FSD Beta numbers and everything else revealed at Tesla's Q2 earnings call

Tesla produces its 2 millionth vehicle at Fremont/Nevada

Tesla

Yesterday Tesla held its second quarter earnings call. Although Elon Musk has previously said he wouldn't be on earnings calls in the future, he did make this one.

As with previous earnings calls, plenty of data and statistics were revealed relating to production, future products, and FSD Beta.

Below is a recap of the entire event, including the Q&A session. The recap was originally posted to dburkland.com.

You can also listen to the earnings call below. The call begins at the 11 minute mark.

Opening remarks from Elon Musk

• Unique quarter for Tesla due to Shanghai shutdown
• Production records achieved in Fremont & Shanghai
• Set up nicely for record breaking 2nd half of 2022
• Past years have thrown several force majeure at Tesla yet the team continues to overcome
• Giga Berlin Production Ramp continues with 1000 cars / week in June, Giga Austin to follow with the same number in the next few months
• Still making cars w/ 2170 cells in parallel and important to note they aren’t dependent on 4680s and will still hit their production numbers 
• FSD Beta deployed to over 100,000 owners
• 5-6 years ago they set out to be the best manufacturer in the world
  • Pro-manufacturing mindset has given them a competitive edge
• Currently make the largest castings in the world
• As a result of improved manufacturing processes in Berlin & Texas, Tesla has reduced body welding robot count by 70% per unit of capacity
  • Body shop is roughly 3x smaller as it would be otherwise
  • New vehicle bodies are lighter, cheaper, and quieter thanks to reduction in NVH
  • Another level of simplicity and improvements are coming with Cybertruck (as well as future products coming down the road)
• Intelligent seat belt tensioning based on vision system recently released, first in the industry to do this
  • Can also adjust the airbag deployment as well
  • Delivered via OTA update
  • Will have profound impact on passenger safety
  • Compatible for all HW3-equipped Teslas
• Cybertruck
  • Production still expected to start middle of 2023
  • “Best product ever” -Elon
• FSD Beta
  • Planned to be released to all North American customers by end of 2022
  • FSD will then be released to other geos such as Asia and EU soon after pending regulatory approval

Opening remarks from Zach Kirkhorn

• Made substantial progress in almost every area of the business
• New production records reached in existing factories and new ones actively ramping
• Highest solar production volumes in years
• Temporary shutdown had noticeable impact to vehicle margin
  • Factory ramping also associated with negative impact on vehicle margin
• Inflation, commodities, and logistics continue to be headwinds
• Resource constrained on Powerwall and Megapack which should be resolved in the 2nd half of 2022
• Austin & Berlin operating costs are going down as production ramps up
• Tesla sold 75% of Bitcoin holdings 
  • They did so as they were uncertain when COVID lockdowns in China would end
  • As a result they wanted to maximize cash position
  • They are still interested in Bitcoin and have not yet sold any Dogecoin
• Highest operating margins ever at 14.6%
• Still targeting 50% of growth and still within reach

