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Tag: Electric vehicles

  • Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Bets on Autonomous Cars to Revive Slowing EV Market

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    Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says autonomous cars will act as a “catalyst” for EV adoption as Uber expands its global self-driving footprint. Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Annual Summit

    The once-booming U.S. market for electric vehicles is slowing, but Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi isn’t fazed. Speaking today (Sept. 23) at the Concordia Summit in New York, he said Uber’s push into self-driving cars could act as a “catalyst” for EV adoption.

    Beyond safety and affordability, autonomous vehicles (AVs) offer another key advantage: sustainability. “The other really positive factor with AVs is that AVs are, by nature, also electric,” said Khosrowshahi, who pointed to Uber’s growing autonomous footprint in the U.S. as a way to help revive the country’s flailing EV transition.

    Uber, led by Khosrowshahi since 2017, currently offers AV rides in Austin, Atlanta and Phoenix through a partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo. Abroad, the company has teamed up with China-based WeRide to provide autonomous rides overseen by human safety drivers in Middle Eastern cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

    That footprint is set to expand. Later this year, Uber plans to launch in Germany and unveil new projects across Asia, Khosrowshahi said, noting the company now works with about 20 AV partners worldwide. “Autonomous is happening now, and it’s expanding all over the world.”

    A supportive regulatory framework is crucial when selecting AV markets, according to Khosrowshahi, who emphasized that robot drivers are five times safer than humans. “They don’t get distracted, they’re not texting, and most of these AV models will have driven over 1,000 times the miles that you and I will ever drive,” he said.

    Launching in regions where Uber has a strong presence is another advantage. Adding AV services to an existing network makes operations more efficient and helps offset high costs—self-driving cars can run well over $100,000 each. “You want these vehicles as highly utilized as possible,” noted Khosrowshahi.

    Over time, AVs are expected to lower fares, which could fuel demand. To avoid worsening congestion, Khosrowshahi envisions a future dominated by shared autonomous rides carrying multiple passengers, which he called a “newer development” in the field. That’s why Uber has been investing in services like UberX Share, which lets riders split trips and costs, he said.

    While AVs have been in development for decades, advances in A.I. have pushed the technology into new territory. Earlier generations of self-driving cars were largely deterministic. With the advent of large language models, modern systems can now handle complex real-world driving by learning through observation in more human-like ways. After years of research, they are “finally ready for prime time,” Khosrowshahi said. “The rate of acceleration in terms of the development of the technology, the safety of the technology, is pretty extraordinary.”

    Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Bets on Autonomous Cars to Revive Slowing EV Market

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    Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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  • Car buyers rush to capitalize on federal EV tax credits ahead of expiration next week

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    For car buyers interested in electric vehicles, the clock is ticking to take advantage of federal tax credits on new and used EVs before they expire on Sept. 30.

    Introduced in 2022 under the Inflation Reduction Act signed, the federal tax credits — $7,500 for new and $4,000 for used — are being phased out due to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is also ending a series  of other clean energy credits over the next several months. 

    With just one week to go until the expiration date of the Biden-era EV credit, customers are flocking to dealerships to cash in. EV sales reached a record high in August, with new EV sales up 17.7% year over year and used EV sales up 59% for the same period, data from Cox Automotive shows. 

    “As we approach the sunset of the IRA tax credit, we expect September to mirror August’s elevated sales activity, driven by time-sensitive purchase and lease offers,” Cox Automotive said in its report.

    The findings jibe with data from Cars Commerce — whose holdings include Cars.com — that shows  a 33% surge in EV demand since last year as shoppers rush to take advantage of the credits. The automotive tech company also found that used EVs are on dealers’ lots for 46 days on average, a nearly 30% decrease from last last year that indicates the sector of the EV market is rising in popularity.

    Deals to be had

    Anxious to clear out EV inventory before the arrival of new models in November, dealerships have been offering their own incentives, such as monthly lease rates that are are as little as 1% of the car’s sticker price. 

    The Emich Volkswagen dealership in Denver has lowered EV lease rates to $40 a month. “This deal is absurd and it’s never gonna happen again,” Philip De Jong, the marketing director at Emich, told CBS MoneyWatch.

    One customer at the Denver dealership, Stephen Hynes, told CBS News’ senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave that that he would save as much as $400 a month compared with his last car payment.

