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Elon, on airline Wi-Fi this week:

And here is the context:

Tesla has opened its first factory built specifically for the Tesla Semi, and says high-volume production of the truck is now underway.

Here is our full roundup of what we learned.
Can’t fit it all in here, but below is your quick need-to-know.

Elon Musk did not attend in person (there was a certain high-profile dinner at the White House you might’ve seen), but sent a recorded message congratulating the team and outlining the truck’s performance, charging and economic goals:

“Drivers are going to love this truck. It's almost like a sports-car in truck form. This is going to be a game changing truck, and it's going to make sense economically. The wait list is already pretty significant.” — Elon Musk

The 1.8-million-sqft Tesla Semi factory is built next to Giga Nevada, designed to produce 1,000 Tesla Semis per week, 50k per year when fully ramped up.

The Standard Range, Long Range, and European-spec Semis will all be built on the same production line.

The factory uses the highest-weight-capacity EMS conveyance system in vehicle manufacturing, capable of moving 39 fully assembled frames-in-white.

There is no paint shop. It’s the first factory to powder-coat the Class 8 tractor instead.

“This is the first time we've done a powder-coated surface, so you can get a Semi in any color you want, as long as it's white. For now.” — Lars Moravy, VP for Vehicle Engineering at Tesla

Lars was the one with Dan Priestley, head of Semi, on the stage.

Semi Factory has one of Tesla's most automated battery lines, using Tesla’s own 4680 cells for a lighter pack with fewer kWh and the same range as the 2170s.

The white belt you see is a cooling belt that feeds through the middle to keep the temperature suitable.

It is more efficient. It is more reliable, more manufacturable, and ultimately set up to deliver the lowest total cost of ownership. — Dan Priestley

Tesla is producing stampings, batteries, drive axles, high-voltage distribution units, cooling modules and seats in-house.

Tesla said the earlier pilot fleet, consisting of just under 200 vehicles, has accumulated 17.5M miles (28.2M km) while hauling freight in snow, rain, desert conditions and mountain routes.

In the pilots, Tesla confirmed that at a fully loaded 82,000 lbs (37.2 tonnes), it demonstrated more than a 500-mile (805 km) range, and at half-loaded trucks of 60,000 lbs (27.2 tonnes), it can do ~600 miles (966 km). Now I can’t help but wonder what just the tractor could do…

The production Semi swaps the old carbon-fiber-sleeved rotor for a steel-caged one and uses a bar-wound stator shared with the Cybertruck, taking about 80 kg (176 lbs) off the drive axle. Here’s our deeper look at the drivetrain, with more images.

The first trucks needed three different oils (motor, gearbox and hub). Now the hub runs with none, and the motor and gearbox share one oil rated for 250k+ miles (400k+ km).

“Occasionally, we get a little too far out there. And we ended up with three oils in the first round of the truck.” — Dan Priestley, Tesla Semi Program Lead

Tesla Semi is the first Class 8 truck with electric steering. No hydraulics, no fluid lines, and Tesla says it's a head start on autonomy. This also started in Cybertruck.

They say it gives the truck an “immensely quick response” and makes it the most precise steering system they’ve ever seen on a Class 8 truck.

Priestley says it turns almost as tight as a Model Y.

The new “Megamanifold” heat pump runs cabin HVAC and every powertrain loop, warms the cab with waste heat from the motors and battery, and has no refrigerant lines running to the front. Our Megamanifold deep dive has the rest of the details and transcript.

The cab got acoustic glass, a full roll-down window (instead of the old pop-out version), driver profiles tied to your phone, and a partly automated pre-trip inspection.

Tesla reported 98%+ uptime year to date, and charged a Semi live during the event at around 1.2 MW, still pulling that at a 27% state of charge.

Tesla says 30+ Megacharger stations are expected online in the US by year-end, with many more in the works. Not specified whether those were the public ones, though.

Customer deliveries have started with the event, with names like PepsiCo, US Foods, Einride, LTS, Nevoya, OK Produce, ABF Freight, DHL, WattEV, IMC Logistics and HMD getting trucks with their own branding:

For all the details, I highly recommend this 51-minute Semi factory tour from Kyle and Scot at Out of Spec. Then pair it with Kyle driving the truck himself on the next vid.

Q3 numbers are due tomorrow. Tesla has published its own company-compiled Q3 consensus: 24 analysts expect 461,974 deliveries, and 19 expect 15.9 GWh of energy storage deployed.

A Model S with 3,000,000 kilometers.

Hansjörg von Gemmingen-Hornberg's legendary road warrior 2013 Tesla Model S has now covered 3 million kilometers (1.86 million miles), enough to circle the Earth about 75 times.

He has gone through 4 battery packs and 14 drive units, but the latest rebuilt unit (coolant leak delete for the drive unit by EV Clinic) and battery have both done over 1 million km now.

The veteran owner marked the milestone in the subtle way he usually does, by making a photo of the car's 3,000,000-km odometer card his new profile picture on X. The card carries the car's P90 badge and VIN.

Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised is now approved in Croatia, making it the eighth European Union country to approve the advanced driver-assist system for public roads.

Tesla says the rollout to Croatian customers will begin soon.

Last week we said the EU-wide vote was due on October 6, but the official agenda for that meeting lists further discussions on FSD Supervised and no vote. That makes the committee's December meeting the earliest likely opportunity for an EU-wide decision.

Not everyone is cheering. The European Transport Safety Council says FSD’s Speed Offset function breaches UN Regulation No. 171, and is asking EU authorities to reject it, along with the Contextual Max Speed function that adjusts the speed ceiling using the speed of surrounding traffic.

Tesla now has 126 Cybercabs registered in Texas, up from 69 a few days ago.

As of September 28, the Texas AV Tracker's live snapshot of Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) registrations shows 546 Tesla Robotaxi vehicles in the state, comprised of 420 Model Ys and 126 Cybercabs.

Tesla is telling Austin riders about it, too. This notification went out in the Robotaxi app:

Tesla has opened its 3,000th Canadian Supercharger at a new 24-stall site in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, just in time for Canadian Thanksgiving.

The milestone unit at the Montée Ryan location wears a red wrap with a white maple leaf, keeping up Tesla's habit of dressing up its landmark chargers.

If you haven’t yet watched out video this week, here’s a bit of a recap on historic Flight 14:

Starship has reached orbit for the first time. Flight 14 lifted off from Starbase on September 28 and deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites (real satellites this time!), and SpaceX says contact was made with every one of them soon after.

It wasn't a clean run, though. From SpaceX's flight recap:

“During Starship’s ascent burn, a single Raptor vacuum engine shut down early. Starship still achieved its planned, passively safe suborbital trajectory by burning its remaining five engines for longer than planned to compensate for the loss of thrust.”

The team still gave the go for orbit, and Starship relit a single sea-level Raptor for its orbit insertion burn.

Out of caution over the engine issue, SpaceX then cut the time in orbit short and brought the ship down on target in the northern Pacific, about three hours after launch instead of the nearly ten originally planned.

The Super Heavy booster splashed down in the Gulf as planned, after which SpaceX triggered its flight termination system as a demonstration of the safety hardware.

Elon wrote:

“We deployed V3 Starlink satellites, which are enormous. These are satellites with a wingspan of a 737. Next year, we expect Starship to reach a weekly or twice weekly launch cadence.”

Flight 15 is next, with provisional planning documents pointing to October 19 at the earliest. Elon said at the All-In Summit that SpaceX may try to catch the ship with the tower on Flight 15 if Flight 14 went well.