Cars Archive

The driver-side door keypad was once standard on America’s best-selling vehicle. No longer, reports The Drive, as it will now become a $455 dealer option. I suppose the silver lining is that Ford isn’t trying to turn it into a subscription.

After trying to make BrightDrop work as a standalone brand, GM has decided it will have a happier home among the Silverados and Camaros at Chevy. GM reabsorbed BrightDrop last year, citing “effeciencies,” and now its assigning it to Chevy in order to tap into the brand’s “broad commercial vehicle sales and service dealer network.” Chevy dealers will be able to sell BrightDrop’s 400 and 600 electric vans, as well as the fleet management software and other products.

The Leaf still hasn’t quite gone quietly into the night. Instead, Nissan is revitalizing its bi-directional charging abilities by approving new vehicle-to-grid charging hardware from Fermata Energy. Compared to the previous hardware, the new FE-20 is cheaper and supports 33 percent more power and additional UL and IEEE certifications. I’d say it’s a small win for the dying CHAdeMO charging port standard, too.

It’s been more than 16 months since Ford kicked off the auto industry’s switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, and so far, it and Rivian are the only two companies with access. The bottleneck seems to be the lack of adapters — though Tesla recently said it has increased production to 8,000-a-week at its Buffalo gigafactory. But in the meantime, industry heads are getting worried:

Forbes noticed that Musk’s first two manifestos have been scrubbed from Tesla’s website. The first Master Plan, which was released in 2006, outlined Tesla’s plan to release a series of EVs and use the revenues to build more affordable models. The second plan included plans for additional EVs, as well as solar panels and battery storage. The earliest blog post on the company’s site now dates to 2019. Coincidentally, the purge comes as Musk as aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, and has come to the defense of the oil and gas industry.

The US Department of Transportation is hosting a half-day webinar about EV battery safety, in light of several high-profile incidents of deadly fires sparked by lithium-ion battery cells. The August 27th event, which is free to the public, will feature “representatives from DOT and other agencies and organizations will discuss EVs and fire safety topics related to lithium-ion batteries.” The webinar comes a few days after California firefighters had to dump hundreds of gallons of water on a burning Tesla Semi in order to cool the battery pack.

Tesla quietly removed a controversial no-resale-for-a-year clause in the Cybertruck purchase contract.