I picked this one for us today because I think they’re approaching books the same way as this newsletter: condensing a lot of great information into a 10-15 minute read.

The people building AI aren't only reading about AI. Sam Altman's pick for getting more done is Zero to One, and it has nothing to do with machine learning.

Shortform breaks down books like The Beginning of Infinity and Thinking, Fast and Slow into the key ideas, the context behind them, and what to do with them.

Get the ideas behind the breakthroughs in about 15 minutes, then decide which ones deserve your whole weekend.

Start learning!

…more on the robotaxi rally in the Robotaxi section.

A Tesla Semi caught fire on Interstate 880 in Hayward, California, on Tuesday evening, prompting the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to close the freeway in both directions for several hours. The driver was not hurt.

The fire was reported around 5:35 p.m. in the southbound lanes near Route 92. There was no crash, and no other vehicles were involved. By 5:45 p.m., CHP had closed both directions between Winton Avenue and Route 92, with Officer Rolando Guzman citing "potential risk of hazardous chemical smoke."

Northbound lanes reopened around 8:40 p.m. CHP had warned that the battery fire could burn for 15 to 18 hours and that southbound lanes would stay closed until it was out and the truck could be safely removed. Southbound traffic was diverted at Winton Avenue, and all lanes were back open by Wednesday morning.

The driver told CHP the truck "simply caught fire" and that they didn't know why.
The cause remains under investigation — and I’ll keep tabs on it.

The truck that burned is not one of Tesla's new production Semis. It is one of the early Frito-Lay Semis that PepsiCo has been running in its fleet since Tesla's first deliveries nearly four years ago, which means it predates the production truck now coming off Tesla's Semi Factory line.

The Semi has been on the road in customer hands since Tesla's first deliveries to PepsiCo in December 2022, and those early trucks formed a pilot fleet of just under 200 vehicles that Tesla says has logged 17.5 million miles.

For scale, US fire departments responded to an average of more than 15,000 large-truck fires each year from 2018 to 2022, according to National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) data. Those figures cover large trucks of every powertrain, with the vast majority running on diesel.

Here's a look at the scene some time after the fire, as shared by CHP:

The new Roadster was on public display for the first time at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, in the Thrust trim.

Tesla's chief designer Franz von Holzhausen also drove one to the Petersen dinner, with the rear popped open so guests could see the carbon-overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV), click to view the video on X:

Tesla also released a video of the Roadster's interface.
A great reminder of how much I love software-defined vehicles. Click to play it:

And Tesla's Roadster press materials, shared by Ryan Zohoury, spell out what each trim gets. Production starts in 2028, so all of it is subject to change:

The two documents with details. Also, all this and most of the press we saw still didn’t release most of this info properly -.-

Tesla's Robotaxi fleet in Texas now has more Cybercabs than Model Ys. Texas DMV data tracked shows 573 Cybercabs and 507 Model Ys on October 27, 1,080 vehicles in total. Note that the registered count doesn’t mean in service, but it does seem like the floodgates have really opened.

Plenty of the Cybercabs literally went to the races. Ahead of the F1 United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas (October 23 to 25), Tesla expanded its Austin service area to include the track and pushed service hours to 1 AM.

The Robotaxi service saw heavy use all weekend, with over 50 Cybercabs spotted dropping off fans on race day

Other videos showed numerous Cybercabs operating even at night. In a post on X, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's VP of AI Software, described the scene as a “Storm of Cybercabs”

Tesla has rolled out a larger Robotaxi service area in Houston, with the new geofence now reaching downtown Houston and Bellaire.

Tesla's official Robotaxi account shared a map of the update on X, showing the expanded zone running southeast from the original service area in northwest Houston, through the city center, and down to Bellaire:

The original geofence is folded into the new one. Tesla did not share the new area's size, but Sawyer Merritt's count puts it at 254 square miles (about 658 sqkm), up 916% and close to Austin's 272 (about 704 sqkm). Here's his compilation for showing every Robotaxi city:

Miami and Tampa are next. Elon confirmed their geofences will soon include the beaches.

Tesla has released new FSD Supervised safety data. The system now goes 6,006,200 miles (9.67 million kilometers) between major collisions in North America, about 9x farther than the U.S. average.

Teslas driven manually with Active Safety features went 2,031,221 miles (3.27 million km) per major collision. Meanwhile, Teslas driven manually without those features went 845,915 miles (1.36 million km). The U.S. average sits at 660,164 miles (1.06 million km). The data covers all road classes, highway and non-highway, and reflects a rolling 12-month aggregation of miles and collisions.

Car rental marketplace Turo now lets US travelers search for and book Teslas with FSD (Supervised) turned on, from October 28. Turo checks each car's FSD status directly through Tesla's API, and eligible hosts get a free one-month FSD trial.

🇱🇻 Tesla's FSD Supervised, now called Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD) in Europe, has been approved in Latvia, making it the tenth European Union country to allow the advanced driver-assist system on public roads.

Tesla said in a press release sent to EVwire that it has received regulatory approval to offer TAD in Latvia, with the rollout to customer vehicles set to begin shortly through an over-the-air software update. TAD will cost €99 ($116) per month in Latvia. With the approval, all three Baltic states have now cleared FSD/TAD.

Munro Live has published a nearly 90-minute deep dive into Tesla's Cybercab, touring the Cybercab production line in Texas with Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy and members of Tesla's engineering and manufacturing teams.

The video walks through how Tesla's unboxed process splits the Cybercab into front, rear, side and center modules that are built and tested separately before being joined on a short final line. It also covers the Cybercab's battery pack, drive unit, heat pump and body panels.

Some of the specs and production details from the video:

Tesla's team also said the Cybercab line can currently build cars faster than the company is deploying them:

"We don't run every day because the line can run so fast. It's currently outpacing our deployments. So, it's a bit of a race right now. Who's going to go faster? Right now the, you know, the manufacturing lines ahead." — Lars Moravy, VP of Vehicle Engineering, Tesla, to Munro Live.

The full video is here, if you have ~90 minutes to dig deeper.