Why Elon Just Bought A LOT of Land & Robotaxi Fleet Developments ⚡️

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:05]Welcome to Electrified. It's your host, Dylan Lumis. Brett from Ark was running some numbers on what the anthropic deal could mean to SpaceX over the long run.

[00:00:14]But Elon replied today saying, "Let's not get carried away. This is a shortterm deal." So, many were expecting this to be a multi-year deal that would account for tens of billions of dollars of revenue for SpaceX. But as Elon said last week, it's only a 180day lease with a 90-day notice mutual cancellation thereafter. The short term was SpaceX's request, not Anthropics. So SpaceX is not committed to leasing out Colossus to Anthropic for a multi-year deal, although Elon said it's still possible that might be the outcome. But it's pretty clear Elon is pumping the brakes on SpaceX renting out a majority of its compute, at least in the short term. So, credit to Elon for the honesty here, especially right ahead of the IPO. So, the leasing model brings in fast cash, which is great if you have unused capacity, but internal use of that compute by SpaceX can still generate asymmetric upside over the long term. So whether it's training Grock and future products like Grock build, whether it's macroh hard and something like a digital Optimus, but whatever the project, SpaceX having the optionality to reallocate those GPUs for internal use is indeed a good thing. It's just in the short term, I think we need to bring down our expectations for that cash inflow from those short-term leasing deals. When it comes to the robo taxi tracker, that'll be linked below. If you now click the hiring watch list button, you'll see the number 41. That now includes 33 active listings of cities where Tesla is currently hiring for an AI safety operator. And when you click that button, you'll see these gray circles populate across the map, but I changed it. So, if you scroll all the way down, you'll still be able to see the historical cities where Tesla was at one point hiring for those AI safety operators. So, these cities are now no longer listed, but we can likely reason that that means Tesla has hired somebody for that role. And it's true, the new law for robo taxis in Texas went into effect last week, and Tesla has officially self-certified its robo taxis as level 4, so they can continue robo taxi operations in the state as expected. This news ended up going semiviral, but the truth is it was mostly a formality and a procedural change here. There's no new capability for Tesla's robo taxis in Austin with this news. It's effectively just the state of Texas wanting a little bit more control over the robo taxi operations.

[00:02:40]But you can now go to the Texas Motor Carrier website and find Tesla's listing for its robo taxi service and it lists the VINs that are certified for this program. Scrolling to the bottom, you'll see 42 of 42 rows, meaning Tesla has 42 vehicles officially registered for robo taxis in Texas. Then for Whimo, you'll find 619 VINs listed. And believe it or not, if you look up AVID, you'll see they have 317 VIN registered for robo taxis in Texas. But to be clear, it's business as usual for Tesla's robo taxi in Texas. But right now on the Tesla careers page, you'll find six different listings for a supervisor for robo taxi fleet support. And the cities are PaloAlto, Tampa, San Antonio, Orlando, San Francisco, and Miami. And three of those do match three of the five cities Tesla supposed to launch robo taxi service in by the end of this month.

[00:03:35]Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, all in Florida, all with 28 days to go. This role will ensure all Tesla vehicles are in excellent condition at all times, supporting smooth 247 vehicle operations. It's vehicle prep, vehicle inspections, effective lot management, and active collaboration with multiple teams. Along those lines, here's the official court document for what Tesla's doing in Dallas, building a 51,000 square ft EV sales, service, and delivery center. However, scrolling down, you'll find a revised operational plan. Tesla, the operator of this facility, will utilize this location for charging, cleaning, repair, and general maintenance of Teslaowned autonomous vehicles. To me, the real signal here is that the current service center or gallery infrastructure is not enough for what Tesla has planned for robo taxis.

[00:04:23]And shout out to Spencer for this video as he was just on site. Um, but really interesting find uh here in Grand Prairie, Texas, but it is currently under construction. I will flip around and you will be able to see it is under construction. This is right off of Interstate 20. This is between Dallas and Fort Worth, so a great location. Uh, it also won't be too terribly far from the Dallas Cowboys stadium, which is actually going to be where the World Cup games are going to be. However, this will not be open in time for the World Cup.

[00:04:53]>> And yes, many people are now speculating that Tesla will debut the Cyber Cab on the robo taxi network in Houston andor Dallas around June 14th when the World Cup games begin, which is certainly possible, and yes, that would be exciting. However, as we know, Tesla is not going to rush this just to debut it at the World Cup. Tesla has been so cautious for so long, they're not going to rush it for a bit of extra exposure.

