Lamborghini (the car one, not the tractor one) announced that for the first time in over two decades, it has a new logo, which it says reflects its “new trajectory focused on sustainability and decarbonization” (read: electrification).
The new logo comes almost exactly a year after the announcement of its first plug-in hybrid hypercar, the Revuelto.
Motor Authority reports that a Nissan executive told it that if the company is making an all-electric GT-R, it won’t compromise on performance, pointing to the McClaren Formula E team’s recent first victory in São Paulo, Brazil with a Nissan-designed electric racer.
As for what it will look like, an executive seemed to hint that last year’s Hyper Force concept is a preview of GT-Rs to come.
After his review of the Fisker Ocean turned into a wild saga (and maybe helped contribute to the company’s recent struggles), the popular YouTuber is turning his critical gaze to another fringe EV: the Vinfast VF8. And wouldn’t you know it, there were a lot of similarities between the two: cheap materials, outdated-looking tech, and inexplicable feature choices. At the start of the video, he says:
It brings back the age old smartphone question: Would you rather buy a brand new cheap piece of tech or a depreciated older flagship? And this one makes a good argument for the depreciated older flagship.
The struggling EV company slashed the price of the Ocean, its only model, by nearly 40 percent, to $37,499 — as it looks for a miracle to avoid going out of business. Fisker is in the process of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for failure to keep its share price above $1. And it paused production of the Ocean in order to focus on fundraising. Fisker always promised it would be a mass-market EV company. But I doubt this is how they wanted it to happen.
Of course, this is the EV that MKBHD called “the worst” car he’d ever reviewed.
[InsideEVs]
While it was working on its first factory in China, the company successfully lobbied to create a regulatory credit system in the country that was very similar to the one that helped it survive in California during its early years.
In 2015, at a clean transportation conference in California, Chinese central government officials listened as a Tesla lobbyist laid out the reasons that Beijing should adopt an emissions mandate, said Yunshi Wang, an energy economist who organized the session.
“Obviously Tesla was all in,” said Dr. Wang, director of the University of California-Davis’s China Center for Energy and Transportation.
[The New York Times]
Gone are the days when your car was a refuge from work. Ford is the latest automaker to bring Cisco’s Webex video conferencing application to its vehicles, starting with the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus, 2025 Lincoln Aviator, and 2025 Ford Explorer. More models will follow.
If you’re driving, it’s audio-only. While parked, you’ll be able to see your coworkers’ beaming faces, but they won’t be able to see yours because it’s not connected to the in-cabin camera — yet. I’m of the opinion that selfie cameras in the car are inevitable. (See: Benz, Mercedes.)
According to this Financial Times report, AI and robotics providers have some lofty expectations regarding how popular their technology will be in manufacturing environments.
One company claims that 14 percent of manufacturing and automotive jobs will be automated in the next four years, and Goldman Sachs projects that the humanoid robot market could reach $38 billion by 2035 — at least if robots like Tesla’s Optimus can become as capable as their makers are claiming they will be.
Trading was halted on the EV company’s stock due to an “abnormally low” share price. Basically, the stock hit rock bottom and now the New York Stock Exchange is delisting Fisker for failure to comply with rules requiring its stock trade above $1 for at least 30 days. Earlier today, the company said that investment talks with another automaker (probably Nissan) broke down. Now Fisker seems to be heading to an all-too-familiar place. At least for founder Henrik Fisker.
In an internal memo, the Tesla CEO announced that its controversial driver assist system FSD would come pre-installed on all new vehicles, and that every customer taking delivery of a new Tesla would get a demonstration of its capabilities.
My theory: FSD sales are flatlining because Tesla has slashed prices so much that regular people — and not die-hards who hang on Musk’s every tweet — are now buying them. And most price-sensitive normies aren’t going to hand over $15,000 for a driver assist system that could drive them into a tree.
An affiliate of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund will invest $1 billion in the struggling EV maker. (I need to find a new adjective other than “struggling” to describe these companies. Leave your suggestions in the comments please!) This is hardly a surprise, given that the Saudi government owns a 60 percent stake in Lucid. Like other, ahem, distressed EV companies, Lucid has slashed prices and laid off employees in the face of weaker demand. But it could be a lot worse! At least Lucid isn’t tottering on the edge of bankruptcy like Fisker and others.
Negotiations with an unnamed automaker (most likely Nissan) about a possible investment have collapsed. Trading has been halted on the company’s stock, but not before the share price plummeted 30 percent. Production on the Fisker Ocean is paused for six weeks to allow the company to raise $150 million by selling convertible notes.
It’s missing interest payments and passed the deadline to report its first-quarter earnings. We all know what comes next. This isn’t Henrik Fisker’s first rodeo.
The automaker was caught by the New York Times providing micro-details about its customers driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length, to insurance companies. Clueless vehicle owners were then left wondering why their insurance premiums were going up. But now GM tells the Times it’s going to stop.
“OnStar Smart Driver customer data is no longer being shared with LexisNexis or Verisk,” a G.M. spokeswoman, Malorie Lucich, said in an emailed statement. “Customer trust is a priority for us, and we are actively evaluating our privacy processes and policies.”
No word yet on Kia, Subaru, and Mitsubishi, which also were reportedly sharing driver data with insurance firms.
[The New York Times]