    “I’m getting an electric vehicle now; it’s because of this tax credit,” said Hynes.

    A chart below from Cars.com shows which vehicles are still eligible for the federal tax credit, based on information from Environmental Protection Agency.

    What will happen after the tax credit ends? 

    September 2025 could end up being the “single biggest EV month in history,” Tim Horvick, owner of the San Tan Ford dealership outside of Phoenix, told CBS’ Van Cleave. But come October, when the EV credit is no longer in effect, the sales landscape could shift.

    “It is the concern,” Horvick said. “It could be challenging.”

    As a result of the coming end of the tax credit, along with other policy changes introduced by the Trump administration, automakers have already slowed their production of electric vehicles, shifting their attention to more popular gas and hybrid models, CBS News reported. 

    But not all experts believe the expiration of the tax credit will have a huge effect on future EV sales, and that’s simply because sales were low to begin with.

    EV sales “can’t fall off a cliff because they’re not very high,” Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan-based economic consultancy, told CBS News’ Van Cleave. “They’re gonna fall off a small hill because that’s as high as they got.”

    Electric vehicles make up about 7% of new car sales, according to Anderson Economic Group. A recent analysis from Kelley Blue Book shows EV sales in August accounted for a record 9.9% of total car sales, up from 9.1% in July.

    Mary Cunningham

    Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. Before joining the business and finance vertical, she worked at “60 Minutes,” CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program.

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  • Electric vehicle motorist responds to viral video showing Minnesota trooper citing him

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    Electric cars are known for being quiet, almost silent.   

    For those who miss the roar of a muscle car, speakers can be used for effect. The sound from the speakers allegedly got Mike, an electric vehicle motorist, in trouble.

    Mike and his car club friends were in downtown Stillwater earlier this year, on their way back home to the cities.

    “We were thinking about stopping to get a bite to eat at one of the various pizza places in town,” Mike said. 

    A group of six cars stopped at the traffic light right across from a gas station. The light turned green.

    “Here I am, at the back of the line. I make my way to the front. The light turns red. I stop,” Mike said.

    A Minnesota State Patrol trooper, driving in the opposite direction, was also stopped at the light.

    “The State Trooper looks at me. I look at him. As he drives by, we make eye contact. He continues, flips, pulls me over,” Mike said.

    The car he was driving was a 2025 Dodge Daytona, an electric vehicle. It has a fratzonic chambered sound mechanism.

    “You can rev it, but you have to be in park to rev it,” Mike said.

    The car is equipped with three modes. The sport mode gives motorists the visceral feeling of an eight-cylinder Muscle car.

    “Speakers on the outside and speakers on the rear,” Mike said.

    Mike tried to explain the speakers to the trooper, but he wouldn’t listen and issued the citations.

    “I didn’t want to argue with him, so I said, ‘I’ll see you in court,’” he said.

    Mike has been waiting for a court date since June. The ticket still isn’t in the Washington County court system. In the meantime, a video of the interaction that was posted online has gone viral.

    “We didn’t really expect it to blow up overnight. I was heading out to Chicago the very next day … and, like, my phone is blowing up,” he said. “I would hope the trooper realized his mistake and didn’t submit or write up the ticket.”

    WCCO has reached out to the Minnesota State Patrol.

    Mike says he’s been cited for loud mufflers when he was driving cars with gas engines.

    Tony Peterson

    Tony Peterson is a multi-skilled journalist at WCCO-TV.

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    Tony Peterson

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  • Looking to Buy an Electric Vehicle? You Should Do It Before October

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    For more than a decade now, climate-friendly policy has protected and boosted the American electric vehicle industry. In the past two years, that has been in the form of the electric vehicle tax credit that was a part of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

    Now, all of that is due to expire on September 30.

    Trump began his attack on the EV tax credit as his first order of business as President. The final blow came when the “big beautiful bill” passed and was signed into law this summer, officially tolling the death knell for the tax credit that could have saved consumers up to $7,500 per EV purchase.

    Electric vehicles are increasingly preferred for being climate-friendly, especially as governments around the world try to hit carbon neutrality targets to reduce the risks of climate change.