[00:05:15]And Saddok, who's been reporting on the ground about the Houston robo taxi service, said, "The number of vehicles that are operational right now has went from six down to two, and it's been that way now for a few weeks." He said, "At first, I thought something might be happening, but now I suspect there's an issue." And last night, Spencer said, "Two days in a row I've been unable to get a robo taxi in Dallas." And the screenshot said no rides available nearby. And now high service demand is one thing. That means there are cars in the fleet, but they're hard to get.

[00:05:45]Whereas no rides available nearby would indicate that there aren't any vehicles operating in the fleet. And some of you will remember on April 18th, 4 days before the earnings call when Tesla launched robo taxis in Houston and Dallas, I said if this doesn't scale up beyond a few vehicles in the next few weeks, it was likely Tesla doing that to have some positive momentum going into earnings. And unfortunately, in this moment, it's looking like that was the case. Now, sure, there could have been some unexpected problems that arose over the past few weeks causing Tesla to really slow things down in Houston and Dallas, but ultimately it's really just a signal that they weren't fully ready to launch in those cities. And hey, maybe these Model Y are slowly being pulled to get ready for deployment of the Cyber Cabs. But at this point, the way things are going, I'm not planning on getting my hopes up. And just in case you missed it last week, Ashoke did say soon the cyber cab will be driving itself into Austin City reporting for duty. But as we know, soon at Tesla has many different interpretations. The trend so far this year has been these voice cloning scams that are surging.

[00:06:53]And that's largely thanks to AI and social media. And that's just part of why I'm still talking about Delete Me, the sponsor of this video, who I've been working with now for almost 3 years. And over that time, I've had 492 instances of my profile removed from these people search sites, which is exactly what Delete Me specializes in. They'll remove your information from over 750 people search sites, the public profiles that show your home address, phone number, age, family members, and all of this to anybody who just Googles your name. And guys, this is the exact data that these scammers need to make these voice clone scams feel so real. And perhaps most importantly, delete me will continually ensure that your data stays removed because new people search sites constantly pop up. And alarmingly, just 3 seconds of audio is enough to produce a voice clone with an 85% voice match to the original. And you guys know I've been banging the drum on AI. And while it will do many great things, it's also going to enable some not so great things. So, in my eyes, it's never been more important to do what you can to protect yourself and your family. and my most recent delete me report, they reviewed over 3,000 listings and removed my information from six of them. And based on the research time and the calling, they saved me over 160 hours.

[00:08:13]And Delete Me is an American company.

[00:08:15]This is all they do. Their Trustpilot reviews are awesome, and you can extend it to cover your family at a discount.

[00:08:21]So, if you'd like to support Electrified, you can head to joindeleteme.com/electrified to get 20% off using my code electrified linked below or by using the QR code on the screen. It's a confounding time for Tesla's autonomy right now. The robo taxi situation feels stalled out. But on the supervised side, we have a lot of good things going on. Joe Anderson said he's proud to announce he's driven through all 48 contiguous US states plus DC in his Model Y on 14.3.2. too. Over 7,200 m across 9 days and FSD drove every mile. The official Tesla account said, "Nicely done. Congratulations."

[00:08:59]And of course, thanks to David, Devon, and Spencer, they went coast to coast on FSD in Canada. Over 3,700 miles on 14.3 with zero disengagements of any kind.

[00:09:12]And maybe it's an algorithm thing, but as of late, I have seen more posts like this than I ever have. Regular people outside the Tesla bubble praising Tesla's FSD. The head of research at Silicon Data said, "Self-driving has been quietly completely solved with steady daily improvements." Frank Theland said, "I was able to test FSD in Germany. We drove for almost an hour through villages, over country roads, and highways. Everything ran perfectly.

[00:09:37]There have been some absurd videos of FSD in China going viral over there.

[00:10:13]And believe it or not, This clip was a separate video.

[00:10:37]There was 7 minutes of FSD reversing on that cliff. Now, why? I can't tell you, but Chinese FSD testers take it to a new level. And if you missed it, Tesla's FSD is now approved in the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia across the EU.

[00:10:53]And I'm finally ready to share a bit about my experience with 14.3.

[00:10:57]And I have to say, I'm not sure what Elon was talking about when he called it a banger, because for me, it really hasn't been great. Of course, overall, it's very safe and very capable. That should go without saying, but it's still quite jittery in my experience. I'm still getting these micro braking events where if I had passengers in the car, it would certainly make them uncomfortable just because it's so unexpected. It just feels jumpy. Beyond that, the navigation in my area is as bad as it's ever been.

