Electric Cars

Hat tip to investor Reilly Brennan, who noted in his Future of Transportation newsletter that Waymo software engineer Reed Morse has been beefing with Tesla fans on X over sensors and service area maps. Morse said Tesla is “mostly bluffing” its way through its upcoming Cybercab launch. It’s just more evidence that despite being the undisputed leader in driverless robotaxis, Waymo still feels the need to point out the fallacies in Tesla’s approach to robotaxis.

NBC News identified 43 videos that appear to show Tesla drivers asleep at the wheel, 17 of which were posted this year alone. This is, of course, a well-worn problem for Tesla, which has tried to curb the trend with stricter driver monitoring systems. But drivers are easily subverting these guardrails with sunglasses, allowing them to continue sleeping despite eye-tracking technology.

The low-volume truck that Elon Musk once claimed would sell over 250,000 units annually is now about $5,000 more expensive, according to Reuters. Two trims are going up in price: the dual-motor version is now $74,990, up from $69,990; and the all-wheel drive Cybertruck is $84,990, up from $79,990. Tesla has futzed with the truck’s lineup before, introducing a $60,000 all-wheel drive version and jacking up the Cyberbeast trim by $15,000. But it’s done little to juice sales, with only 3,519 Cybertrucks delivered in Q1 2026, down 45 percent year over year.

Guests are being invited to “experience the future of full autonomy” at the event in Austin, Texas. The gold-tinted driverless vehicle has been popping up around the country, although often with a steering wheel and pedals, as employees continue to gather data. In the lead up to the event, the company has increasingly been operating its fleet of Model Y robotaxis without human supervision.

Eleven automakers, including Tesla and Xiaomi, launched software updates to comply with China’s largest recall ever over mechanical door release handles that may be hard to find or ​operate during emergencies. China previously banned Tesla-style concealed door handles because people were getting trapped inside their cars. The country also ordered Tesla to add driver monitoring to over 2 million vehicles to make sure drivers keep their eyes on the road, Electrek reports.

Nevada’s transportation authority unanimously approved permits for Tesla, Waymo, and Uber, paving the way for up 7,000 robotaxis to flood the streets of Clark County over the next 12 months, TechCrunch reports. Tesla received approval for 5,000 robotaxis — though the company’s reps said they’d be thrilled if they get to 2,500 — while Waymo and Uber were authorized for 1,000 each. Amazon’s Zoox already has a permit for 100 robotaxis in the city. The vote positions Las Vegas as the next major robotaxi market, with Amazon, Uber, Waymo, and Tesla all battling for customers.

Swedish trucking company Einride says it will buy 500 Tesla Semis, representing the largest order for the electric Class 8 truck yet reported. But as Electrek notes, it’s not clear that Einride has enough money to fund the purchase. The trucking company has about $77 million in the bank, which is less than the estimated $145 million it will cost to buy the Tesla Semis.

“Do not do that! Holy cow!”

Last month, I spoke to Matthew Haiken, who owns a Polestar dealership in Short Hills, New Jersey, about the EV brand’s sudden decision to withdraw from the US market. Now, Haiken is suing the company, claiming it planned to pull out of the US even before the government issued a de facto sales ban. When we spoke, Haiken said Polestar had plenty of foreknowledge of the government’s decision.

The car was expected to sell for around $1.1 million, but the polarizing EV absolutely shattered that at auction. The proceeds from the sale of chassis #0 will be going to charity, but it’s still a wild price for a car that starts at $600,000 retail.

TechCrunch reports that the new factory would be located 45 minutes outside of Houston:

The affordable EV club gets a new member! The newly announced starting price — which includes a $1,495 destination fee — will put the Kia EV3 in competition with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt when it goes on sale later this year. (The EV3 is long delayed, having been available in Europe since 2024.) When it does, it’ll be available in standard and long-range configurations, offering 221 and 321 miles per charge, respectively.

Tesla’s chief car designer Franz von Holzhausen said the second generation Roadster is coming “very soon,” while eagerly rubbing his hands together on the latest episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. What was hailed as “the quickest production car ever made” when announced in 2017, has so far missed its 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 dates. Will 2026 be any different?

This Reddit user claims a Tesla employee left the door open on this Cybercab while charging. Sure! There’s steering wheel inside, which we’ve seen before. But also there’s something called “Rodeo controls” on the touchscreen, with buttons labeled “Short oops,” “Long oops,” “Win,” and “Voice notes.” These are no doubt controls for safety driver to record incidents or mistakes made by the self-driving system. Business Insider previously reported the existence of Tesla’s Project Rodeo, in which safety drivers would deliberately delay taking manual control longer than a typical driver.

No specs or timeframe accompanied the photos, or even a justification for why you’d want satellite internet in a taxi that targets dense urban environments where cellphone signal is strong. The car certainly doesn’t need it to drive, but, as Electrek notes, it’s a nice recurring revenue stream for SpaceX, and further justification for the two companies to merge and make Richie Rich another $1 trillion richer.

An escape clause in Elon Musk’s $1 trillion Tesla pay package approved last year would eliminate daunting operational targets if SpaceX were to purchase Tesla, as many expect. Under the terms, an acquisition treats those performance goals as met. Depending on the acquisition price SpaceX sets for Tesla, which Musk can heavily influence, a merger could instantly award him hundreds of millions of Tesla shares and consolidate his voting control.

Here’s a nine-second clip of a concept car the company says will kick off a “bold new era for Acura design” next week at Monterey Car Week. Acura’s future models will feature the new design language, starting with the fourth-gen RDX Hybrid Acura revealed a prototype of earlier this year.

Ford says its Fathom electric truck will start at $28,350, just a few thousand more than Slate’s. There’s good reason to be cautious about how long that lasts.

The massive $16.8 billion chip facility, which is being built by Tesla and SpaceX with help from Intel, will be located in Grimes County, population 29,268. After securing over a billion dollars in tax breaks from two rural school districts, SpaceX says it will break ground later this year. The fab will supply AI chips to power Musk’s plans to build a “robot army” that includes self-driving cars and humanoid robots, as well as for the data centers he plans on launching into space.

The automaker only announced the new 4-door electric sedan last spring and it’s already adding a new variant. The Mercedes-AMG GT 53 will be a new high-performance model arriving in US dealerships in 2027. Mercedes has used the 53 badge for its electrified 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six engines. Now it will be applied to an all-electric sedan with a dual-motor 800V architecture, 536 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, and a 0-60 acceleration in 3.4 seconds.

“Fake news,” is how he responded to a Wall Street Journal report on the possible sale of Tesla’s business in its second-largest market: