Electric Cars

It’s been almost two years since the German automaker said it was adopting Tesla’s NACS standard for its electric vehicles. And at last, long after pretty much all the other automakers have already adopted the standard, VW is following through. Starting November 18th, VW ID.4 and ID Buzz owners can buy a NACS adapter online or from their local dealer for $200, which they can then use to fast charge at any of the 25,000 Supercharger outlets in North America. That’s super!

Just hours after Tesla’s former Cybertruck chief announced he would be stepping down, Model Y program manager Emmanuel Lamacchia said on LinkedIn that he’s also leaving the company, Electrek reports.

Siddhant Awasthi, who was also in charge of the Model 3 program, announced his departure on LinkedIn after three years overseeing the Cybertruck’s dismal rollout. A recent recall notice shows that just 63,619 have been sold in the US since its 2023 launch — far from the 250,000 annual sales that Elon Musk once predicted.

The long-delayed, next-gen Roadster is maybe, finally going to see the light of day, Elon Musk said during the company’s shareholder meeting Thursday.

Elon Musk just floated the idea of a chip fabrication facility, or “tera-fab,” to keep up with Tesla’s own demand for semiconductors. He was speaking during the company’s annual shareholder meeting, where he just was awarded a $1 trillion pay package tied to growing Tesla’s value by orders of magnitude.

Tesla is holding its annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, today, where investors will decide the fate of CEO Elon Musk’s enormous $1 trillion compensation package. The meeting starts at 4 pm ET and will be livestreamed on X.com.

The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources at the company in its report on the electric truck’s possible demise.

The suit alleges that the company’s vehicle design trapped five people inside a burning Model S following a 2024 crash in Wisconsin, killing all of them. Tesla is already facing a federal investigation into complaints that its door handles, which sit flush against the vehicle and are electronically controlled, can trap people inside their vehicle during a crash. The company has said it would redesign the handles.

The concept version of the three-row Ioniq 9, which is coming to the annual SEMA show next week, has a lifted suspension, auxiliary lighting, and unique wheels paired with aggressive all-terrain tires. It was co-designed by Jeremiah Burton and Zach Jobe, who left Donut Media last year to form their own YouTube channel, BigTime. Burton said he was “stoked” to work with Hyundai on the revamped Ioniq 9. “EVs have come a long way, so getting a chance to put our own spin on an off-road-themed Ioniq 9 is pretty cool,” he added.

Just like MKBHD in September, the OpenAI CEO has now canceled his Roadster preorder — or tried to, at least, given his email request bounced back. Altman said he understands delays, “but 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait.” Using it to advance his feud with Elon Musk was probably a bonus.

This one seems pretty minor, all things considered. It’s for a possible issue with the installation of an off-road light bar accessory that could detach while driving. But it’s notable given that the truck has already racked up a whopping 10 recalls in just two years on the road. Most have been related to poor build quality, which could also be a factor in the truck’s dismal sales record.

GM destroyed most of the original EV1s, as documented by the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? But a few remain, mostly in museum or university collections. The Autopian recently discovered one of the original OG electric vehicles in auction in Atlanta, and before you know, CarTube creators descended, bidding up the price to over $100,000. This for a non-running relic of an EV! We’ll keep our eye out for the inevitable YouTube video.

Elon Musk’s political activities — buying Twitter, renaming it X, and letting election deniers and white supremacists back on; donating nearly $300 million to elect Donald Trump; heading DOGE — have dramatically harmed Tesla’s financial fortunes, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Yale University economists. Musk’s polarizing behavior likely cost the company up to 1.26 million vehicle sales in the US alone, the group estimates. Meanwhile, EV sales from other automakers popped 17-22 percent, as Musk-disgusted shoppers spent their cash elsewhere.

More than 600 people are scheduled to lose their jobs, the Wall Street Journal report. The move comes a few weeks after the expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, which is widely expected to lead to a slowdown in EV sales. And it comes a day after Rivian’s spinoff Also revealed its first slate of new micromobility products. Rivian is also bracing itself for the lose of revenue from the sale of regulatory credits to other automakers, which was eliminated by Trump’s budget bill.

This is the same robot that couldn’t handle popcorn distribution at Tesla’s diner, and was revealed to be remote controlled at the company’s Cybercab event. In a Q3 earnings call, Musk said he would “of course” ensure that “Optimus is safe” before allowing it to perform surgery on anyone. Volunteers?

A potential battery pack contactor defect could cause the EVs to suddenly lose power, as reported by Reuters. Tesla acknowledged in a NHTSA filing that the issue impacts 12,963 2025 Model 3 and 2026 Model Y vehicles manufactured between March 8th and August 15th, 2025.