Cars Archive

Tesla exceeded expectations by delivering a great third quarter earnings report, but selling more cars wasn’t the reason. As noticed by Sherwood, the real winner was the company’s home energy and storage business, which spiked by nearly 50 percent year over year. And it was significantly more profitable too, with gross margins nearly double that for its automotive business. Maybe Tesla should double down on renewable energy, and not robots?

Scout’s Terra and Traveler EVs will come with the Tesla charging port, also known as NACS, right out of the factory. Unlike other EV makers, the company won’t have to bumble through an CCS-to-NACS adapter phase with customers. Both Scout EVs will come with an 800-volt architecture, so charging should be very fast. And as you can see, it will have plenty of 120-volt plugs too!

Volkswagen is reviving the defunct brand as an off-roading electric vehicle for distinctly American tastes. At the reveal event in Tennessee, Scout executives are really emphasizing the mechanical, tactile controls, trying to draw a contrast to chilly, minimalist EVs with touchscreen controls. Our full write-up will go live in just a few minutes.

Earlier this year, I said that Tesla was in its flop era. Now, the company is crushing it, posting its biggest gains in almost 11 years, according to Bloomberg. What a difference a few weeks make, when the stock tumbled after the glitzy-but-disappointing robotaxi event. Investors wanted to see signs of life, and they got it in the form of lower material costs, a surging energy business, and increased sales of regulatory credits to lagging automakers. They also said cheaper EVs are coming next year.

The VW-backed company is holding an event in Tennessee today to reveal its first EV concepts. You can tune in to the livestream through the brand’s website. And be sure to stick around and read our full rundown later in the evening.

Apologies to the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which the polarizing truck pushed back to claim the No. 3 spot during this most recent quarter. We had an inkling that the Cybertruck was exceeding expectations when word got out that registrations were surpassing overall EV truck registrations. Tesla confirmed it in its Q3 earnings report, announcing that the Cybertruck was third behind the Model Y and Model 3.

Jim Farley relayed his experience driving the Xiaomi SU7 EV in the US for the last six months on the Everything Electric podcast recently. Ford flew one out from China so he could live with it every day. “I don’t want to give it up,” Farley said. That said, he said he’s confident that Ford is taking the threat of Chinese EVs seriously, touting the company’s “skunkworks team” in Silicon Valley that’s at work on the next-gen EV platform.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long promised off-the-grid Superchargers powered by the sun. Now, the company has broken ground on “Oasis,” a new, 168-stall Supercharger station in Lost Hills, California, says Tesla’s North American director of charging, Max de Zegher:

That’s one of the extremely upsetting details in this Bloomberg story about the many injuries and side effects experienced by workers at the buzzy EV company’s factory in Normal, Illinois. The worker requested a respirator while painting Rivian’s EVs, but was denied — leading her to vomit up blue bile. Other maladies include:

The press release announcing their partnership is so chockfull of buzz words and tech jargon that its difficult to suss out the concrete details. Basically the two companies will work together to “produce a standardized reference framework for development of generative AI-enabled digital cockpits and software-defined vehicles.” Whose cockpits? Which cars? None are listed. But the likely output will be “intuitive voice assistants, immersive map experiences, and real-time updates to anticipate driver needs.”