[00:11:26]I'm asking why it's making certain decisions almost on every drive. And I'm guessing many of you would agree, but the parking behavior in my experience has been quite poor. it has parked way too far away from the actual location entered in the destination now multiple times to the point where it's parked in an entirely different parking lot. So look, I'll give them grace here. As I said, they rewrote the compiler and the runtime from the ground up. So I think a few steps back would be fair given what they did, but going forward, I'm really hoping to see these things improved sooner rather than later. And I hate to say it, but I feel like Elon's credibility for touting these upcoming models is as low as it's ever been. And as I always say, we can see different performance in different geographies. So maybe where I'm at, it's just a worse experience for me. But in my experience, 14.3 has been very far from a banger.

[00:12:21]And again, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying it's not safe. I'm just saying there's a lot to work on and a lot to refine. And don't forget, we're now into June, which means hardware 3 owners should be expecting a version 14 light sometime this month if Tesla delivers on time. Australia's Sarra Resources said today Tesla has withdrawn a notice of intent to end their graphite supply deal over an alleged quality default, accepting that the minor is now producing conforming samples. Tesla issued a default notice in July 2025, citing conformity issues with the active anode material samples delivered from the Vidalia facility, which is one of the only large-scale producers of anode materials outside of China. But Sarra said Tesla now accepts the minor has demonstrated it is producing conforming samples and has made sufficient progress. And if you saw my interview with Iola, you will know why it's so important for Tesla to have as many suppliers outside of China for these anode materials as possible. There's a lot of reporting right now about Tesla sales across Europe and how they're surging. Tesla sales in Portugal were up nearly 350% for May from 1 year ago. And more importantly, January through May, Tesla sales were up 58%, outpacing a 33% increase in all electric car sales. And registration data for the month of May shows Tesla had an increase of 71% in Sweden, 136% in Denmark, 113% in Spain, 29% in Norway, and 655% in France. So, on one hand, we still have the low comps from 2025 because of the change over to the new Model Y and the new Model 3. So, keep that in mind.

[00:14:07]But we do clearly finally have some uptick in Tesla sales across the EU. And it should be no surprise there's a reason Giga Berlin is expanding its output capacity. And as we've been saying, a broader rollout of supervised FSD across the EU later this year should only accelerate these numbers. And further, the Model Y was Denmark's bestselling vehicle for May. And for the month, Tesla sales in Denmark were up 136% year-over-year. And in Canada, Tesla has already accounted for more than 10% of the country's quota for Chinese-built EVs in the first allocation window. A total of just over 2900 EVs have been imported into Canada from China under the newly introduced quota system and nearly all of those are Model 3s produced at Giga Shanghai. The current quota window allows automakers to import up to 24,500 Chinese-built EVs between the launch of the program and August 31st this year. So based on those numbers, Tesla already used about 12% of the available allocation. On LinkedIn, Matt Mlen said, "For the last two weeks, Covenant has been testing the capabilities of the Tesla Semi with one of our larger customers in California."

[00:15:18]He said, "Running this route, which they call the Grapevine, with a loaded trailer is about as demanding a realworld test as you could design for any truck. Running northbound, losing momentum on a steep grade with a heavy load can be stressful as speed drops fast and recovering on that grade is challenging. Running southbound requires attention to braking and heat management, which isn't a problem for an EV when you've got regenerative braking doing most of the work. The Grapevine can be stressful even for the most experienced drivers. Ours was amazed at the performance of the Tesla Semi and felt a level of confidence that was hard to match in a diesel truck. Summary coming soon. BYD just announced a new policy offering a double guarantee for its advanced driving systems. This new policy is the first by any major automaker to effectively remove liability from the customer or the driver. Under this new policy, the car maker is offering comprehensive coverage for its God's Eye technology. In short, it means BYD pays for and covers any damages incurred while God's Eye is engaged, their autonomous driving system, and the coverage is valid for one year. BYD does say that while it will completely cover any damage to the vehicle, third parties, or even injuries, the systems must have been in use in accordance with the proper regulations and traffic rules. So, if an accident occurs while the customer is using God's Eye and they're doing so properly, BYD will cover all losses with no cap for the owner's vehicle repairs, third-party property damage, and personal injury liabilities. and it's said to not raise the owner's regular commercial insurance for the following year either. Part of the reason this is a big deal is because July of last year, BYD added a guarantee like this for automatic parking. And when that happened, they said usage went from about 21% up to over 90%. It's a pretty interesting move because God's Eye is still technically a level two system.