    “Transportation is the largest source of global warming pollution in the country, and passenger vehicles are the largest source within transportation,” David Reichmuth, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Transportation Program, told Gizmodo. “There’s really no way to make the reductions we need to make to avoid the worst damages from climate change without switching from fossil fuels to cleaner electric vehicles powered by renewable energy.”

    A tax credit helps consumers to opt for climate-friendly cars without it being a financial burden, as the industry advances the technology on the road to affordability. It also helps the American electric vehicle industry grow amid heavy competition around the world. Electric vehicle demand is booming globally, and the American industry is squarely behind Chinese and European competitors.

    “Taking away the federal tax credit won’t kill EVs, they’re already here and it’s going to happen,” Reichmuth said, adding that it will instead only slow momentum in the U.S. while contributing to worse air pollution.

    Now, ahead of the credits’ demise, the American auto industry has seen a surge in EV sales as people rush to take advantage of the credit before it’s gone.

    As long as you acquire the car before September 30, you are good to take advantage of the tax credit. Acquiring does not have to mean getting the car physically delivered by September 30; it can mean entering into a contract, making a down payment, or trading in an old vehicle, but likely no refundable deposits.

    “You have to sign the contract and buy the vehicle, even if it’s not delivered until after the end of the month, but you can’t just get on the waiting list and put in $100 and then get the vehicle in six months,” Reichmuth said.

    How to claim the EV tax credit

    There are three parts to the tax credit. One is the new car sales tax credit, an up to $7,500 bonus that the consumer can get on their tax return.

    It doesn’t apply to all cars, though: your EV should be primarily sourced and assembled in North America, and you should not exceed a certain level of income. For married couples filing jointly, that’s $300,000; for heads of households, it’s $225,000; and for all other filers, it’s $150,000. There are other qualifiers that it must fit, and you can check to see if a vehicle you are thinking of purchasing is eligible via an official government website.

    There is also a used EV tax credit of up to $4,000. The requirements for that are similar. There is an income ceiling you can’t exceed, the car’s sale price should be less than $25,000, and the car should be at least two years old.

    Once you buy a car that fits the requirements, all you have to do is file IRS Form 8936 when tax season comes. To complete that form, you’ll need your vehicle’s vehicle identification number, a unique 17-character code that you can find on your car’s registration card.

    The final and most commonly used EV tax credit, Reichmuth says, is the leasing tax credit, also worth up to $7,500, and has looser restrictions on what cars qualify for it. This one is actually a commercial clean vehicle credit that is claimed by the leasing company, not the consumer. Instead, it’s translated to lower costs for consumers. So you get the financial benefit without having to worry about tax returns. There are many dealerships still leasing electric vehicles at cheap prices as they try to get empty stock before the credit goes into place and demand drops, Reichmuth said.

    There are still state-level incentives

    The federal tax credit may be going away, but there are a variety of state and regional incentives that can make electric vehicle purchases easier. There are online databases you can use to search for which incentives are offered in your state.

    Reichmuth also believes that we will see more state-level incentives pop up now that the federal government takes a step back. For example, prior to the federal EV tax credit, California had its own state-level tax incentive for EV customers. Reichmuth foresees that program coming back in some form.

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    Ece Yildirim

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  • Tesla is redesigning its door handles following safety probe, Bloomberg investigation | TechCrunch

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    Tesla is “working on” redesigning its door handles so they are less likely to trap people inside the company’s cars, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.

    The news comes just one day after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an probe into Tesla’s door handles, and one week after a Bloomberg News investigation highlighted multiple instances where owners or passengers were stuck in their cars following a crash.

    Von Holzhausen didn’t specify when Tesla made the decision to rethink how its door handles work, according to Bloomberg. China has already been pushing automakers to reconsider the use of fully concealed door handles because of safety concerns, although the country’s top regulator has not taken a final action.

    One of the two apparent problems with Tesla’s door handles has been they use electronic locks, which can stop working if they aren’t receiving power from the car’s battery system. The other is that, while Tesla does have manual door releases built into its cars, they are often hard to find and difficult to access.

    “The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense,” von Holzhausen told Bloomberg. “That’s something that we’re working on.”

    NHTSA opened its investigation on Tuesday after the agency said it had received nine complaints from Tesla owners who experienced a failure with their door handles. In four of those cases, the safety agency said the owners had to break a window “to regain entry into the vehicle.”