Q&A

• Chinese EV Manufacturers & Software Innovation
  • Elon believes Tesla China is the best EV manufacturer in China
  • Chinese car companies will be a force to be reckoned with going forward
  • Tesla has respect for Chinese automakers but believes they have whats necessary to compete
• Unified Vector Space
  • Unified Vector Space would be if instead of knitting together dynamic & static objects w/ C++ you knit them together at the NN level (meaning you no longer need to reconcile them in C++ heuristics)
  • Architecturally better way
  • Slight improvement in efficiency of FSD stack and something they want to get to
  • Nirvana situation would be to have surround video auto labeling for all static & dynamic objects as well as surround video inference w/ spacial memory
  • Elon believes they have a unified vector space by the end of 2022
  • Elon is also very confident that Tesla will improve the frame rate as they delete legacy NNs and further optimize the FSD software stack
  • The goal is to get FSD Beta to operate at 36fps for all 8 cameras compared to the current 24 frames which will reduce latency when reacting to a dynamic environment
• Inflation & Future Price Reductions
  • They do not control so therefore Elon says take w/ grain salt but thinks inflation to decrease by end of 2022
  • Carbon, steel, aluminum, etc are trending down in cost which should see impact later in 2022, early 2023
  • Processing of lithium is insanely costly
  • Elon again encouraging entrepreneurs to enter the lithium business as there are, “software margins”
  • “License to print money” -Elon
• Bitcoin
  • Cryptocurrency is not something Tesla thinks about a lot according to Elon
  • Main goal is production and addressing climate change by making sustainable energy & transport a reality
• 4680s
  • Structural pack is a monumental step forward from a physics perspective and is the way to go
  • Gained perspective through entering production w/ structural pack Teslas which proved their hypotheses
  • Cost improvements are thanks to solving technical issues and scale
  • They have saved 4-5kg in mass from the early cast Model Y underbodies since their initial production
  • Plan is to reduce mass of castings and to include more parts (and to adapt vehicle to work better with castings)
  • Cybertruck will be another big step in this area
  • Making progress on 4680 production ramp but continuing to leverage supplier cells (2170s) to ramp Giga Berlin & Texas
  • Total production ramp of 4680 packs to 1000 per week by end of the year (preferably earlier)
  • Q2 @ Kato fully automated powder conveyance for the dry anode electrode tool there unlocking major improvements in production & yields too
  • Production as a result has increased 35% MoM since March and yields throughout factory are already at targets or trending towards them
  • Took learnings from Fremont cell & pack lines and built optimized lines in Giga Berlin & Texas
  • Cell design was revved to unlock higher performance and manufacturing simplicity
  • Lines were fully integrated and insourced additional content
  • As a result new challenges for ramping in Giga Berlin & Texas
  • Last quarter cell equipment was fully installed at Giga Texas and they have since produced their first commissioning car sets of 4680s cells
  • The target for Texas is to begin mass producing 4680 cells in Q3 2022 with the goal of being able to exceed the weekly cell production capacity of the Kato battery plant by end of 2022
  • Priority with 4680s initially is simplicity and scale, Tesla was not aiming to include all of the bells & whistles right off the bat
  • As manufacturing goals are achieved they plan to layer in new material technologies into their structural packs (and increase range as well)
  • Currently in regards to 4680s Tesla’s main focus is to remove low hanging issues that would prevent further production ramp
  • Dry electrode anode & cathode are included in the current 4680 process which makes things harder to ramp (yet they continue to achieve success here)
  • Once mass production achieved they plan to quickly iterate w/ an increase in energy density and overall performance soon thereafter
  • Tesla cell production will continue to compliment production volumes from suppliers
  • Fundamental rate limiter for transition to sustainable energy is rate of li-ion battery pack production
    • Not due to scarcity of raw materials, refining lithium in ultra high purity is quite difficult and requires massive amounts of machinery
    • Super difficult to create anode and cathode
    • Elon believes 2/3 of batteries in the future will be iron phosphate, maybe some with manganese
    • Tesla is actively working with suppliers to ramp as quick as possible
  • Tesla is taking action by building their own Cathode plant at Giga Texas as well as taking the plunge into lithium refinement
• FSD Development Progress & Andrej Departure
  • While Andrej Karpathy will be missed (recent departure), Elon remains very bullish on current team of 120 people in software / AI group and believes that they will solve FSD by end of 2022
  • No major setbacks or delays in FSD timeline should occur as a result of Andrej’s departure
  • Elon believes they will raise FSD price just before they go to wide beta (targeted for end of 2022)
  • Value of FSD is extremely high and not well understood by most people, Elon thinks its ridiculously cheap if promises of performance materialize
• Semiconductor Supply Chain Constraints
  • Tesla procures about 1600 unique pieces of silicon from 43 different companies
  • Supply chains are more stable w/ latest generation of chips
  • Chips from the analog & mixed signaling space still remain a challenge from a supply chain perspective
  • Supply chain line of sight continues to match planned outputs for both factories (no constraints)
  • Long term contracts already in place for key battery materials and so there are no concerns about future constraints
  • Tesla does not plan to manufacture their own chips however they continue to work with suppliers to ensure future product goals are achieved
  • Chip shortage forced Teslas to delete redundant chips and update software accordingly (big positive in hindsight)
• Cybertruck
  • Deliveries to begin by the middle of 2023
• Vehicle Demand
  • Vehicle demand not an issue for Tesla for the foreseeable future
  • No sizable macro impact on demand
  • Difference between value in money and affordability and why you can’t just keep increasing prices
  • Elon feels that they have raised prices to “frankly embarrassing levels”
    • Supply chain and inflation are main culprits for price increases
    • Elon is hopeful Tesla can reduce prices soon
  • Elon thinks its achievable to produce 40,000 vehicles per week by end of 2022
    • Teslas has already produced 30,000 vehicles per week many times, 40,000 vehicles per week is definitely in reach
    • Plan is to get Giga Berlin & Texas to ramp to 5,000 vehicles per week by end of 2022 and 10,000 vehicles per week by end of 2023
  • Elon reaffirms that Tesla does not have a demand problem but instead a production problem
• Elon’s Role At Tesla
  • If there is only good news Elon won’t plan to join the future earnings calls
  • Elon is committed to working at Tesla as long as he can continue to help advance the company
• AI
  • Elon didn’t want to steal thunder from AI day so he will save the news / updates regarding Dojo & Optimus for then

