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Tesla Begins Delivery of Model X to North America

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Update Dec 17, 2015: Deliveries of Signature Series Model X sighted across North America.

A number of Model X reservation holders woke up to a surprise email from Tesla this morning informing them that deliveries of the long-awaited electric crossover has finally begun in North America.

Although limited details of the Model X have surfaced since its initial announcement three years ago, Tesla has been hugely successful with generating demand for the vehicle. A backlog of 30,000 Model X reservations, with projections of nearly 40,000 by year end, have been placed by eager recipients to this new class in sports utility vehicles.

The letter from Tesla provides insight to its plans for a worldwide roll out of invitations by year end. According to Tesla,

“We will invite the next group of reservation holders to configure in the next few weeks. We hope to invite all current reservations holders to configure their cars before the end of 2015.”

First invitations to configure the Model X were sent to early reservation holders of the fully loaded P90D Signature Series Edition, priced at $132,000 and above. The invitations being sent through the remainder of the year will presumably allow reservation holders to customize the Model X in a variety of configurations, including a lower priced version said to cost $40,000 less than the Signature Series Edition.

Letter from Tesla

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Model X delivery to begin in North America

Model X News

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Elon Musk claims X is under ‘massive cyberattack’

Could the X outages be the result of a massive cyberattack? Elon Musk thinks so.

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Credit: Elon Musk | X

Elon Musk claims that an ongoing outage on his social media platform X is due to a “massive cyberattack,” and he says the attack seems to have an unprecedented amount of resources behind it.

Amidst intermittent outages on X on Monday morning, Musk claimed in a post that the issues were the result of a targeted cyberattack on the platform. He also claimed that, while attacks are lodged against the platform everyday, this particular one seemed to have substantial resources behind it, which he says could be “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country.”

There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against 𝕏.

We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.

Tracing …

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When X user Hassan Sajwani responded to the post saying that “They want to silence you and this platform,” Musk simply responded “Yes” in a follow-up post. X has yet to release an official statement on the outages.

The news also comes after mass demonstrations and vandalism against Tesla’s stores and vehicles have broken out around the world in the past few weeks, in protest of Musk’s recent efforts under the Trump administration to gut a broad range of federal agencies. Arrests have been made following attacks and arson against multiple of the Tesla locations, though it’s not yet clear if the ongoing cyberattack against X could be related.

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READ MORE ON X: Elon Musk’s X in talks to raise funds at $44 billion valuation: report

Musk purchased X, then called Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022, going on to launch mass layoffs at the company. About six months after the purchase, he said in an interview with BBC that the company had brought headcount down to just 1,500 from roughly 8,000, representing a cut of around 80 percent of staff.

Last month, X reported an adjusted EBIDTA of $682 million for 2024, along with about $5 billion in revenue. Wall Street Journal also reported that banks had completed a sale of $5.5 billion in debt backed by X. CEO Linda Yaccarino said in January that the company has also secured a deal with Visa to launch X Money, slated for release later this year.

Elon Musk’s X recruiting “hardcore software engineers”

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Tesla’s Full Self-Driving faces a new hurdle in UK rollout plans

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Tesla has been working to start deploying its Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system outside of North America, though as the first waves of the software go out in China and Mexico, regulatory holdups in the United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere are proving tough to overcome.

The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has proposed rules paring back allowances for autonomous driving systems such as Tesla’s Supervised FSD, according to documents seen by Telegraph in a report over the weekend. The delays echo previous statements from Tesla officials highlighting that the system may not be able to roll out in full in Europe until 2028, after recent regulation changes have slowed the deployment of certain automated capabilities.

Although the department’s original draft of safety rules related to self-driving systems allowed vehicles to perform maneuvers such as stopping and starting at traffic lights, turning at intersections, and changing lanes, all while drivers were hands-free, a new draft has diluted these functions to only allow “highway” maneuvers, such as lane changes, while also requiring drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel.

“Whilst [a driver assistance system] may help in reducing collisions, it may also introduce new safety risks,” said a group of UK officials who helped propose the added restrictions in September.

The group has also suggested that systems like Tesla’s FSD Supervised should be rolled out “in phases,” echoing that safety concerns should be closely evaluated amidst deployment.

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“The technological advancements in these systems are promising, but there remain concerns about their impact on driver behaviour, situational awareness and overall safety.”

The changes also come after concerns about deploying automated driving systems were raised in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) last year, with the UK’s DfT officials speaking out then about concerns for broader approval of the technology.

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READ MORE ON TESLA FSD’S MARKET ROLLOUT: Tesla used this clever workaround to train FSD for China’s roads

Tesla’s launch of FSD Supervised in Europe, elsewhere: what’s causing delays?

Tesla recently launched early FSD-related features in China and Mexico, and the news comes as the company has continued to face tough regulatory barriers to launching the software in markets across Europe and the UK.

As part of his resignation announcement in October, Tesla’s former Global Vehicle Automation and Safety Policy Lead Marc Van Impe warned of major barriers in Europe due to the UN Regulation 171, dubbed DCAS, which could delay the deployment of FSD until 2028.

“This impacts Europe’s competitiveness and it’s clear that the type-approval framework needs to evolve to better and more quickly tackle innovative technologies,” Van Impe said of the delay. “Perhaps temporary certification or deployment through pre-certification can prove a solution.”

Despite this, Tesla went on to launch an introductory version of Actually Smart Summon in Europe and the Middle East in November, after the highly-anticipated software had previously been lumped in with an FSD Supervised update in North America.

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During Tesla’s Q4 2024 earnings call in January, CEO Elon Musk also highlighted European regulations as a major barrier to getting FSD approved. He also highlighted an upcoming European Union (EU) committee session in May, which he said is expected to approve the software.

Tesla employees are performing autonomous FSD trials, CEO Elon Musk says

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Elon Musk’s X experiences several outages on Monday

As of this writing, X’s desktop and mobile services are still intermittent.

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Credit: Linda Yaccarino/X

Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, experienced several outages on Monday morning.

As of this writing, X’s desktop and mobile services are still intermittent.

Initial Reports

As noted in a TechCrunch report, a wave of reports about X being offline were submitted on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages, early Monday morning, around 5:30 a.m. ET. 

At the time, about 20,000 users reported experiencing problems accessing the social media platform. This initial wave of outages seemed to have been resolved after about an hour, with users being able to access X’s services once more.

Outage Encore

Another wave of outages on X were reported by users around 9:30 a.m. ET, though this time, Downdetector listed about 40,000 user reports. This particular outage seemed worse than the first, as it was still ongoing until about lunchtime Eastern Time.

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As of this writing, issues with X appear to still be ongoing, as per tests done by Teslarati staff. While some pages on the social media platform are now loading, some features such as users’ timeline and analytics remain inaccessible.

Update as of 12:17 p.m. ET: X’s mobile and desktop features appear to have gone back online.

X, for its part, has not issued a comment about the matter.

X’s Evolution

Previously known as Twitter, the social media platform was acquired by Elon Musk in late 2022 for $44 billion. Since then, Twitter has returned to becoming a private company, and it has been renamed X.

While reports following Musk’s acquisition noted that Twitter saw a sharp drop in valuation after the Tesla CEO’s acquisition, Bloomberg News, citing people reportedly familiar with the matter, claimed last month that X was in talks to raise funds from investors at a $44 billion valuation, thanks in no small part to its stake in xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup.

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