Yesterday Tesla held their Q2 2024 Earnings Call. Let’s take a deeper look at some of what was said.
Affordable Tesla
Tesla’s affordable model – previously dubbed the Model 2 by many, is supposed to be revealed in the first half of 2025. Tesla has been targeting a price point of about $25,000 USD for this vehicle, and many are excited to see an affordable EV from Tesla that doesn’t require the Federal EV Rebate to come down below $30,000.
The Model 2 is supposed to be built off the same production lines as Tesla’s other mass-manufactured vehicles — the Model 3 and the Model Y. Tesla has reserved their unique unboxed process testing for the upcoming Robotaxi instead.
New Date for Robotaxi Event
Speaking of the Robotaxi, Elon Musk confirmed in the earnings call that the Robotaxi event will be taking place on 10/10. In line with what we previously reported, this delay was due to some important design changes. In addition, the extra time allows Tesla to “show off a few other things,” according to Musk.
We’re quite excited to see what these other things are – they could be previews of the affordable Tesla model, the Cybervan or a demo of the Robotaxi.
Unsupervised FSD Goal
In terms of FSD, Musk also mentioned that the hope is for Unsupervised FSD to be rolled out sometime between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025. That’s a pretty big time gap, and while we’re used to expecting the usual two weeks, Musk came clean and said he’s been overly confident in the past.
Instead, this new estimate is based on the current trend of miles per intervention, which has been growing at a steady clip since FSD v12 rolled out and has become more refined.
Expansion of FSD
But that’s not all. Tesla also intends to introduce FSD v12.5 or FSD v12.6 to Europe, China, and other countries by the end of this year, which is rapidly approaching. That’s a major piece of news for many countries that have limited access to Full Self Driving or Autopilot. Tesla previously worked hard to get regulatory approval for FSD in Europe and China and just launched some Vision-based features outside of North America.
Giga Mexico on Hold
Giga Mexico is now on hold, along with Tesla’s plans to produce their next-generation vehicle there. Instead, Tesla will be producing these vehicles at Giga Texas. This hold comes after US Presidential Candidate Donald Trump has said that if he’s elected, he will enforce heavy tariffs on vehicles that are produced in Mexico and imported to the United States.
Optimus Robot Timeline
Optimus has seen some timeline solidification between the Shareholder Meeting and this Earnings Call. While there are a few test units on the factory floors today, Tesla intends to begin limited production at Giga Texas for a V1 unit, to be used internally. This production run will be starting in early 2025.
They expect to work out any initial kinks and bugs, and then begin work on Optimus V2, which should be available for purchase to outside organizations by early 2026.
Megapack
Tesla Energy has seen the greatest growth, with production, revenue, and sales all being greater than in Q1 2024. In fact, Tesla’s megapack factory in Lathrop is continuing to expand and scale production, all while Mega Shanghai is also breaking ground. Overall, deployments of static energy storage doubled in Q2 from Q1, which already saw a doubling since last year.
Tesla is banking quite a bit on its energy business, and working to expand its supply chains, while also selling Megapacks to energy utilities around the world. And it's more than energy utilities interested – Megapack is being seen as an energy backup source for AI compute – data centers suck power extremely fast, and Megapack can help provide the juice needed.
There’s more on that front too – Tesla and energy utilities are looking to buffer power plants with Megapacks – which means powerplants can run at optimal capacity while Megapack handles the ebbs and flows. There could be a 2-3x increase in power plant efficiency, and this could also help with power plant base loading.
Earnings Call Video
So that’s it for all the big key points from the Earnings Call. If you want to know more about the call, you can review our recap, which includes some of the financial data, as well as lots of other information. You can also see the investor slide deck, or watch the earnings call below.
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As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.
However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.
Weather At Destination
When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.
Note the weather under the arrival time
Not a Tesla App
You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.
You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.
And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.
The weather pop-up above the ETA
Not a Tesla App
One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.
Weather Radar Overlay
As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a 3-hour radar overlay centered on either your vehicle or your route. You can play or pause the animation of the weather overlay, but it’s useful to see the direction the storm is moving in.
You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, as long as you’re not zoomed out too far. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.
The weather overlay works on HW3 but only with Ryzen processors. Intel is once again left out. pic.twitter.com/tzYlJHsWzH
Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.
As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
While Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update brought many new features, including Apple Watch Support, Cross Traffic Alerts, Weather Overlays, Search Along Route, and others, there are also several smaller items in this update that didn’t get much attention.
Ambient Lighting Now Affects Easter Eggs
The 2024+ Model 3 and Cybertruck both come equipped with ambient lighting, and Tesla is now taking advantage of this custom lighting feature by incorporating it into several easter eggs.
Rainbow Road: If you head over to Apps > ToyBox > Rainbow Road, you’ll find a new option available that allows the ambient lighting in the vehicle to also change shades while Rainbow Road is active. The Rainbow Road easter egg is a tribute to the iconic course course in Nintendo’s Mario Kart.
Check out the feature in action below:
🇮🇹 Con l’aggiornamento di Natale, quando attiviamo la pista arcobaleno, anche i LED interni diventeranno arcobaleno. Questa è una novità non documentata, scovata da un utente di TESLERS (chiaramente riguarda le Model 3 Highland)
Santa Mode: Just in time for Christmas, Tesla has improved Santa Mode by cycling the ambient lighting between Christmas colors. Similar to Rainbow Road, the use of ambient lighting for the easter egg is optional and can be enabled under Apps > ToyBox > Santa Mode.
When using Santa Mode with ambient lighting turned on, the lights will cycle just between Christmas colors, red, green and white, instead of the full rainbow. There’s a video of the feature below:
The Model S and Model X vehicles that support Steam gaming are receiving a Steam app update in the holiday update as well. This update could end up being very interesting, but for now Tesla says that the SteamOS, which also runs on Valve’s Steam Deck has been updated to version 3.6.
Valve outlines a wide range of fixes and improvements in their release notes for version 3.6, but Tesla simply states that the OS update includes performance enhancements and improved game compatibility.
The SteamOS hasn’t been updated on the Model S and X for quite a while, so we believe there may be more to this besides performance improvements and fixes. We’ll be looking to share some insights into this in the near future.
So, there you have it—three new features in the Holiday update that have mostly gone under the radar. While they may not apply to everyone, there are plenty of other cool features in the Holiday Update, like the arrival of Dynamic Road Closure Routing and Nearby Parking, that are coming to every vehicle, so go check out the full release notes.
![Tesla Updates Santa Mode & Rainbow Road to Use Ambient Lighting and Updates SteamOS [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.webp/bd6dd7459fc8963516a33efd3bd54466/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.jpg)
![Tesla Builds Cybertruck Tunnel While Production Lines Pause [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2024/cybertruck-tunnel.webp/822a2c10124f46fe13e0d45cefdd9d33/cybertruck-tunnel.jpg)
![Impressive Tesla FSD Videos: Making Room for Vehicles & Mastering Tight Maneuvers [WATCH]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2023/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg/9c0bfda120e9fecc4ddb111b350565ac/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg)
