Bloomberg reported their shares rose on the news. Order-volume figures circulating elsewhere do not trace to either outlet and do not reconcile with each other.

At a battery conference in Zaozhuang on 17 September 2026, Sunwoda launched a 15C flash-charging system claiming 10-97% in nine minutes at room temperature and 15 minutes at -20C, plus 10,000 megawatt charging stations by the end of 2027. Sunwoda first showed a 15C pack in April; what is new is the system packaging and the charging network. The cells Tesla actually buys from Sunwoda are 3C, and no vehicle has been named for the 15C product.

Leapmotor's CTC 3.0 High-Low Fusion Battery, shown at its Tech Day on 16 September 2026, runs low-voltage systems off the traction pack's own cells and removes the separate 12-volt battery, with production from 2027. ADAC attributes 45.4% of all breakdowns to that component. Tesla switched from lead-acid to a lithium low-voltage battery around 2021 but still carries one.

Seoul Economic Daily reports that Samsung has begun trial production of Tesla's AI5 chip at its Taylor, Texas plant, the first 2-nanometer work there and earlier than the planned November start. Neither company has confirmed it. Yield verification is targeted for the end of 2026 and volume supply for 2027. Musk has said AI5 is destined for Optimus and Tesla's training clusters rather than its vehicles, because AI4 is already enough for FSD.

Tesla has lowered four published dimensions for the Chinese-market Model Y L: overall height from 1668 mm to 1664 mm, unladen ground clearance from 169 mm to 166 mm, loaded clearance from 122 mm to 118 mm and front overhang from 896 mm to 889 mm. Wheelbase and rear overhang are unchanged. Tesla has not explained the revision, which follows owner reports of rear-suspension sag.

The Tesla Robotaxi app has gained six passenger controls the mainline Tesla app does not have, including 3D vent aiming, seat position sliders, ambient lighting colours, in-app YouTube, a Grok button and music integrations. Tesla has said nothing about bringing them across.

Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill says Tesla's in-house 4680 cells have improved several times and the charging firmware with them, together cutting several minutes off the 10-80% window. The 500 kW peak he mentions is not new — Tesla announced that in November 2024 — and no before-and-after times were published.