    Tesla includes instructions in its owner’s manuals that describe how to use an outside power source to activate dead electronic door locks, as both NHTSA and Bloomberg have noted. But NHTSA noted in its preliminary report that none of the owners who contacted the agency reported seeing low-voltage battery warnings — meaning they likely would not have known what was causing the problem.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • Crash safety test results show how popular electric vehicles performed

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    New safety test results show how some popular electric vehicles performed in collisions and avoiding pedestrians. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently examined how seven EV’s performed.

    In tests simulating a crash between vehicles traveling in opposite directions at 40 mph, four of the seven vehicles tested – the BMW i4, Chevrolet Blazer EV, Tesla Cybertruck and Volkswagen ID.Buzz – earned good ratings, which is IIHS’ top rating.

    The Tesla Model 3 earned a passing rating of acceptable, while two other vehicles have room to improve.

    “Today’s models almost all offer good front-seat protection in this kind of crash. Back seat performance, which IIHS started evaluating in 2022, is what differentiates vehicles,” IIHS said in its news release detailing the results.

    The Nissan Ariya SUV rated marginal because the IIHS injury metrics showed a high risk of chest injuries to back seat passengers.

    The Ford F-150 Lightning earned the lowest score – a poor rating. The rear seated dummy showed a high risk of chest, head or neck injuries and that dummy’s seatbelt moved from the ideal position on the pelvis onto the abdomen.

    “That is not something we want to see in any crash,” IIHS vice president Raul Arbelaez said.

    “Most people think … bigger is better. Heavier is better and certainly we had that with the Ford F-150 Lightning. The vehicle structurally held up really well in this crash, but fell short in protecting the rear seat position.”

    IIHS also looked at pedestrian crash avoidance technology. Most of the vehicles tested performed well.

    New ratings showed the BMW, Ford and Tesla models all scored top marks, joining the Ariya, which previously earned ratings of good for its standard and optional systems.

    For headlights, five of the seven vehicles tested earned acceptable ratings. However, both the BMW and Cybertruck had lights earning a poor rating.

    Automaker responses

    In response to the latest test safety results, automakers released the following statements to CBS News.

    Ford

    “Safety is a top priority. The 2024 Ford F-150 received an IIHS Top Safety Pick and Ford F-150 Lightning meets or exceeds all current safety regulations and requirements, including receiving a 5-star overall National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rating – among the top on the market today. IIHS recently changed their moderate front overlap test procedure for the second row. We are always working to continuously improve, and we consider IIHS and other third-party feedback in vehicle development.”

    Nissan

    “Nissan is committed to producing vehicles that meet or exceed all applicable laws and regulations. The safety and security of our customers and their passengers is paramount. Nissan is evaluating the results from this revision of the moderate overlap test and will continue to work with IIHS in all matters related to customer safety.”

    Tesla and BMW did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment.

    Kris Van Cleave

    Emmy Award-winning journalist Kris Van Cleave is the senior transportation correspondent for CBS News based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as a national correspondent reporting for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.

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  • It’s ‘do or die’ for electric vehicle maker Rivian as it breaks ground on a $5B plant

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    ATLANTA — It seems like a terrible time to build an electric vehicle plant in the United States, but Rivian Automotive leaders say they’re confident as the company starts long-delayed work on a $5 billion facility in Georgia.

    The money-losing California-based company breaks ground Tuesday east of Atlanta despite President Donald Trump’s successful push to roll back electric vehicle tax credits. Starting Sept. 30, buyers will no longer qualify for savings of up to $7,500 per car.

    Rivian Chief Policy Officer Alan Hoffman said the company believes it can sell electric vehicles not for environmental or tax incentive reasons, but because they’re superior.

    “We did not build this company based upon federal tax incentives,” Hoffman said. “And we’re going to prove that we’re going to be successful in the future.”

    The Georgia plant, first announced in 2021, is Rivian’s key to reaching profitability. Now the company makes the high-end R1T pickup truck and the R1S sport utility vehicle in Normal, Illinois, as well as delivery vans for Amazon and others. Its truck prices start at $71,000.

