Tesla Prepares for Factory Tours at Giga Berlin with New Hire

By Kevin Armstrong
Tesla appears to be preparing for tours at Giga Berlin
Tesla appears to be preparing for tours at Giga Berlin

Tesla's Giga Berlin factory is ready to be shown off to the world, marking a defining moment for the company in Europe. The factory, which recently welcomed a visit from Maye Musk, mother of Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, is making significant progress. To share its progress and innovation with the public, Tesla seeks a Content and Programs Associate to create and lead engaging and informative factory tour experiences at Gigafactory Berlin.

VIP Tours Like Maye Musk?

The job posting for the Content and Programs Associate comes after a recent visit by Maye Musk, who shared her experience on social media, including photos of her evening out in Berlin in a beautiful Midnight Cherry Red Tesla Model Y.

The role will primarily focus on factory tours, interacting with various stakeholders within and outside the company, and assisting the work of the Content and Programs Team on-site in Berlin. The successful candidate will manage tour requests and bookings, present compelling content to a broad audience, plan and execute events, and interact with public and internal stakeholders.

Possible Return to Tours in US

Tesla used to offer factory tours at their Fremont factory in California but suspended the tradition in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, with the recent developments at Giga Berlin and the new job posting, the company may be gearing up to restart factory tours, possibly for both Tesla owners and the general public. The tours used to be available at no cost to any Tesla owners. The company provided hour-long tours from Monday to Friday. Owners had the chance to view the factory from an electric cart.

Fun fact, in the book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Musk told author Ashlee Vance he was considering installing a rollercoaster-type ride inside the factory to make it easier to get around.

The new role comes at an exciting time for Tesla's European operations. Unfortunately, we can only view the operation from the sky with views from YouTubers. However, Tesla's Giga Berlin is ramping up quickly, and the Content and Programs Associate will be able to share the company with the public.

With the success of the factory tours in California, it's exciting to see the company gear up to provide a similar experience for the public in Europe and help write the next chapter of Tesla's success story.

Tesla Update 2025.20 Tear Down Reveals Grok Personalities and Icons

By Karan Singh
@greentheonly on X

While most automakers are adding basic and un-integrated AI assistants to their vehicles, Tesla appears to be working hand-in-hand with xAI to build out an entire cast of characters for in-vehicle Grok. In the latest dive into Tesla’s firmware, Tesla hacker @greentheonly uncovered a few new details about the upcoming Grok feature.

This discovery, part of a larger batch of changes found in Tesla update 2025.20, also offers a hint at the hardware required for the Grok.

A Dozen Groks

While we knew from previous firmware teardowns that Tesla was adding various Grok personalities to the vehicle UI, this update introduces a new one called Language Tutor, which may allow users to learn and practice a new language. 

These are the different personas that will be included in Grok:

  • Argumentative

  • Assistant

  • Conspiracy

  • Doctor

  • Kids’ Stories

  • Kids’ Trivia Games

  • Meditation

  • Motivation

  • Romantic

  • Sexy

  • Storyteller

  • Therapist

  • Language Tutor

  • and the Grok Classic - Unhinged Mode

Release Date

Icons for these personalities have been added to the firmware for the first time, leading us to think Tesla is getting close to releasing the feature. However, even after the feature is developed and included in vehicle software, Tesla may only enable it selectively — such as for select employees for testing.

Grok is expected to be one of the largest vehicle features added via a software update, so it’ll be a big deal when it’s finally released. While we know more or less what to expect from Grok, what we don’t know is about vehicle requirements or whether it’ll require a subscription beyond Premium Connectivity.

Grok Requirements

While subscriptions required are anyone’s guess, vehicle requirements may be a little clearer now, thanks to Green’s discovery that Grok is only being added to AMD-based vehicle software builds.

Unfortunately, this likely means that older, Intel-based vehicles will not receive Grok support, at least for the time being. When Tesla introduced a voice assistant in China, they also started off with AMD-only support but later added Intel support, so it’s possible that the same could happen with Grok.

Energy Saving

Green also found a new undocumented navigation feature in 2025.20.3. This one focuses on leveraging Tesla’s vast amounts of data in an interesting way and offers drivers proactive advice to save energy on a well-traveled route. 

In the Energy App, your vehicle will display, “This route is typically driven at X mph. Slow down by Y mph to save Z% for the rest of this trip.’ 

As you can see in the photo below, Tesla recognizes that vehicles typically drive at 66 mph on the route being driven and offers the driver the option to go five mph slower to save 1% of range. While this example doesn’t provide much incentive to slow down, it could be useful for someone with a low state of charge or if the savings are more significant.

The new line in the Energy App
The new line in the Energy App
Not a Tesla App

In the future, Tesla could even use this, alongside the road surface data they’re gathering, to help plan routes for Robotaxi and Unsupervised FSD.

NHTSA to Streamline Approvals for Control-Free Vehicles Like Tesla’s Cybercab

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

In a letter to industry, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that it is overhauling its approvals process for vehicles designed without human controls.

The change addresses a regulatory bottleneck that has slowed down American companies like Tesla from deploying purpose-built Robotaxis, rather than relying on using traditional vehicles with steering wheels and pedals. The policy shift is outlined in a letter posted to the NHTSA’s website, which you can find here.

Reducing Approvals From Years to Months

Under the existing rules today, any vehicle that is built without a steering wheel or brake pedals must receive a special exemption from federal safety standards.

Obtaining exemptions for a particular vehicle was a time-consuming process for both the companies requesting exemptions and the NHTSA. The process was often a black box—nobody knew when an exemption might be granted, and approvals could take years.

The NHTSA, under the new administration’s guidelines for autonomous vehicle development, is now committed to streamlining this process. The agency will be implementing a new, faster approach immediately for receiving exemptions for autonomous vehicles without standard controls. The NHTSA expects decisions on exemption requests to be determined within months rather than years. 

Accelerating the Cybercab

This change has massive implications for Tesla, which is banking on the production of the simplified and easy-to-maintain purpose-built Cybercab. The Cybercab is developed from the ground up as an autonomous Robotaxi and will be one of the key beneficiaries of this move by the NHTSA.

Knowing that a final design won't be caught in a multi-year regulatory limbo provides a level of certainty that has been missing. It allows Tesla to confidently plan the manufacturing, development, and deployment processes without worrying whether the project will get stuck in regulatory approvals.

According to the letter, the agency will publish its improved instructions for the streamlined process "shortly." With Tesla already having begun Cybercab pre-production and the goals for its deployment as soon as late 2026, there’s still a lot to be done to make autonomy a part of Tesla’s new sustainable abundance mission statement.

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