[00:17:18]We've known all along at some point this shift was coming. automakers are going to have to take responsibility for their own autonomous driving systems. It's just now BYYD is one of the first to do it. SpaceX filed an amended S1 today and we learned that SpaceX reserved up to 5% of stock to be sold to certain employees and persons in a direct share program.

[00:17:41]And this was the mechanism we were hoping would be reserved for Tesla shareholders, but not to be the case.

[00:17:47]Fun fact, only two tech companies, Facebook and Alibaba, have been valued at even a hundred billion dollars after their first day of trading on US exchanges, which really puts this SpaceX IPO into perspective. But through direct share programs, companies can set aside a certain portion of the offering to employees, customers, and even friends.

[00:18:07]And SpaceX will select those based on the discretion of their executive officers. and that stock going to this group of people would not be subject to lock up restrictions. On one hand, it's good to see SpaceX doing something for the little guy, meaning anybody but the big banks. But on the other hand, many will be disappointed because we wanted this mechanism for Tesla shareholders.

[00:18:30]And in the amended S1, SpaceX said, "We may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions."

[00:18:38]Naturally, everybody's speculating that's intended for the potential merger with Tesla. And SE Robinson said Witt LLC, a purchasing company that shares the physical address of XAI in PaloAlto, is buying over 3,100 acres in Grimes County, Texas. And this is right ahead of a public hearing that is scheduled for June 3rd. And the name of the property owner for this tax abatement session is SpaceX. And this location will be at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir and surrounding areas. And right here, this will be for construction of a multi-phase next-gen vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing and advanced computing fab facility.

[00:19:18]Estimated capital investment for the initial phases is $55 billion with an estimated total capital investment if additional phases are constructed of $119 billion. Aka, this is the land for the Terraab. And on a map, this is the Gibbons Creek Reservoir. So, it would be just over a 2-hour drive from Giga Texas. So, this is how Elon buys land.

[00:19:42]He has these technes with his companies, in this case, XAI.

[00:19:49]And this Wittech LLC is buying land right now in the area where SpaceX has formally applied to build the Terraab.

[00:19:56]And as Essie Robinson said, James Burnham, who's XAI's general counsel, has indeed signed on the dotted line for WhipTech. So yes, Elon is aggressively buying land just outside of Austin for the Terraab, and they still have to have meetings and hearings, and it's not a done deal yet, but this does seem to be the location that Elon has chosen. Sam Alman said OpenAI Robotics is now hiring as they'll be looking to program and manufacture robots that are useful for society. In the short term, we're focused on robots to support skilled workers to build our future infrastructure. In the long term, we imagine everyone having a personal robot doing anything they need. You may remember in 2024, Open AAI invested in Figure. And further they signed a partnership of sorts where open AAI would develop models aka the brain for figure robots. Then about one year later, Figure said they're ending that partnership with Open AI for the brain because Figure had a major breakthrough and they wanted to do that AI training inhouse. At that point, OpenAI stayed an investor in Figure, but they were no longer going to supply models for the Figure robots. And it was at that time where Figure first set up its initial robotics lab. And now OpenAI has been doing a lot of data collection and some tea operation with hands, but as far as we know, there's no actual fullon humanoid prototype from OpenAI yet.

[00:21:22]Maybe they have something behind the scenes, but it's yet to be revealed. So, obviously, embodied AI is arguably the biggest TAM out there. However, manufacturing a humanoid is potentially one of the most difficult engineering challenges out there at the moment. I'm guessing there will be partnerships since OpenAI has no manufacturing experience to date. And that's because in January of this year, OpenAI put out an RFP, a request for proposals to look for humanoid manufacturing companies in the US. meaning they want partners for all of the stuff, the gearboxes, the actuators, the motors, and so on. So, they may be well behind at this stage, but this is going to be a very long game playing out over decades. And again, given the TAM of this market, we should expect other players to try to do the same. Tesla stock closed the day at $415.88, down 4.57%, while the NDX was up6%.

[00:22:22]The volume was 19% below the average.

[00:22:25]Don't forget, check out delete me linked below for those interested. I really do think the value is off the charts in a world where sadly AI scammers are going to proliferate. Hope you all have a wonderful day and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.