    The Illinois plant will begin making smaller R2 SUVs next year, with prices starting at $45,000. An expanded Illinois plant will be able to assemble 215,000 vehicles yearly. But if the R2 is a hit, and if Rivian successfully produces an even smaller R3, it will need more capacity. The company has said the Georgia operation will be able to make 200,000 vehicles yearly starting in 2028. It plans another 200,000 in capacity in phase two, volume that would spread fixed costs over many more vehicles.

    The projections would be a big leap from the 40,000 to 46,000 vehicles Rivian expects to deliver this year, down from 52,000 last year. The company says it’s limiting production now in part to launch 2026 models.

    “For Rivian, it’s do-or-die time,” said Alex Oyler, North American director of auto research firm SBD Automotive. “We saw with Tesla that the key to profitability is scale, and you can’t scale if your cheapest vehicle is $70,000. So they need that plant online to achieve a level of scale of R2 and ultimately R3.”

    Sales growth is slowing for electric vehicles in the United States, rising only 1.5% in 2025’s first half, according to Cox Automotive.

    Tesla accounted for almost 45% of U.S. electric vehicle sales in that period, according to Cox. But the giant is losing market share as others gain: General Motors’ slice of American EV sales has climbed to 13%. By comparison, Rivian had a 3% share in the first half of the year, behind Tesla and six traditional automakers.

    But excluding Tesla, Rivian is the most successful of the startup automakers.

    The company initially tapped a largely unfilled niche: demand for electric pickups and SUVs. But the competition now includes Ford’s F-150 Lightning and the electric Chevrolet Silverado.

    After an initial public offering in 2021, Rivian shares have fallen by more than 80%, while automaker shares overall have outpaced the broader stock market. Rivian lost $1.66 billion in 2025’s first half.

    At the same time, some automakers’ ardor for electric vehicles is cooling. Stellantis last week canceled Ram’s electric truck program. Ford has delayed production at a new Tennessee plant. And General Motors abandoned plans to build electric vehicles at a suburban Detroit plant.

    “With all the competition out there in this market and the slowing growth of EVs, it does not play in Rivian’s favor,” said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions. “However, there still is an EV market out there.”

    Georgia has pledged $1.5 billion of incentives to Rivian in exchange for 7,500 company jobs paying at least $56,000 a year on average. Rivian can’t benefit from most incentives unless it meets employment goals, but the state is already spending $175 million to buy and grade land and improve roads.

    Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has said he wants to make Georgia “the electric mobility capital of America,” acknowledges Rivian faces bumps, but says he remains confident the company can fulfill its promises.

    While Tesla has thousands of employees in California and Texas, some new electric vehicle plants have sputtered. Two separate EV makers that hoped to assemble vehicles in a former GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, went bankrupt. Georgia’s Hyundai complex near Savannah is faring better, with production underway. However, a battery plant there has been delayed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arresting 475 people on site, including more than 300 South Koreans.

    Rivian was supposed to be making trucks by now at the 2,000-acre (800-hectare) site near Social Circle, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of Atlanta. As the company burned through cash in 2024, it paused construction. But German automaker Volkswagen agreed to invest $5.8 billion in Rivian in exchange for software and electrical technology. And then-President Joe Biden’s administration in November agreed to loan Rivian $6.6 billion to build the Georgia plant.

    Despite the Trump administration’s hostility toward EVs, Hoffman said Rivian hopes the U.S. Department of Energy will distribute the loan money, arguing it will boost domestic manufacturing.

    Rivian also faces opposition from some residents who say the plant is an inappropriate neighbor to farms and will pollute the groundwater.

    “I planned on dying and retiring on the front porch and the biggest project in Georgia has to go next door to me, of all places in the country?” asked Eddie Clay, who lives less than a mile away. He says his well water turned mud-choked after excavation at the Rivian site.

    There are other challenges for Rivian, including tariffs costing $2,000 per vehicle, the Trump administration ending a tax-credit program that will cost the company $140 million in revenue this year, and long-term threats from low-priced, cutting-edge Chinese EVs. But Hoffman says Rivian is “in this for the long haul.”

    “We think that we can compete with anyone out there and that once given the opportunity, we’re going to excel,” he said.

    ___

    St. John reported from Detroit.

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  • IRS Extends EV Tax Credit Window: Can You Still Qualify Before Sept. 30?

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    Electric vehicle purchases have long been eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500. That is changing on Sept. 30 thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which eliminated the credit.

