Tesla's Cybertruck will retain it's massive wiper for production
MatthewDR/Twitter
The Tesla Cybertruck buzz continues to ramp up. Elon Musk says it will change the road, and he plans to make the futuristic truck his daily driver. Thanks to its distinctive design and outstanding performance capabilities, millions of buyers are on the wait list to drive this amazing truck.
Matthew Donegan-Ryan, a shareholder who attended Tesla's Investor Day, had the chance to speak with senior Tesla executives and learn more about Cybertruck. Several investors were sharing information about Cybertruck, but Matthew Donegan-Ryan has posted extensive videos about his conversations with Tesla executives.
Sizes and Variations
According to rumors, the Cybertruck pre-production beta that was on display at Investor Day is how the truck would appear if it were available for purchase right now. The Cybertruck is about 5% smaller than the prototype unveiled in 2019, but despite being a smaller vehicle than the Ford F-150 Raptor, it has more usable space. The Ford Super Crew Raptors at the event were comparable to the Cybertruck, which is slightly smaller. The size reduction means that the Cybertruck can only hold five passengers instead of six. It's expected to weigh between 6,500-7,500 pounds. Other investors are reporting 7,000 pounds
The Cybertruck will come in two versions: a dual-motor base model and a high-end performance model. It was initially believed that the top trim would be a quad motor, but conversations with Tesla staff seemed to suggest that Tesla would forego developing a quad-motor powertrain in favor of a tri-motor powertrain for the Cybertruck. All Cybertruck configurations will come standard with rear-wheel steering.
Largest Display in a Tesla
The Cybertruck will have Tesla's largest display ever, measuring 18.5 inches diagonally, however it'll come without a gauge cluster, or heads-up display. The redesigned Model S and Model X have a 17" center screen, while the Model 3 and Model Y include a 15" center display.
A combination of a typical round steering wheel and the yoke found on the Model S and Model X, the steering wheel will be round on the sides with flat top and bottom edges.
Unlike the F-150 Lightning, the front bumper grille does not open along with the hood. The production version of the Cybertruck windshield light bar will have amber lights, just like the Tesla semi, to indicate that the truck is wider than the standard 80 inches.
Wheels and Suspension
Highly advanced air suspension will come standard on every Cybertruck. Staff told the intrepid investor that Cybertruck can handle pretty much anything. "I was told very directly that they have tested the air suspension and they're confident it can handle Baja-style racing."
The Cybertruck will have 18-inch wheels, and at the very least, all-terrain and all-season standard tire options will be available. The tire's dimensions are 285/65 R18, or 35 inches by 11.25 inches by 18 inches. The company in charge of making the tires for the Cybertruck will be Goodyear. Donegan-Ryan estimates each tire will cost $385.
No Self-Presenting Doors
The doors on the Cybertruck won't self-present themselves like the doors on the Model X. Unlike the prototype's stainless steel bumpers, the Cybertruck's production beta's bumpers and side skirts are made of black plastic and are five-mile-per-hour impact compliant. The side-view mirrors are supposedly removable, but no confirmation of that.
New Team is Developing Accessories for Cybertruck
The 48-volt architecture used by the Cybertruck will provide more power, lighter and less expensive wiring, and a smaller accessories battery. For the vehicle, Tesla has created a Cybertruck Accessories Team, and rather than working with aftermarket businesses to build add-ons, Tesla will do it themselves. Off-roading, camping, and racing are the three subgroups of the Accessories team.
With millions of people on the waiting list in North America, it appears that list will not be opening up in Europe. With it's immense size, Donegan-Ryan says there are no plans to have this beast on the narrow European roads.
The Cybertruck will be a strong and adaptable vehicle, suitable for off-roading, camping, and even racing, according to the most recent information about it. The Cybertruck is poised to have a big impact on the pickup truck market thanks to its distinctive design and impressive features.
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Tesla’s ambitions extend far beyond electric vehicles, with the company recently saying its goal is sustainable abundance. However, solving vehicle autonomy and deploying a large-scale Robotaxi network are key steps toward that goal.
Today, FSD Supervised offers a glimpse into what an autonomous vehicle will be capable of, but the journey to truly autonomous vehicles involves several interconnected pillars that are in development.
The FSD Journey
The foundation of Tesla’s ambitions is in FSD, which has been on a long, iterative journey. The end goal for FSD is to power both autonomous vehicles, as well as Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot.
