Hardware

Tesla's Model Y owner's manual now lists text messaging among the in-car Grok assistant's capabilities, with the example "Text Mom saying on my way". The feature does not work yet, and the real change is that a language model would compose messages the car has been able to dictate for years.

Li Auto will debut the Li 6 at the Paris Motor Show in October 2026 and begin European sales in the fourth quarter, roughly two years ahead of the 2028 timetable it set out in 2023. The car is its best-seller at home, and the UK comes first because it charges no tariff on Chinese-built EVs.

Tesla's Robotaxi account posted a 48-second factory video on 8 September 2026 showing the Cybercab's unboxed assembly: battery box, front and rear built on parallel lines, then framed together with sides, roof and doors. Tesla says it halves line length and targets a sub-10-second cycle time, against about 34 seconds for a Model Y.

Drone photographs of the Giga Texas outbound lot on 8 September 2026 show Cybercabs carrying the Starlink module on the hatch in quantity for the first time, rather than the single gold prototype seen in August. Tesla has said nothing, so factory fitment remains an inference from aerial images of parked cars.

Days after the Cybercab entered public service in Austin, Tesla is emailing riders a survey that grades the trip on nine measures and asks them to pick up to three cabin features to add — heated seats, ventilated seats, a fully reclining seat, a tray table, wireless charging, a better sound system or more storage.

Code and assets in Tesla app 4.60.5 describe a service-appointment transport picker offering a Robotaxi ride, a paid loaner, an e-bike or Bolt. The feature is unreleased and unconfirmed, and would only work in the seven US metros where Robotaxi runs.

Strings found in Tesla app version 4.60.5 describe a consent screen for repairs using non-Tesla original parts, warning that such parts fall outside Tesla's quality assurance. Tesla has not confirmed the policy, which parts it would cover, or when it would start.

ProLogium has begun series production of its Generation 3.5 lithium-ceramic cell in Taiwan, with TUV Rheinland certifying 381 Wh/kg and 903 Wh/L on a large-format 185.4 Ah cell. Capacity is only 3 GWh, its French plant at Dunkerque starts at 0.8 GWh in 2028, and no carmaker has been named - but it is the first third-party-verified large-format answer to the claim that automotive solid-state is a decade off.

An internal Giga Berlin message obtained by Handelsblatt on 4 September 2026 shows Grünheide building fewer than 6,500 vehicles a week against a 7,500-a-week target for mid-October. Tesla has agreed three mandatory special shifts with the works council — 18, 19 and 25 September — covering the whole vehicle build but not battery or cell production. The plant has already reached its 45-second cycle time, so the shortfall is not line speed.

Replying to a Tesla post about the Cybercab's 22-inch touchscreen on 5 September 2026, Elon Musk wrote that passengers "will be able to plug in your PlayStation or Xbox". Tesla has confirmed nothing further. Teslas have supported USB-C game controllers for Tesla Arcade since 2019, so the sentence is only news if it means external video input - a capability no Tesla has ever shipped natively, and one that makes sense first in a car with no driver to distract.

The Cybercab drops brake lines, master cylinder and hydraulic fluid entirely, using a dry electromechanical brake-by-wire system with an actuator at each caliper commanded by the autonomy stack. It is the first Tesla to use it. Tesla has not published what happens if the power fails.

A Model Y Standard built at Giga Berlin on 27 August carries a revised Super Manifold, part number 1735000-00-A in place of 1547595-00-H. It reportedly consolidates more of the refrigerant plumbing into one assembly with greater thermal capacity. Tesla has announced nothing, and the change is visible only in the parts numbering.

Tesla has removed full-screen lyrics from the Caraoke rear touchscreen, which now shows only the track title and artist. A QR code on that screen opens a Stingray-hosted page where back-seat passengers can browse the catalogue, build a shared queue and follow scrolling lyrics on their phones. Scoring still works only while parked.

A 147-page internal Volkswagen document obtained by WirtschaftsWoche says management will recommend ending production at Emden and Zwickau in 2031, Hanover in 2032 and Neckarsulm in 2034, with EV output reportedly moving to Czechia, Slovakia and Poland. VW has not confirmed the closures, and a supervisory board vote was scheduled for 3-4 September 2026.

Chinese Model Y L owners are reporting rear springs sagging after long trips or when fully loaded, with the drop causing abnormal inner-shoulder tyre wear. Tesla's service threshold reportedly authorises a free spring replacement only below 764 mm against a normal 784 plus or minus 20 mm, and owners pay for the ruined tyres themselves. Tesla China has not commented and no regulator has opened a file.

European Model 3 RWD owners are reporting that the Giti Control P10 tread — the low-rolling-resistance tyre behind the car's rise from 534 to 572 km WLTP — deteriorates after a few thousand kilometres, including on the unpowered front axle. Tesla has reportedly told owners to accelerate less hard. There is no recall and no defect investigation, and no controlled wear test has been published.

Tesla appears to be preparing in-car integration of Grok Bot, the autonomous agent platform SpaceXAI shipped in beta on 11 August 2026. It is not the Grok already in European dashboards: that one answers when asked, while a Bot is handed a task and works through it alone. Nothing is confirmed, and Europe will be the hard part.

Two separate decompiles of Tesla app 4.60.0 surfaced unannounced features: passkey authentication replacing password logins, reworked European delivery documents covering VAT and country-specific lease agreements, end-of-lease settlement handling, and strings describing Cybertruck Powershare coordinating with a Powerwall during a grid outage. None of it has shipped and Tesla has confirmed none of it.

Tesla's factory wrap products have disappeared from the Tesla Shop with no announcement, nearly three years after launching as an $8,000 paint-protection-film service and settling at $4,000 for Model 3 and Model Y. The support page is still up, so the service is gone but not formally cancelled.

Battery-diagnostics firm Generational looked at cell-level voltages in roughly 10,000 used-EV battery tests from UK dealers. The median pack spread just 8 mV between its highest and lowest cell, but one in 85 tests exceeded 50 mV and one in 200 exceeded 100 mV — enough to make range unpredictable, disrupt charging and trigger the battery management system to cap performance. State of Health, the number the used market runs on, measures capacity and does not reveal it.

A Tesla patent describes building the front camera housing from polypropylene loaded with zeolite-like particles that trap the volatile organic compounds off-gassed by cabin plastics — the film that condenses on the inside of the windshield and triggers camera visibility warnings.

Shishuang Sun, Tesla's senior director of AI hardware design, has joined DensityAI — the startup founded by former Dojo chief Ganesh Venkataramanan and staffed by around twenty ex-Tesla supercomputer engineers. His specialism, chip packaging, is exactly what AI5 needs between April's tape-out and volume production.

A Scientific Reports study of 15 EVs in Guangzhou ties repeated high-current acceleration to about 2.5 times more capacity loss at 1,000 cycles. The mechanism is well supported; the headline figure is modelled, not measured.

Since 22 August, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Apple TV, Disney+, Plex and Prime Video open in Tesla Theater's chromeless full-screen window. It is a server-side browser change, not native apps, and Tesla has not announced it.