    However, the IRS is offering some relief, giving taxpayers some leeway on the end of the credit. Consumers who enter a binding contract to purchase an electric vehicle before Sept. 30 may still be eligible for the credit, even if the vehicle isn’t delivered until after that date.

    This poses the question: What does this mean for electric vehicle purchases, and can you still qualify? We’ll dig into this question and what to expect going forward.

    Don’t Miss:

    The electric vehicle tax credit is set to expire on Sept. 30, due to provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill eliminates the $7,500 credit for new electric vehicle purchases and the $4,000 credit for used electric vehicles worth up to $4,000.

    These tax credits have been a boon to electric vehicle customers, as they significantly reduced purchasing costs, especially for new vehicles. Economists project that electric vehicle demand could drop by as much as 27% without the $7,500 credit, Bloomberg reported.

    The IRS has slightly modified the rules surrounding electric vehicle purchases, allowing buyers some additional time to claim the credit. Specifically, it says that the vehicle must be “acquired” as of the date of a written binding contract, and a payment has been made. The payment can be made as a cash down payment or via a vehicle trade-in.

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    Although the One Big Beautiful Act will eliminate the electric vehicle tax credit, the rule change aligns with language in the Inflation Reduction Act. For instance, the IRS has used vehicle delivery dates to determine tax credits in the past, NPR reported.

    The ability to use the contract date instead of the delivery date is helpful for buyers of vehicles that can have delayed deliveries, such as Tesla.

    Time is running out to claim the electric vehicle tax credit, and buyers should be aware of the rules around it to avoid missing the deadline. For instance, purchase price limits exist for the tax credit, Kiplinger reported. Vans, SUVs, and trucks with purchase prices exceeding $80,000 are not eligible.

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  • The Free Ride for EVs in the Carpool Lane Is Coming to an End

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    A rough year for electric vehicle adoption just got a little rougher for owners in some parts of the US. Starting next month, EVs will no longer be able to ride in the fast lane in California, after the US federal government and Congress failed to reauthorize a popular program that has given hybrid and electric vehicles access to state carpool lanes—and worked to promote the sale of electrics for more than 25 years.

    Under the program, California drivers with qualifying electric, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could purchase $27 stickers that gave them access to several highway carpool lanes, plus discounts on a number of toll roads and bridges—even if a driver was alone in their car. Over 1 million decals have been issued to California drivers since the program’s start in 1999, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles have decals today.

    However, those decals will no longer be valid after September 30, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said in a press release. Drivers who currently have stickers—even those who purchased them recently—won’t receive refunds, the department confirmed.

    California isn’t alone. Another pilot project that gave some New York state electric-vehicle drivers access to carpool lanes will also end. Over 48,000 New Yorkers had received decals through that Clean Pass program.

    The programs are ending because they were not reauthorized by the president and Congress, says Walter McClure, a spokesperson for the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. The White House did not respond to WIRED’s questions about why President Donald Trump chose not to reauthorize the program.

    The end of the decal program is yet another knock back for US electric vehicles, which are facing long-term slower-than-projected sales in the country following a cut in government support for the newer car tech. EV-curious buyers have rushed to purchase new and used electric vehicles before tax credits, worth up to $7,500, end this month. But analysts expect that US sales will once again slow after the credit expires, even as the rest of the world continues its transition to EVs. Just a year ago, many analysts projected that between a quarter and a half of new US cars sold in 2030 would be electric; since then, those projections have been cut by half.

    But while the California program’s end will likely frustrate plenty of EV drivers, it might not make a meaningful dent in the state’s transition to new-energy vehicles. The state has raced ahead of the rest of the country in EV adoption; 22 percent of new light-duty vehicles sold in the state so far this year have been battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen-powered, according to state data. Compare that to the projected 8 percent of new electrified vehicle sales for the rest of the country, and the reason for the program closure might become clearer—it seems the state’s carpool lanes were getting crowded.

    The decal program “worked nicely as a bundle with monetary incentives,” says Gil Tal, the director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis, who has studied the effectiveness of the decal program over the past decade. “It was another reason to buy an electric car.”

