Tesla Europe introduced plans to add xAI’s Grok, an AI chatbot, to its automobile infotainment programs in the UK and eight different markets throughout Europe.
It stays to be seen if the addition of this know-how will revitalize Europeans’ curiosity in shopping for Teslas.
Elon Musk’s automaker noticed EV gross sales in Europe decline by 27%, in accordance to knowledge from ACEA (the European Car Producers’ Affiliation). The decline for Tesla got here as Europeans’ continued robust adoption of battery electrical autos. BEVs, the solely sort that Tesla makes, represented 17.4% of the market throughout Europe in 2025 in accordance to ACEA. China’s BYD gained marketshare throughout the continent with revolutionary, and extra inexpensive, EV fashions.
Tesla’s lack of inexpensive new fashions final yr, and an ongoing client backlash in response to Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric, and endorsements of anti-immigrant extremists together with Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD social gathering weighed on the attraction of the Tesla model final yr, in accordance to Model Finance.
Tesla is just not the solely automaker integrating chatbot options into its infotainment programs. For instance, Volvo has introduced plans to add a Google Gemini-based conversational AI assistant to its EX60 electrical autos.
Throughout a fourth-quarter earnings replace, Tesla revealed that it had invested $2 billion into Musk’s xAI.
After that, Musk’s aerospace and protection juggernaut, SpaceX, acquired xAI in an all inventory transaction that valued the mixed entity at $1.25 trillion.
Earlier than these offers, xAI had merged with social community X (previously Twitter) and its Grok product had turn into the topic of a myriad regulatory probes in Asia, Australia, and all through Europe together with by regulators in Eire, the UK, France and the European Fee.
As CNBC beforehand reported, Grok enabled customers to simply create and share deepfake express pictures based mostly on pictures or clips of actual folks with out their consent, together with deepfake pictures depicting little one sexual abuse.
Final summer time, Grok generated and unfold antisemitic hate speech throughout social community X, and praised Adolf Hitler, drawing earlier regulatory probes by the European Fee.
A Tesla proprietor in Canada raised the alarm about Grok’s lack of safeguards after it was added to her automobile. As CBC reported, her son used Grok to generate entertaining feedback about soccer athletes, and Grok responded by telling the minor to ship nudes.
Tesla and xAI haven’t mentioned whether or not they can restrict minors’ entry to Grok in Tesla autos, or reasonable outputs of the chatbot to be applicable for minors by default.
In addition to criticism of Grok’s lax security guardrails, driver distractibility stays some extent of concern.
Mike Nelson, who’s a companion at Nelson Legislation and an automotive security researcher, mentioned his personal Tesla Mannequin Y options Grok in the U.S., and he has loved utilizing it. Nevertheless, the addition of chatbot know-how to autos’ infotainment programs, he mentioned, introduces a brand new “distraction layer” for drivers.
“Analysis exhibits that even in hands-free mode, you might be extra distracted if you find yourself speaking on the cellphone and driving,” Nelson mentioned. “Adding Grok introduces extra stimuli.”
A professor of machine studying and public coverage at Carnegie Mellon College, Rayid Ghani, advised CNBC that researchers and regulators, and insurance coverage firms particularly, ought to hasten to conduct “sensible evaluations” of chatbots.
With a scarcity of benchmarking and requirements throughout the trade, he mentioned, “We don’t but perceive the info wants of drivers, how effectively Grok or different chatbots fulfill these wants in contrast to different choices, and whether or not chatbots could change driving conduct and precisely how.”
Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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