FSD’s journey began with FSD Beta, an initial phase of real-world testing and extensive data gathering with real users. The first batch of users were influencers on Twitter and YouTube. Tesla eventually opened up FSD Beta to more owners with their Safety Scores in the United States, and then the program rolled out to Canada. Shortly afterward, the Safety Score requirement was removed, and Tesla offered FSD Beta to anyone who purchased FSD or subscribed to FSD. This process took place over several years.
In Spring of 2024, Tesla removed the Beta label and formally introduced FSD (Supervised). FSD Supervised dropped the vast majority of Tesla’s hand-written code and adopted an approach that relied on end-to-end AI networks. This was an important architectural shift, where AI took over most input and output, meaning that AI was controlling the brake and accelerator for the first time.
With the launch of FSD v12.5, FSD also became a hands-free experience with vehicles with a cabin camera. The steering wheel nag was finally gone.
Tesla has also been testing FSD Unsupervised in California and Texas, albeit with safety drivers - ahead of the upcoming launch of the Robotaxi Network in Austin. While some reports from analysts like Adam Jonas have mentioned that Tesla intends to remotely supervise the fleet with teleoperators, we expect that the teleoperation will be limited to getting vehicles out of precarious situations and evaluating fleet performance.
FSD’s entire evolutionary process is fuelled by the vast amounts of data gathered from millions of Tesla vehicles on the road, enabling the AI to continuously learn and improve from an unparalleled diversity of real-world encounters. Tesla takes massive swathes of data and then automatically annotates them with key labeling parameters to prioritize for its learning suite.
Computational Hardware
Training and executing these increasingly sophisticated AI models demands immense computing power, both within the vehicles themselves and within Tesla’s growing data centers. In the car, FSD hardware has jumped from HW3 to the current AI4.
However, with V13 already pushing AI4 to its limits due to the increasingly intensive demands of larger and more complex AI models, the upcoming AI5 hardware is expected to further improve in-vehicle processing by increasing memory and compute power. That’s not to say AI4 won’t be able to achieve autonomy, but AI5 is expected to be safer in the long term due to its increased processing power.
Parallel to in-vehicle hardware is Tesla’s multi-billion dollar investments in its own supercomputing infrastructure. This includes Dojo, Tesla’s custom-built supercomputer specifically designed for machine learning and processing massive amounts of video data. Alongside the still-in-prototype phase Dojo, Tesla has already deployed Cortex 1.0 on the south side of Giga Texas, with Cortex 2.0 just recently announced for the north side. These two facilities are both large-scale GPU clusters and will be responsible for FSD development for the foreseeable future.
Everything Needed for a Robotaxi Network
For a Robotaxi service to be successful and widely adopted, the experience from opening the app to stepping out at your destination must be as seamless as possible for users and highly efficient for fleet operations. This necessitates building an entire ecosystem around the autonomous vehicle and the network.
A core component of this will be inside the Tesla App, in the Robotaxi section. We’ve previously seen some glimpses into the details, including user interaction, ride-hailing, and managing journey preferences.
Minimizing human interaction and maximizing fleet uptime is key. Robotaxis must be able to sustain themselves effectively - and wireless charging is Tesla’s go-to solution. With the addition of wireless charging to V4 Superchargers in the future, Unsupervised autonomy will be able to expand even further than the current limits - which are based around network hubs that provide two key services - charging and cleaning.
That second key service - cleaning - is another big item. Users won’t mind a less luxurious vehicle if it’s cheaper, but it needs to be clean. Tesla has already shown off its robotaxi cleaning robot, which will be deployed at those network hubs. While this may seem like an ideal job for Optimus, Tesla needs to get its network rolling today - and a single robotic arm specialized to the task could be cheaper and faster than employing a humanoid robot. Although, you can bet that Tesla is already thinking about Optimus for such a role in the future.
Beyond the user-facing aspects, Tesla will need to have a sophisticated fleet management and operational logistics hub. For Tesla, this means intelligent dispatch algorithms, utilizing real-time fleet monitoring, predictive scheduling for times of use, charging, and maintenance, as well as a degree of teleoperation or supervision for critical incidents.
The Vehicle
The physical vehicle itself is, of course, a critical element in this entire plan. The vehicle itself needs specific attributes that can enable safe and reliable autonomous operation. Tesla has remained steadfast in their vision-only approach, and have demonstrated that processing data from cameras, much like the human eyes, is the most scalable path to achieving general autonomy.