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    Aarian Marshall

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  • Rimac introduces its take on solid-state batteries for electric vehicles

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    Rimac Technology has unveiled a new battery pack platform for electric vehicles that uses only solid-state batteries. The company has been an EV supplier for notable car brands including Aston Martin and Koenigsegg, as well as making electric supercar . Rimac collaborated with ProLogium and Mitsubishi Chemical Group on the product, which it claims will offer a lighter, safer and more energy-dense EV battery. It introduced this tech, alongside new composite and hybrid battery EV developments, at the IAA Mobility 2025 event.

    Solid-state batteries are being touted as an important new development for EVs. European R&D operation Imec released a into this tech last year that backed claims that these batteries did indeed have the potential to improve efficiency while bringing down costs.

    However, the commercial development of solid-state batteries has been slow going. Despite a of several years ago, the targets for getting EVs fully powered by the tech onto the road may still be some time away. For instance, Nissan said it aims to have its first EV solely using solid-state batteries released by its fiscal year. Rimac didn’t offer even a rough timeline for when it might have its new battery tech available for customers.

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    Anna Washenko

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  • Tesla grants CEO Elon Musk $29 billion pay package

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    Tesla is granting CEO Elon Musk shares totaling around $29 billion, the company announced Monday.

    The new pay package for the tech billionaire, which consists of 96 million shares of restricted stock, was approved by the Tesla board on Sunday, the company said in a regulatory filing. 

    The award comes just six months after a Delaware judge ordered the company to revoke his $56 billion pay package from 2018. 

    Musk appealed the order in March. A month later, Tesla said in a regulatory filing that it was creating a special committee to look at Musk’s compensation as CEO. Creating this new compensation will ensure Musk stays as CEO of Tesla for next several years and alleviate some Tesla shareholder concerns, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

    “We believe this grant will now keep Musk as CEO of Tesla at least until 2030 and removes an overhang on the stock,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a research note. The grant will motivate Musk to lead the company through an “inflection point,” as Tesla transitions to an AI-first company, he added.

    Equal to 2018 pay package

    The electric vehicle maker said in a regulatory filing on Monday that Musk must first pay Tesla $23.34 per share of restricted stock that vests, which is equal to the exercise price per share of the 2018 pay package that was awarded to the company’s CEO. 

    After that pay package was initially approved, a Tesla stockholder challenged it in a lawsuit, leading to a legal showdown.

    In a December 2024 ruling, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick reaffirmed an earlier ruling that Tesla must revoke Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package. She found that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent.

    At the time McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million.

    According to the regulatory filing, if the Delaware courts reinstate Musk’s 2018 pay package, the $29 billion award would be “immediately forfeited and returned to the Company.”

    Tesla stock troubles

    Tesla shares have plunged 25% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. But Tesla also faces intensifying competition from both the big Detroit automakers, and from China.

    In its most recent quarter, Tesla reported that quarterly profits plunged from $1.39 billion to $409 million. Revenue also plummeted and the company fell short of even lowered expectations on Wall Street.

    Under pressure from shareholders last month, Tesla scheduled an annual shareholders meeting for November to comply with Texas state law.

    A group of more than 20 Tesla shareholders, which have watched Tesla shares plummet, said in a letter to the company that it needed to at least provide public notice of the annual meeting.

    Investors have grown increasingly worried about the trajectory of the company after Musk had spent so much time in Washington this year, becoming one of the most prominent officials in the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Government Government Efficiency, or DOGE, overseeing mass federal layoffs.

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  • Tesla proposes new pay package for Elon Musk worth up to $1T | TechCrunch

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    Tesla has proposed a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion even as the EV maker’s car business stumbles and it sets its sights on humanoid robotics and AI.

    The company has tied the compensation to a number of benchmarks, one of which involves increasing Tesla’s overall valuation from around $1 trillion to more than $8 trillion. The plan would grant Musk more than 423 million additional shares in the company, boosting his level of control to around 25%. Musk has previously threatened to leave Tesla if he didn’t receive more voting power.

    The proposal will be voted on by shareholders at Tesla’s annual meeting, which is scheduled for later this year. The details of the plan come just one month after the company announced a $29 billion compensation package meant to make up for a plan that was struck down by a judge in Delaware.

    Tesla wrote to shareholders in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company believes the world is at a “critical inflection point” in society, and claims it can usher in an era of “sustainable abundance” by “introducing innovative and affordable technologies at scale.”

