Cars

The star takes the electric SUV through a cinematic montage of situations to the sounds of Training Season — while explaining how she’d direct a Porsche commercial in ways that ���Porsche guys” wouldn’t.

A new approach to marketing the Macan makes sense, considering recent Taycan sales numbers ahead of that SUV’s impending refresh.

During an earnings call, the Tesla CEO said the company has “completed most of the engineering” on the next-gen Roadster with “upgrades” being made. The Roadster was announced way back in 2017 and opened to preorders that require potential buyers to put down a $50,000 deposit towards the expected price of $250,000.

The company will unveil its purpose-built autonomous vehicle October 10th, after previously delaying the event to allow more work on the prototype, Elon Musk said during an earnings call. The reveal was originally schedule to take place August 8th. “I wanted to make some important changes that I think would improve the vehicle,” Musk added.

On the Decoder podcast, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe points the finger at automakers for copying instead of seeking out customers who want a vehicle with a slightly different profile than Tesla’s alphabet series of Models.

Oh, and he had some news about the R3X and why you probably won’t see CarPlay in a Rivian anytime soon.

What he means by that exactly is anyone’s guess. Will they be helping to build vehicles? Is Optimus being ditched as it wasn’t name-dropped? We might find out next year, though Musk has previously admitted these timelines are mostly guesswork.

It's not like Tesla has stuck to its Robotaxi reveal dates yet.

I guess we’ll find out soon, as Tesla’s Cybertruck is being added to the battle royale game starting July 23rd. If nothing else, it’s nice to see Fortnite going old-school with low-poly graphics.

The company is opening a new kind of EV charging station in Groveland, CA, just outside of Yosemite National Park. In addition to five charging plugs, the site will also serve as place to get snacks, learn more about EV ownership, and even drop off recyclables in an effort to keep the park clean. The plugs are only available to Rivian owners for now, but the company plans on accommodating non-Rivian EVs eventually.

The Information reports that Elon Musk is giving the 4680 battery team until the end of the year to “cut its costs and scale up” or it could be curtains for the project. Apparently testing has revealed the specs to be pretty middling. Also the battery keeps collapsing in on itself? Sounds bad.

Two of those people said they weren’t told what the consequences would be if the team misses the end of year deadline. However, both believe Musk may throw in the towel on trying to scale up the 4680 battery in house and instead rely largely on outside suppliers for the technology. 

The police department in Anaheim, California, apparently wants to “be the first” with a Cybertruck, according to an email sent to Tesla modification company Up.Fit and obtained by 404 Media.

Up.Fit has already shown what a Cybertruck for police use may look like. The Anaheim PD later confirmed to 404 Media that the email was “a joke” but that it would still like a Cybertruck for “community engagement.”

In a post on X, the CEO said the event to reveal the company’s long-promised fully autonomous robotaxi was delayed to make time for more design changes, include an ‘important’ change to the front of the vehicle. Musk also teased “a few other things” that will shown at the October event. The event was supposed to take place on August 8th, but now has been delayed until sometime in October. Tesla still hasn’t confirmed an exact date.

Ford is taking the opportunity to advertise its Pro Power Onboard generators available in some F-150 models, including gas and Lightning EV versions, after Hurricane Beryl caused major outages in the Houston area. Product communications director Mike Levine posted a map showing where F-150 trucks generated at least one kilowatt of electricity.

Correction: Corrected the spelling of Mike Levine’s name.

The Lotus Evija X, a prototype version of Lotus’ $2.3 million electric hypercar, almost immediately slammed into the haybales on the side of the track during its first official public appearance at Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, Autoblog reports.

The crash owed to “asymmetric grip caused by overcorrection during the rapid acceleration at the start line,” Lotus told Road & Track, adding damage was “minimal.” Here’s a clip from Sky Sports.

Chinese automaker XPeng is revealing the first images of its P7 Plus electric car with camera-based self-driving technology that operates similarly to Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD) tech. As reported by Electrek, XPeng previously used Lidar in its cars, an approach that some automakers and robotaxi ventures count on in the pursuit of achieving autonomous driving.

The world’s biggest car company is joining seven other automakers, including BMW, Honda, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis. Ionna plans to install a few chargers by the end of this year, and more than 30,000 across North America by 2030. By that time, Toyota and Lexus together plan to offer 30 EV models globally, the company says.

That’s the maximum EV charge allowed under Electrify America’s new pilot aimed at reducing long wait times at some charging stations. Once an EV reaches 85 percent, the charging session will automatically end and the EV owner will have to unplug. The pilot will kick off at 10 Electrify America stations in California where congestion — defined as the number of EVs waiting to charge — has been the most pronounced.

Current and former Tesla employees told Business Insider that the images and videos from Musk’s Teslas have “received meticulous scrutiny,” allowing the automaker to tweak its software to address hiccups on certain routes. The company similarly prioritizes driving data from Tesla influencers, Business Insider reports:

The result is that Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD software may better navigate routes taken by Musk and other high-profile drivers, making their rides smoother and more straightforward.

Misleading claims about Tesla’s alleged autonomous vehicle development are a dime-a-dozen, but this quote in the Wall Street Journal about China’s AV program was enough to exasperate ex-Waymo CEO John Krafcik.

Just to be clear: Waymo operates fully driverless vehicles, while Tesla’s Full Self-Driving requires a human driver behind the wheel.

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (AVTM) program, which famously helped put Tesla on the map and also is funding Ford’s massive EV investment, will hand out $1.2 billion for a new factory in Terre Haute, Indiana to manufacture lithium-ion battery separators to be used in EVs. Its another sign that the Biden administration is racing to strengthen the domestic EV supply chain before the November election.