You can follow Dan Burkland on Twitter at @DBurkland.

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Tesla Preparing to Expand Robotaxi Geofence As Validation Vehicles Spotted

Not a Tesla App

Tesla appears to be preparing to expand its Robotaxi geofence in Austin, Texas, with numerous engineering vehicles taking to the road. One of the most interesting sights, between the short and tall LiDAR rigs, was a Cybertruck validation vehicle, which we don’t often see.

Tesla’s expansion is moving the Robotaxi Network into downtown Austin, a dense urban environment that is currently outside the geofence. It appears Tesla is content with the latest builds of Robotaxi FSD and is ready to take on urban traffic.

The inclusion of a Cybertruck in the validation fleet is noteworthy, as the rest of the vehicles are Model Ys. This suggests that Tesla may be addressing two challenges simultaneously: expanding its service area while also addressing the FSD gap between the Cybertruck and other HW4 Tesla vehicles.

Tesla Validating Downtown Austin before expanding the Robotaxi geo-fence area. pic.twitter.com/ylFATtjcDi

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 3, 2025

Using LiDAR

Recent sightings have shown a fleet of Tesla vehicles, equipped with rooftop validation sensor rigs, running routes throughout downtown Austin and across the South Congress Bridge. While these rigs include LiDAR, it’s not a sign that Tesla is abandoning its vision-only approach.

Instead, Tesla uses the high-fidelity data from the LiDAR as a ground truth measurement to validate and improve the performance of its cameras. In short, it essentially uses the LiDAR measurements as the actual distances and then compares the distances determined in vision-only to the LiDAR measurements. This allows Tesla to tweak and improve its vision system without needing LiDAR.

Additionally, the validation vehicles are likely scouting for the new, pre-determined, selectable pick-up locations that have just rolled out as part of the Robotaxi app.

Expanding the Geofence

This data collection in a new, complex environment right outside the Robotaxi geofence is an indicator that plans to expand the geofence. Tesla has previously indicated that they intend to roll out more vehicles and expand the geofence slowly. Given that their operational envelope includes the entire Austin Metro Area, we can expect more locations to open up gradually.

Once they expand the operational radius to include downtown Austin, they will likely also have to considerably increase the number of Robotaxis active in the fleet at any given time. Early-access riders are already saying that the wait time for a Robotaxi is too long, with them sometimes having to wait 15 minutes to be picked up.

With a larger service area, we expect Tesla to also increase the number of vehicles and the number of invited riders to try out the service.

After all, Tesla’s goal is to expand the Robotaxi Network to multiple cities within the United States by the end of 2025. Tesla has already been running an employees-only program in California, and we’ve seen validation vehicles as far away as Boston and New Jersey, on the other side of the country.

Cyber FSD Lagging Behind

One of the most significant details from these recent sightings is the presence of a Cybertruck. Cybertruck’s FSD builds have famously lagged behind the builds available on the rest of Tesla’s HW4 fleet. Key features that were expected never fully materialized for the Cybertruck, and the list of missing features is quite extensive.

• Start FSD from Park

• Improved Controller

• Reverse on FSD

• Actually Smart Summon

It may not look like a lot, but if you drive a Cybertruck on FSD and then hop in any of the rest of Tesla’s HW4 vehicles, you’ll notice a distinct difference. This is especially evident on highways, where the Cybertruck tends to drift out of the lane, often crossing over the lane markings.

Tesla was testing parts of Downtown Austin, TX with this Cybertruck which had a massive roof rack, and sensors.

