The future of transportation is electric. Tesla proved with the Model S that customers would want to buy luxury vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries. Other EV startups like Faraday Future, Byton, Lucid Motors, and SF Motors are chasing after Elon Musk. And major automakers like Jaguar, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz have each released their own Tesla challengers. There are obstacles, such as the need for a more robust charging network. But battery-powered cars are here to stay.
The Blue Oval aims to tackle America’s mountain with a new Mustang Mach-E derived demonstrator with French racing impresario Romain Dumas behind the wheel. This is the third consecutive year that Ford is competing with an electric demonstrator at Pikes Peak, following the SuperVan 4.2 and F-150 Lightning SuperTruck.
The South Korean automaker’s new $7.6 billion factory is a bulwark against tariffs and EV-hostile policies.
Elon Musk says the company has been testing self-driving Model Y cars around Austin without anyone in the driver’s seat for the “past several days.” That’s good news for the company’s fledgling robotaxi business, which may launch as soon as June 12th. Though as Electrek points out, a few weeks of driverless testing is a far cry from the six months Waymo worked through before its Austin launch this year.
[x.com]
GOP lawmakers passed resolutions rescinding federal approval of California’s plans to require that all car sales be zero-emission by 2035, as well as policies limiting nitrogen oxide emissions and other pollutants from trucks.
Republicans fast-tracked passage of the resolutions using a maneuver that nonpartisan watchdogs said should be barred, and that Governor Gavin Newsom calls illegal. The Clean Air Act gives California authority to set state pollution limits that are more stringent than federal regulation.
Rivian’s smaller, more affordable electric SUV may not arrive until the end of 2026, but the company is getting geared up to start testing development versions of the R2. But before they get released into the wild, they need to disguise themselves in camouflage so prying eyes (and phone cameras) can’t perceive their full awesomeness. To that effect, the company was eager to show off its custom wrap, which looks a bit different from the industry standard black-and-white design. Yes, there’s a Yeti in there.
After outdoing Tesla’s global revenue last year, Chinese auto manufacturer BYD just outsold it in Europe for the first time too.
BYD sold 7,231 battery-electric cars in Europe in April — up 169 percent over the same month last year — which was enough to just overtake Tesla, which once led Europe’s market but now sits in tenth. Tesla sales of 7,165 are 49 percent down on 2024.
[bloomberg.com]
During an interview with CNBC, Elon Musk laid out some of the details for next month’s robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, most of which was already known. It will be a small number of vehicles, only 10-20, in the first week, but will increase in size week by week. It will be geofenced to the parts of Austin “that we consider to be the safest,” Musk said. And the vehicles will be monitored by remote operators who can intervene in case of emergency. “We’re going to be extremely paranoid about the deployment as we should be,” he added. “It would be foolish not to be so we’ll be watching what the cars are doing very carefully.” The rest was the standard bluster about “over a million Teslas doing self-driving in the US” and why he thinks Waymo’s use of lidar is fundamentally flawed.
The company is walking back some of its long-term electrification plans, cutting 3 trillion yen (about $20.8 billion) from its investment in electric cars over the next six years. Instead, it’s shifting focus to hybrids, though still plans to be selling only EVs by 2040.
It’s not just them: Toyota is in the midst of a similar reassessment, while last year Volvo gave up on its plan to be fully electric by 2030.
[asia.nikkei.com]
China has implemented new export controls for rare earth minerals and magnets. The changes could upend the shift to electric vehicles.
Tesla’s Optimus robot has been plagued by fakery since it launched with a dancer in a suit followed by remote manipulation at the cybercab event. So what is this? Generative AI? A man behind the curtain in a mocap suit?
Does it even matter if Tesla can’t mass produce them without China’s rare earth magnets?
The paintless, affordable EV pickup truck started taking reservations just over two weeks ago and crossed the 100,000 mark this past weekend, reports TechCrunch.
It’s a good showing, though as the outlet notes, Slate Auto is only asking $50, and reservations are fully refundable.
In the two days leading up to being let go, former Tesla employee Matthew LaBrot published a website calling for Tesla to “move forward without Elon as CEO,” then attended a Tesla Takedown protest, reports Business Insider.
It’s not the first time a former Tesla employee has claimed to have been fired for criticizing Musk.
[businessinsider.com]
The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected Tesla’s request to trademark the term for being “merely descriptive” and describing “similar goods and services by other companies,” reports TechCrunch:
Tesla needs to give the agency specific plans for how and why it deserves the “Robotaxi” trademark.
The examiner also wrote that Tesla will need to tell the USPTO if “competitors” use the terms “ROBO, ROBOT, or ROBOTIC to advertise similar goods and/or services.”
Tesla has three months to respond before the application is abandoned.
Beginning May 2nd, prices on vehicles such as the Mustang Mach-E EV could jump as much as $2,000, which Ford says will arrive in US dealer lots by late June. The news comes after Ford declared the Trump administration’s tariffs are adding about $2.5 billion of costs for the company in 2025.
The Celestiq carries the brand’s storied history forward — but only for those who can afford it.
The automaker’s software chief Doug Field explains why the company cancelled its ‘FNV4’ project, and why a domain-style system may work better for Ford’s gas and hybrid vehicles.
After Hyundai started making them in the USA, the popular EV became briefly eligible — but mysteriously lost eligibility weeks later, possibly over its batteries. Now, the Ioniq 5 is finally back on the list, until or unless Trump kills the credit entirely. It may not make a difference for many buyers: Hyundai was already offering its own $7,500 discount as a stopgap until the credit came back online.
