Tesla is going to launch a mining phone, is it true?

On March 4, professional automotive media Torque News released a video on YouTube that detailed Tesla's concept phone "Tesla Neurasmartphone Model π".

At the same time, there were related reports on the Chinese Internet. The financial blogger "Ji Yongfeng's Investment Observation" with 430,000 followers on Weibo released relevant news on March 8. The tweet was also forwarded by Dan Bin, a fund tycoon and chairman of Shenzhen Oriental Harbor Investment Management Co., Ltd., who has nearly 14 million followers.

Image source: Dan Bin's Weibo

The video details the phone's features, including high-speed photography, car and flamethrower control, Starlink connectivity, brain-computer connectivity, and a MarsCoin mining system. In terms of hardware, the Neurasmartphone Model π has solar panel charging, an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, and four rear cameras.

From the appearance, the front panel of Neurasmartphone Model π is similar to the iPhone 12 without the bangs, with a front-mounted punch-hole camera and two icons for calling and quick photo taking below the standby screen. The back cover is light gray and it is suspected to be rechargeable by solar energy.

Neurasmartphone Model π Starlink function, Starlink is a service launched by SpaceX that provides global high-speed Internet access through a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites.

Through video interpretation, after the Neurasmartphone Model π was connected to the Starlink system, the uplink and downlink rates both reached 210M, which is equivalent to a download speed of about 21-26.25MB/s.

Regarding the car binding function, the video did not disclose whether it is compatible with car brands other than Tesla.

From the name, the Neurasmartphone Model π is more closely related to Neuralink, the company founded by Musk in 2016 to research brain-computer interface technology. The video of Torque News shows that the Neurasmartphone Model π will be connected to the brain-computer interface system to replace some functions lost due to brain damage, and may be used for memory storage in the future.

The video also mentioned that the Neurasmartphone Model π will be used to mine MarsCoin, a cryptocurrency that Musk tweeted on February 15 that he would launch in the future.

Before this, the media had indeed been constantly reporting rumors about the "Tesla phone".

The rumor can be traced back to 2018. The whistleblower platform SlashLeaks leaked photos of a phone back panel and screen protector with the Tesla logo. It was reported that the phone was codenamed "Quadra". However, there was no further information about the phone.

On September 14, 2020, Musk responded to rumors about the development of smart watches on Twitter, saying that smart watches and mobile phones are outdated technologies, and brain-computer interface technology is the technology of the future.

At the beginning of 2021, foreign media reported that Musk intends to develop a new mobile phone system, which will break the monopoly of Google Android and Apple iOS in the mobile phone system field.

Just like the Quadra which came to nothing, the Tesla Neurasmartphone Model π concept phone is also unofficial fake news.

According to Torque News, a professional automotive media that disclosed the video, the Neurasmartphone Model π is not a real phone, nor is it an official Tesla product. It was designed for Tesla by Antonio De Rosa, a designer from the Italian ADR studio, and combines the functions of several companies owned by Musk.

Apparently, the media outlet that reported the news did not read the video's description carefully.

Of course, as a technology fanatic, it is not a new thing for Musk to launch a mobile phone with Starlink connection, mining and brain-computer interface functions in the future.