Tesla names Milan Kovac as VP, Head of Engineering for Optimus

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Tesla’s Director of Optimus and Autopilot Engineering Milan Kovac has been promoted to Vice President of Optimus (Tesla Bot). The update was posted on the executive’s personal LinkedIn page. 

Similar to Tesla’s Director of Autopilot Software Ashok Elluswamy, who was promoted to Vice President of AI Software recently, Kovac is a veteran of the electric vehicle maker’s Autopilot team. A look at Kovac’s LinkedIn page shows that he has been working for the electric vehicle maker for 8 years and 7 months. That’s an impressive amount of time considering Tesla’s reputation for being a demanding workplace. 

Kovac started his tenure at Tesla back in April 2016, when he was hired as a Staff Software Engineer for the Autopilot team. He only held this post for three months as he was quickly promoted to Engineering Manager of Autopilot Software in June 2016. He was further promoted to Senior Engineering Manager of Autopilot Software on January 2018, less than two years after he joined the company. 

Kovac would be promoted once more to Director of Autopilot Software Engineering in May 2019, and he would hold this post for 2 years and 9 months before he was promoted to Director of Optimus and Autopilot Engineering. Under his leadership, Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot evolved from a concept to a full blown Gen 2 bipedal machine capable of working autonomously in the company’s factories. 

Interestingly enough, Kovac’s personal LinkedIn page indicates that he was promoted to Vice President of Optimus (Tesla Bot) back in September 2024. This is quite interesting as his promotion seemed to have been kept under wraps. This also means that Kovac was already promoted to his current post when Tesla held its “We, Robot” event last week. 

As per Bloomberg News‘ Ed Ludlow, there were reportedly discussions about Elluswamy and Kovac taking the stage at the “We, Robot” event, and pitches were reportedly made to Musk about this. Musk, however, reportedly wanted to keep the event high level. This was quite unsurprising, as Musk previously stated that competitors tend to closely watch Tesla’s events for potential information or innovations that can be emulated. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Tesla names Milan Kovac as VP, Head of Engineering for Optimus





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Tesla Superchargers follow Model 3 and Model Y to South American country

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Tesla Superchargers have followed the Model 3 and Model Y to a South American country, marking their first appearance in Chile after the two vehicles landed there in April.

Tesla announced the first Superchargers have been built and are now active in Chile, with two locations kicking off the expansion of the world’s largest EV charging infrastructure to the South American country.

The first Superchargers in Chile landed in Quilicura, located in Central Chile, and Curauma, a coastal region near the South Pacific Ocean.

In total, eight V4 250 kW Superchargers are available, four in each location. They are also capable of CCS, enabling other electric vehicles to charge if the network is currently open to those manufacturers.

The expansion of Tesla’s Supercharger Network into Chile is monumental for several reasons. The first is confined to Tesla, as it is just another location where the company will be able to confidently sell its vehicles.

While things are likely going to be quiet in terms of sales for right now because of the limited charging availability, there is certainly going to be an expansion of the stalls in the coming years, making Chile an ideal place to own a Tesla EV.

Tesla’s first Model 3 and Y land in Chile as South American offensive begins

With CCS compatibility, the Chilean EV market should also see a step up. Currently, there is a very limited presence of EVs there. In 2022, sales throughout South America were extremely weak, with 40,700 EVs sold in the entire continent. 19,000 of these sales were in Brazil.

Perhaps Tesla coming to the region with its Supercharger Network will help push EVs in the direction of consumers this year and next.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Tesla Superchargers follow Model 3 and Model Y to South American country





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Belgium’s largest battery goes live with 53 Tesla Megapacks

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Operators recently turned on what is now Belgium’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS), as backed by Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries.

The Ville-sur-Haine BESS project in Wallonia, Belgium became operational over the weekend, as supported by 53 Tesla Megapacks for 50MW/200 MWh of capacity. The site is being operated by Netherlands-based energy producer Eneco, and it has now come online after first being announced last June.

In addition to being the largest BESS project in the country, it’s also the largest project built thus far by Eneco, which is majority-owned by Mitsubishi. The site was officially energized after a three-day energization process, and it’s completion comes less than a year after construction crews first broke ground on the site.

Tesla also has a 50MW/100MWh project in Lessines, Belgium with 40 Megapacks, as is being operated by Corsica Sole. The company highlighted this site in a brief video shared last year, as can be seen below.

At this time, Tesla produces its Megapacks at a production facility in Lathrop, California, dubbed the company’s “Megafactory.” The plant has been ramping up its Megapack program, and it’s expected to be able to produce 10,000 units per year at volume production.

Along with the California Megafactory, Tesla is currently nearing the completion of a second Megafactory in Shanghai, China, which will have the same annual production output as the Lathrop location.

Tesla has also been deploying Megapacks at increasing rates in recent months, with the Ville-sur-Haine project being just one of a long series of new and upcoming projects. In addition, Tesla has installed more of its Megapack and Powerwall batteries this year than in all of 2023 combined, with a total of 20.3 GWh delivered as of the end of Q3.

Last week, another Tesla Megapack project in Alaska was powered on with 40MW/80MWh of capacity, following the commissioning of a 100MW/200MWh UK facility earlier this month.

Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant

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.

Belgium’s largest battery goes live with 53 Tesla Megapacks





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