Electric Cars

The Ferrari Luce grabbed most of the spotlight this week, but China’s EV industry continues to make headlines. Here are some worth checking out:

That’s the conclusion from a Reuters investigation that includes a hard look at Tesla’s statistical methodology and interviews with company insiders. Tesla workers routinely review video clips from FSD-enabled vehicles of animal deaths or narrow misses with children. And there’s a lot of speeding:

As Nikkei Asia reports, Toyota is discontinuing development of the mass-production version of the LF-ZC concept EV it announced in 2023, focusing instead on developing SUVs. The electric Lexus was originally supposed to launch in 2026, but got delayed until 2027 and may now be shelved indefinitely.

Stephan Winkelmann didn’t comment directly on Ferrari’s EV, but told CNBC that his company’s decision to cancel its EV plans in favor of hybrids was “the right way to go.”

While a few Rivian employees have already received their R2s, the first customer deliveries won’t start until next month. Rivian says order invitations to R2 reservation holders will start to go out on “a rolling basis,” with current R1T and R1S owners getting first priority. The first version to get delivered will be the R2 Performance with Launch Package ($59,485), followed by R2 Premium ($55,485) in late 2026. Once your order is confirmed, delivery should take 2-6 weeks, the company says.

Whatever you think of the new Ferrari Luce EV, designed with help from Jony Ive, it doesn’t look much like a Ferrari. A few individual parts do, but it all adds up to something a little different.

That was Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, former Ferrari president, commenting on the recent reveal of the polarizing electric Luce. He continued (translated from Italian):

The automaker’s RACE stock is down over 7 percent, while its US-listed shares are down 4 percent, according to CNBC. It would seem Ferrari fans are not the only ones disappointed by the Jony Ive-designed Luce.

During a recent episode of Ryan McCaffrey’s Ride the Lightning podcast, Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, confirmed its second-gen Roadster (first announced in 2017) will be built in Texas. The company’s vice president of engineering, Lars Moravy, also confirmed that alpha prototypes of the vehicle are currently in testing.

While gas prices continue to skyrocket, China’s EV industry keeps advancing. It can be hard to keep up, so here are some recent headlines to check out:

Karpathy, who had also been on the founding team of OpenAI, says he will be working on R&D at Anthropic. Previously, he had been working on “new kind of school that is AI native,” and he says he’s still “deeply passionate about education” and plans to go back to it “in time.”

A bipartisan bill that was just introduced in the House would levy an annual fee of $130 on everyone who owns an electric vehicle. The reasoning is that EV owners need to help pay for road and infrastructure improvements, since they don’t pay the gas tax that funds the Highway Trust Fund. But EV advocates are miffed that they’re being asked to pay almost twice what the average car owner pays each year in gas taxes, especially at a time when high gas prices are leading some consumers to give EVs a new look.

First teased in 2023, this ID. Polo GTI is the first EV in the GTI brand’s 50-year history, launching in Germany this fall for “just under” €39,000, and probably never in the US. It features a 52kWh battery with a max range of 424 km (263 miles). Volkswagen says the electric GTI can accelerate up to 100km/hr in 6.8 seconds.

That means we won’t get an all-electric Mazda until 2029 at the earliest. The Japanese automaker also plans on slashing its investment in EVs to ¥1.2 trillion ($7.52 billion) through 2030, down from an earlier budget of ¥2.0 trillion ($12.53 billion), the CEO told Automotive News. I guess it could have been worse; Mazda could have gone full Honda and cancelled everything.

Yes. Yes you can.

While some automakers are pulling back on EVs, others are embracing them. Four years after the launch of the Cadillac Lyriq, the GM-owned brand is selling more EVs than ever. In addition to the Lyriq, there’s also the Optiq, Vistiq, and Escalade IQ. (And don’t forget the bespoke $360,000 Celestiq.) Moreover, three-quarters of customers buying new EVs are conquests from other brands, particularly Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus, and BMW.

As noticed by Automotive News, the Little Tike Cozy Coupe — yes, the classic red and yellow toy car that has delighted children for over 40 years — is going zero-emission. Little Tikes recently introduced the Cozy E-Charging Station ($33) for the Cozy Coupe’s theoretical EV battery. Now your kid can simulate standing around for 45 minutes to an hour waiting for their EV to recharge. Fortunately I don’t think there’s an app that goes along with it. And no word on the E-Charging Station’s charging speeds. Probably slower than BYD’s.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is testing advanced driver assist systems, and the first vehicle to receive passing grades is the 2026 Model Y. The vehicle was inspected in four categories: pedestrian automatic emergency braking; lane keeping assistance; blind spot warning; and blind spot intervention. These pass/fail tests have recently been added to the agency’s New Car Assessment Program. NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said that the Model Y demonstrated “lifesaving potential of driver assistance technologies and sets a high bar for the industry.”

The EV company, which just had a relatively good quarter, is apparently working on some interesting new projects. In an interview with Reuters, CEO RJ Scaringe said the company has “other variants” of the R2 that it hasn’t shown publicly, including a pickup truck version and a sportier R2X model. Rivian is also considering building its own lidar, perhaps in partnership with a Chinese company. The company is planning on adding lidar to the R2 later this year as part of a big shift into autonomous vehicles.

In an earnings call last month, Elon Musk was feeling bullish that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) would soon be authorized in the European Union, especially after the Level 2 automated system was approved for use in the Netherlands. But according to emails seen by Reuters, EU regulators are in no rush to give the green light. They have issues with FSD, including “the system’s tendency to speed, whether it is safe to use on icy ​roads and drivers’ ability to circumvent features designed to prevent cell-phone use.”

No courtroom updates today, but we have updated our rundown of the evidence with the latest exhibits added in Elon v. Musk, including details of the donated Tesla Model 3s.