Tons of work goes into FSD. Cool to see them using Cybertruck. pic.twitter.com/usEMaEUrOB

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 3, 2025

We previously released an exclusive mentioning that a well-positioned internal source confirmed with us that a new FSD build for the Cybertruck was upcoming, but we never ended up receiving that particular build, only a point release to V13.2.9. The AI team’s focus had clearly shifted to getting the latest Robotaxi builds running and validated, and while a flagship, the Cybertruck fleet was small and new, and really a secondary task.

The Cybertruck’s larger size, steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, and different camera placements likely present a bigger set of challenges for FSD. Deploying it now as a validation vehicle in a complex environment like downtown Austin suggests that Tesla is finally gathering the specific data needed to bring the Cybertruck’s capabilities up to par. This focused effort is likely the necessary step to refine FSD’s handling of the Cybertruck before they begin rolling out new public builds.

When?

Once Tesla’s validation is complete, we can probably expect the Robotaxi Network to expand its borders for the first time in the coming days or weeks. However, we’ll likely see more signs of the expansion, such as Robotaxi vehicles driving themselves around the area, before the expansion actually happens.

Hopefully, the Cybertruck will also learn from its older siblings and receive the rest of its much-needed FSD features, alongside an FSD update for the entire fleet.

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Tesla Updates Robotaxi App: Adds Adjustable Pick Up Locations, Shows Wait Time and More [VIDEO]

Nic Cruz Patane

Tesla is rolling out a fairly big update for its iOS and early-access-only Robotaxi app, delivering a suite of improvements that address user feedback from the initial launch last month. The update improves the user experience with increased flexibility, more information, and overall design polish.

The most prominent feature in this update is that Tesla now allows you to adjust your pickup location. Once a Robotaxi arrives at your pickup location, you have 15 minutes to start the ride. The app will now display the remaining time your Robotaxi will wait for you, counting down from 15:00. The wait time is also shown in the iOS Live Activity if your phone is on the lock screen.

How Adjustable Pickups Work

We previously speculated that Tesla had predetermined pickup locations, as the pickup location wasn’t always where the user was. Now, with the ability to adjust the pickup location, we can clearly see that Tesla has specific locations where users can be picked up.

Rather than allowing users to drop a pin anywhere on the map, the new feature works by having the user drag the map to their desired area. The app then presents a list of nearby, predetermined locations to choose from. Once a user selects a spot from this curated list, they hit “Confirm.” The pickup site can also be changed while the vehicle is en route.

This specific implementation raises an interesting question: Why limit users to predetermined spots? The answer likely lies in how Tesla utilizes fleet data to improve its service.

Here is the new Tesla Robotaxi pickup location adjustment feature.

There are already predetermined pickup points in the area you hover over. pic.twitter.com/X5ki1EAP8X

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 3, 2025

Release Notes

While the app is still only available on iOS through Apple’s TestFlight program, invited users can download and update the app.

Tesla included these release notes in update 25.7.0 of the Robotaxi app:

• You can now adjust pickup location

• Display the remaining wait time at pickup in the app and Live Activity

• Design improvements

• Bug fixes and stability improvements

Nic Cruz Patane

Why Predetermined Pick Up Spots?

The use of predetermined pickup points is less of a limitation and more of a feature. These curated locations are almost certainly spots that Tesla’s fleet data has identified as optimal and safe for an autonomous vehicle to perform a pickup or drop-off.

This suggests that Tesla is methodically “mapping” its service area not just for calibration and validation of FSD builds but also to help perform the first and last 50-foot interactions that are critical to a safe and smooth ride-hailing experience.

An optimal pickup point likely has several key characteristics identified by the fleet, including:

• A safe and clear pull-away area away from traffic

• Good visibility for cameras, free of obstructions

• Easy entry and exit paths for an autonomous vehicle

This change to pick-up locations reveals how Tesla’s Robotaxi Network is more than just Unsupervised FSD. There are a lot of moving parts, many of which Tesla recently implemented, and others that likely still need to be implemented, such as automated charging.

Frequent Updates

This latest update delivers a much-needed feature for adjusting pickup locations, but it also gives us a view into exactly what Tesla is doing with all the data it is collecting with its validation vehicles rolling around Austin, alongside its Robotaxi fleet.

Tesla is quickly iterating on its app and presumably the vehicle’s software to build a reliable and predictable network, using data to perfect every aspect of the experience, from the moment you hail the ride to the moment you step out of the car.

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