Andrew J. Hawkins

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 And wouldn’t you know it, there were a lot of similarities between the two: cheap materials, outdated-looking tech, and inexplicable feature choices.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:

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.

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.

Before I became a dad, I thought the idea of kids repeatedly pestering there parents with “are we there yet?” on long car trips was just a cliché. Good lord was I wrong. Thankfully, Yoto’s popular card-based storytelling app is coming to CarPlay and Android Auto to help relieve the boredom. From the looks of it, the app will work very similarly to other podcast apps. Now I just have to steel myself to listen to The Very Hungry Caterpillar 3,000 times in a row.

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.

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.

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.