Tesla has recently purchased a 40,000-square-foot parking lot in Queens, New York City, for $18 million USD. Tesla picked up this property lot just recently, according to New York City records that showed the purchase price and details, as of Monday, August 26th.
Super-sized Supercharger?
This huge parking lot is likely intended to be developed into a fairly large Supercharger site for downtown Queens, as the deal was inked by Max de Zegher, Director of Tesla Charging. As we checked the deed and development records, it seems that Tesla does indeed plan on establishing a Supercharger site there. The exact number of stalls isn’t included in the planning documents just yet.
The lot is located at 48-26 54th Road, (that’s a lot of numbers!), and has 55 regular parking spots as it is currently designed, with an additional 3 wheelchair/accessibility spaces. This fairly large site will help reduce traffic and congestion at Tesla’s other Supercharger sites throughout the city once it's completed and operational. Space in the area comes at a premium and Tesla likely thought it’d be worth purchasing the lot instead of leasing space like they usually do.
Yellow (and Blue!) Cabs
New York City has a lot of Teslas – in fact, a lot of yellow ones! Gravity Taxi runs many yellow Model Y’s throughout the city as part of their yellow taxicab service, while Revel runs blue Model Y’s as part of their rideshare service. In addition, NYC’s Greenrides Initiative mandates that all for-hire vehicles, including taxicabs, must be EVs as of March 2024. This huge push has resulted in considerable charging congestion within New York, and there have been multiple new DC fast-charging locations in the works with other vendors.
We’re happy to see Tesla’s Supercharger sites still coming up, especially after the big cuts in the Supercharger team earlier this year. It’s a good indication that Tesla is still focused on expanding their charging footprint, especially in areas with heavy concentrations of Tesla EVs.
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For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.
Price Increase
The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.
The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series.
The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.
Free Lifetime Supercharging
For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.
There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.
We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.
Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.
Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.
Optimus is Blind
Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.
Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.
Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.
What’s Next?
Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.
Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.
There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.
We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.
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