Elon Musk confirmed a future update will allow Tesla vehicles to create micro maps of roads that will help owners avoid potholes or other changes in the environment that are not available in conventional maps. The micro maps created from data collected by its fleet will be shared with fellow Tesla owners when they drive along the same road.
Reto Siegrist from Switzerland asked the Tesla CEO on Twitter about the possibility of adding the micro map feature to which Musk replied with a simple, “Yes.” Potholes can be big headaches for Tesla owners because they can cause serious accidents, damage tires and rims, which need repairs that can instantly burn through a few thousand dollars.
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2020
According to TRIP, a national transportation research non-profit group, about a third of major urban roads in the United States have pavements that are in substandard condition. Driving on such deteriorated roads cost motorists around $130 billion.
“Drivers are paying a hefty price for our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. Those traveling daily through urban cities bear the weight of the problem – with many wasting thousands of dollars each year on rising transportation costs due to pot holes and wasted fuel,” said Kathleen Bower, AAA senior vice president of public affairs and international relations
Elon Musk has previously mentioned an anti-pothole feature that will allow Autopilot to safely avoid potholes without the need for driver input. This micro map shared among Tesla vehicles on the road will be a welcome addition to the anti-pothole feature.
Definitely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2019
Detecting potholes can actually be challenging because unlike other obstacles, they are depressions on the road and may present differently depending on the current weather and lighting condition. In an ideal situation, the camera of Tesla’s electric car can determine a pothole by comparing the surface irregularity with the rest of the road and the texture inside the pothole compared to nearby pavement.
Tesla shared how its team is making progress in terms of developing its Full Self-Driving capabilities.
“…in terms of labeling, labeling with video in all eight cameras simultaneously. This is a really, I mean in terms of labeling efficiency, arguably like a three order of magnitude improvement in labeling efficiency,” Musk said.
The detection of potholes and the ability to seamlessly negotiate such obstacles on the road will be one big step for Tesla’s dream of having a fleet of truly autonomous cars. The ability of each car to share this information with other Teslas is also making most of the technology to make roads safer for everyone.
“Our networks learn from the most complicated and diverse scenarios in the world, iteratively sourced from our fleet of nearly 1M vehicles in real-time. A full build of Autopilot neural networks involves 48 networks that take 70,000 GPU hours to train. Together, they output 1,000 distinct tensors (predictions) at each timestep,” Tesla wrote to describe how its Autopilot neural networks work.
Elon Musk is also making sure that Tesla can accelerate further development of its FSD and Autopilot and will host an AI party at his house in a few weeks’ time. During the said event, Musk is hoping to find new talents to join Tesla and make functional applications out of the data available to the company.
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Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025
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Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
Tesla plans to supply over 100 Megapack units to support a large stationary storage project in Japan, making it one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities.
Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries have been selected to back an energy storage project in Japan, coming as the latest of the company’s continued deployment of the hardware.
As detailed in a report from Nikkei this week, Tesla plans to supply 142 Megapack units to support a 548 MWh storage project in Japan, set to become one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities. The project is being overseen by financial firm Orix, and it will be located at a facility Maibara in central Japan’s Shiga prefecture, and it aims to come online in early 2027.
The deal is just the latest of several Megapack deployments over the past few years, as the company continues to ramp production of the units. Tesla currently produces the Megapack at a facility in Lathrop, California, though the company also recently completed construction on its second so-called “Megafactory” in Shanghai China and is expected to begin production in the coming weeks.
READ MORE ON TESLA MEGAPACKS: Tesla Megapacks help power battery supplier Panasonic’s Kyoto test site
Tesla’s production of the Megapack has been ramping up at the Lathrop facility since initially opening in 2022, and both this site and the Shanghai Megafactory are aiming to eventually reach a volume production of 10,000 Megapack units per year. The company surpassed its 10,000th Megapack unit produced at Lathrop in November.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call last week, CEO Elon Musk also said that the company is looking to construct a third Megafactory, though he did not disclose where.
Last year, Tesla Energy also had record deployments of its Megapack and Powerwall home batteries with a total of 31.4 GWh of energy products deployed for a 114-percent increase from 2023.
Other recently deployed or announced Megapack projects include a massive 600 MW/1,600 MWh facility in Melbourne, a 75 MW/300 MWh energy storage site in Belgium, and a 228 MW/912 MWh storage project in Chile, along with many others still.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant
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Elon Musk responds to Ontario canceling $100M Starlink deal amid tariff drama
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, opens new tab on February 3 that he was “ripping up” his province’s CA$100 million agreement with Starlink in response to the U.S. imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.
Elon Musk company SpaceX is set to lose a $100 million deal with the Canadian province of Ontario following a response to the Trump administration’s decision to apply 25 percent tariffs to the country.
Starlink, a satellite-based internet service launched by the Musk entity SpaceX, will lose a $100 million deal it had with Ontario, Premier Doug Ford announced today.
Starting today and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts.
Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario. U.S.-based businesses will…
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) February 3, 2025
Ford said on X today that Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts:
“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn’t start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win it.”
It is a blow to the citizens of the province more than anything, as the Starlink internet constellation has provided people in rural areas across the globe stable and reliable access for several years.
Musk responded in simple terms, stating, “Oh well.”
Oh well https://t.co/1jpMu55T6s
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025
It seems Musk is less than enthused about the fact that Starlink is being eliminated from the province, but it does not seem like all that big of a blow either.
As previously mentioned, this impacts citizens more than Starlink itself, which has established itself as a main player in reliable internet access. Starlink has signed several contracts with various airlines and maritime companies.
It is also expanding to new territories across the globe on an almost daily basis.
With Mexico already working to avoid the tariff situation with the United States, it will be interesting to see if Canada does the same.
The two have shared a pleasant relationship, but President Trump is putting his foot down in terms of what comes across the border, which could impact Americans in the short term.
Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025
Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
