Conversations around Tesla’s reputation leaned toward the negative throughout 2023, but it depends on who you’re talking to, reports YouGov.

What’s the ‘Buzz’ about Tesla’s reputation?

The global market research firm conducted polls about what it calls the “Buzz” around Tesla – that is, what people are hearing about the brand – and whether there’s been a change in the proportion of people considering driving its EVs following recalls and recent negative headlines.

YouGov asked US adults about “Buzz” between January 2023 and April 2024:

Over the past two weeks, which of the following brands have you heard something POSITIVE / NEGATIVE about (whether in the news, through advertising, or talking to friends and family)?

Tesla’s Buzz scores stayed consistently negative through 2023 among YouGov’s “all US adults” category, with an average score of -7.1 in a score range of -20 to 90, and its scores dipped a bit further following the Autopilot ADAS recall in December.

Tesla’s customer base had considerably higher Buzz scores in 2023, meaning they were more likely to say they were hearing positive things about the brand. Current Tesla customers averaged a net Buzz score of 61.8, and that steadily increased in the early half of 2023 before stabilizing.

Would you still buy a Tesla?

Here’s where it gets interesting.

YouGov asked consumers between January and December 2023 whether they’d consider a Tesla when making a future purchase, and 70% of current Tesla owners said they would consider buying a Tesla.

In the “all US adults” category, unlike Tesla’s negative reputation results, it’s a positive percentage: 7.7% say they would consider Tesla for their next car purchase, and scores in this group have shown no significant change since Q1 2023.

YouGov concludes that “news of brand recalls has not played a significant role in shaping consumer consideration for the brand, particularly among Tesla’s customer base.”

Electrek’s Take

This is intriguing but not shocking. Tesla has a highly loyal customer base. The lease is about to end on my Tesla Model 3. We planned to sign a new lease for a Model Y. The recalls haven’t bothered me much, but all the turmoil that Fred and Jamie have reported on in recent weeks has. It’s most definitely killed my Tesla buzz.

When I leased this Model 3, I felt excited and proud. Now I feel disappointed and deflated by what’s happened at Tesla in recent weeks, thanks to Elon Musk’s layoffs and his bizarre decision to wipe out the entire Supercharger team. One of the best things about driving a Tesla is the Supercharger network.

Plus, it’s important to note that YouGov’s poll about next car purchases doesn’t extend into 2024, so it’d be interesting to see how all the recent drama has affected Tesla’s reputation with Tesla drivers.

I’m still considering a Tesla for my next car selection because, well, Tesla drivers know why. But I’d have to hold my nose while making that choice – I know it’s probably still good for me, but it’s now a bitter pill to swallow.

Read more: I just bought my very first Tesla. Here’s what happened

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Tesla has released a new video of a prototype of Optimus, its humanoid robot, and it created some controversy as some disagree about how impressive it is.

Last month, Elon Musk gave an update on the timing for the rollout of Optimus. The CEO says that Optimus is already performing factory tasks inside its lab. He believes that Optimus will be used to perform real tasks inside actual Tesla factories by the end of the year.

Furthermore, Musk said that he believes Tesla could start selling its Optimus humanoid robot to customers outside of the company by the end of 2025.

This is a very aggressive timeline, nothing unusual for Musk at Tesla, but the company has gained some credibility on the project in recent months.

Late last year, Tesla unveiled “Optimus Gen 2”, a new generation of its humanoid robot that should be able to take over repetitive tasks from humans.

The new prototype showed a lot of improvements compared to previously underwhelming versions of the robot, and it gave some credibility to the project, which was laughed off by many when first announced with a dancer disguised as a robot for visual aid a few years ago.

However, everything Tesla showed in the Gen 2 update was done through teleoperation of the robots.

Now, Tesla has released a quick update video about Optimus and it shows the robot performing some tasks with end-to-end neural nets:

In the video, Tesla shows Optimus moving battery cells from one tray to another. First, by itself, and later, in cooperation with an industrial robot.

Tesla does share a shot of engineers training the robots with what appears to be VR systems:

However, some believe that this shows Tesla is still pretty early in its software development for the robot:

Tesla says the video shows two different stages of development. At 0:44, the moves are controlled by a human, and the Optimus Robot simply copies them.

This appears to be the training stage, but there may also be an autonomous stage where the robot operates without human… https://t.co/HUxUQwL0u5

— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) May 5, 2024

Milan Kovac, the engineer in charge of Optimus at Tesla, also shared some comments along with the video update:

Over the past couple of months, our awesome manufacturing team has built more bots for us to work on, and collect AI data from!

We’ve trained and deployed a neural net allowing Optimus to start doing useful tasks, such as picking up battery cells coming down a conveyor and… https://t.co/eZWC2X8p19

— Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_) May 5, 2024

The engineer confirmed the new neural net used to power the humanoid robot:

We’ve trained and deployed a neural net allowing Optimus to start doing useful tasks, such as picking up battery cells coming down a conveyor and precisely inserting them into a tray.

Kovac says that Tesla is now working to make Optimus faster, as well as capable of dealing “with more adverse terrains”.

Electrek’s Take

To be honest, I wouldn’t worry too much about the status of software development.

As a whole, it’s clear that the AI space is moving ultra-fast right now, and it feels like the right time to develop general-purpose humanoid robots to take advantage of it.

Even if Tesla isn’t the one to solve AI, it is valuable to have a hardware package that can do lots of things with the right AI. I could see Optimus becoming that thanks to Tesla’s experience deploying efficient and affordable AI hardware and power electronics in vehicles.

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A 208-megawatt (MW) solar farm with 80 megawatt hours (MWh) of storage has come online west of San Antonio, Texas.

Solar + storage developers Cypress Creek Renewables brought Zier Solar + Storage online in Brackettville, Texas, on May 2, 2024. Zier can produce enough energy annually to power 41,600 homes.

Cypress Creek says that ERCOT, Texas’s grid, has already used Zier to ease supply strain.

“Texas needs every available megawatt, and low-cost renewable energy has proven critical as it continues to reach new production heights in ERCOT,” said Judd Messer, Texas vice president of Advanced Power Alliance. “Solar energy is ensuring sufficient capacity during daytime peak, setting records nearly every month, and quick-responding energy storage delivers a substantial reliability benefit when demand soars or when dispatchable energy unexpectedly falls offline.”

The project will provide $11.5 million in tax revenue to Kinney County with an additional $11.7 million earmarked for an independent school district. 

Cypress Creek has a 6-gigawatt (GW) pipeline of 24 projects in construction or development in Texas. That includes a 100 MWh standalone battery storage project in Rosenberg, near Houston, expected to come online next month.

Texas is No 1 in the US for solar capacity. The state already has nearly 23 GW installed, and the Solar Energy Industries Association expects an additional 41 GW of solar to be installed over the next five years.

Read more: Solar to displace natural gas in the daytime + in summer on the Texas grid

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