For Unsupervised autonomy, especially in a commercial robotaxi service, robust hardware redundancy is non-negotiable. While today’s Teslas already offer backup solutions for many critical systems such as braking and steering, redundant FSD computer nodes can help to make sure the vehicle can maintain control or even pull over to reach a safe area in the event of a critical incident.
While Tesla intends to begin its Robotaxi pilot with the Model Y, the upcoming Cybercab is expected to host two AI4 FSD computers, which will increase FSD’s redundancy and improve the safety margin. The Cybercab, unlike many other Robotaxi-esque vehicles, is being engineered from the ground up specifically around Tesla’s Robotaxi service. It’s optimized for low-cost manufacturing, high utilization, and durability while also being easy to maintain, charge, and clean.
Regulation and Trust
Solving autonomy extends far beyond just software or engineering innovations. It also involves navigating a complex and evolving regulatory landscape. Gaining approvals for fully autonomous commercial operations from authorities like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) at the federal level, as well as various state and local bodies, is a significant and ongoing challenge for Tesla.
Winds have changed in the United States for autonomy with new federal autonomous vehicle frameworks looking to standardize the rules and regulations for autonomous vehicles. These frameworks are just the start to actually getting laws in-place that will allow for the operation of Robotaxis outside of smaller jurisdictions.
Equally important is building public trust and acceptance. While people who use FSD swear by it, the average vehicle owner in North America will still be utterly awestruck or panic when they see a Tesla being Summoned from its parking spot to the curb.
Building trust is essential - because nobody will step into a vehicle without a driver and without any means of controlling it unless Tesla can demonstrate consistent safety. That consistent safety must be drastically better than human drivers, and Tesla must be transparent with how it reaches its safety milestones in order to encourage the adoption of autonomous ride-hailing.
Tesla’s approach to autonomy is a vertically integrated strategy that touches every aspect of the challenge - from the fundamental AI software and custom silicon that powers it to the massive processing infrastructure, the physical vehicle hardware, and the entire operational ecosystem required for a future Robotaxi service.
While there will no doubt be challenges, this June, Tesla starts its journey toward an autonomous future.
In the often-quiet cabin of a Tesla, the various chimes and alerts, while informative and helpful, can sometimes feel too loud. This is especially true when passengers are resting, or you want a more peaceful driving environment.
Enter Joe Mode, a little toggle designed to reduce the volume of non-critical vehicle alerts. We’ll break down what Joe Mode does, how to enable it, how it got its name, and what features may be added in the future.
What is Joe Mode?
Joe Mode is a simple toggle that reduces the volume of most in-car chimes by approximately 50%. It's crucial to note that this feature is specifically designed to lower the volume of non-critical alerts.
Any chimes related to urgent safety issues, such as Forward Collision Warnings or other emergency alerts, will still sound at their normal, attention-grabbing volume. This also includes the chime for the FSD takeover screen (the red hands alert) but not the blue “Pay Attention to the Road” chime.
How to Activate Joe Mode
Activating Joe Mode is simple. You can do it by going to Controls > Safety > Joe Mode and tapping the toggle.
Note: Joe Mode is saved per profile, so you can enable it on your profile, while another driver of the vehicle can choose to have it off.
What Gets Quieter?
When Joe mode is enabled, you’ll notice a discernible reduction in many common alerts, which include:
Joe Mode was named after a real Tesla owner named Joe, who reached out to Elon on Twitter back in 2019. He requested that Tesla reduce the volume of vehicle chimes, which kept waking up his baby during car rides.
Elon saw the request, acknowledged its utility and Tesla eventually developed the feature and rolled it out as part of the V10 software update, naming it Joe Mode.
When to Use Joe Mode
There are plenty of practical applications for Joe Mode, and personally, the author uses it all the time to reduce the sound of normal chimes.
Many love using it for sleeping passengers, and this is the classic use case, especially for parents with young children napping in the back seats. Night driving is another good use case, as softer chimes at night are a little less intrusive and startling.
You can also use it alongside Camp Mode to suppress the volume of any chimes while you’re snoozing off-grid.
More Joe Mode Features Soon?
As it currently exists, Joe Mode is already useful for many people, but there have been plenty of requests to make it more useful. Back in 2020, in response to user feedback, Elon Musk agreed that Tesla could add a volume slider to Joe Mode, allowing users to set their own volume for vehicle alerts.
In 2022, he acknowledged, once again, that Tesla could make Joe Mode even quieter, as many found the 50% reduction in volume insufficient.
Joe Mode is a fantastic example of Tesla listening to community feedback and implementing practical features, but we’d love to see Tesla add even more functionality to this feature in the future.
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