    “Tesla can help bring about a society that democratizes autonomous goods and services,” the company wrote.

    Tesla wrote that Musk’s “singular vision” is “vital” to “navigating this critical inflection point.” It cited the company’s recently-published “Master Plan Part IV,” which it says Musk “unveiled,” even though the CEO barely acknowledged it, except for agreeing that it lacked specifics.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • Rivian makes its second small workforce cut of the year ahead of R2 SUV launch | TechCrunch

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    Rivian is laying off around 150 workers — its second small staff cut in a matter of months — as the company readies itself for the all-important launch of its more-affordable R2 SUV next year.

    The company confirmed to TechCrunch that the new cuts were mostly to its “commercial” team, which deals with sales and service operations, and that affected employees will be eligible for rehire and encouraged to apply for other open positions. The Wall Street Journal first reported the layoffs earlier Thursday.

    The layoffs follow a similar cut of around 1% of its total workforce that TechCrunch first reported in late June. Those cuts targeted Rivian’s manufacturing team.

    Rivian has made repeated workforce adjustments over the last two years. It laid off around 10% of its staff in early 2024 and made another small cut in April 2024. The company started this year with approximately 15,000 employees worldwide.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • Should the Company Trucks Go Electric? Depends on When You Charge

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    The Southern Company didn’t need this pilot to sell it on EVs. The firm—which operates Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power, as well as other subsidiaries across six southern and midwestern states—has been using Ford electric vehicles since 2023. Its fleet now includes more than 200 F-150 Lightning trucks and 150 Ford Pro chargers. The company at one point aimed to electrify half of its fleet by 2030; it now says it is no longer pursuing that goal, but will continue to transition its vehicles.1

    Now it wanted to see if it could use Ford Pro’s charging software to ramp down its vehicles’ and chargers’ energy consumption during periods of high demand. (Ford Pro is the commercial fleet arm of the US automaker.) Such “managed charging” programs save fleet owners money by scheduling charging for times when utilities are charging less for electricity, and put less stress on the electric grid. Southern Company is particularly aware of that last point: With the AI boom, data centers are flooding into the US southeast.

    “We’re trying to figure out how we can save every kilowatt-hour that is out there to be saved, because we’ll have a more constrained system in the future,” says Lea Clanton, who directs business development and innovation for Southern Company New Ventures.

    The utility invested in over 200 F-150 Lightning trucks and 150 Ford Pro chargers for its fleet operations.

    Courtesy of Southern Company

    Ironically, the experiment’s most exciting moments came when the two companies worked together to shut down all their chargers. By turning off the chargers for 30 minutes—something that might be suddenly necessary during very hot or cold days, or during an emergency—Southern Company and Ford say they were able to reduce the demand on the grid by 0.5 megawatts, immediately freeing up an amount of electricity equivalent to what’s needed to power between 200 and 450 homes for a year.

    One day, EV fleets like those operated by the Southern Company might use this sort of software to save money and electricity. But Clanton says the utility firm needs more information before it’s ready to hook its EVs up to smarter chargers. It needs to guarantee that its drivers—especially those responding to electricity emergencies—always have charge when the unexpected happens.

    “If we were to adopt something more permanent, we would need to take some time to better understand where our drivers need to be, how often they charge, and make sure that it’s not going to impact our delivery of clean, safe, reliable, affordable energy to customers at all, 24 hours a day,” says Clanton.

    1Update, September 4 at 3 pm: This story was updated to correct details around Southern Company’s efforts to electrify its fleet.

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    Aarian Marshall

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  • Toyota announces $792m expansion of Czech plant to build new electric car

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    PRAGUE — Japanese carmaker Toyota said on Wednesday it will invest 680 million euros ($792 million) on a new production line in the Czech Republic to make a battery electric car.

    The line will be built with a government incentive of up to 64 million euros ($75 million) to expand Toyota’s existing plant in Kolin, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Prague, the Czech government and the company said in a joint statement.

    It will become the first Toyota plant to produce battery electric cars in Europe .

    Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the new line will create another 245 jobs at the factory that already employs 3,200 people.

    Toyota did not disclose details of when production would start or of the model.

    The world’s top automaker currently makes Aygo X and Yaris Hybrid models at the plant, which made over 225,000 cars last year.

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  • The Concept C Is the All-Electric Sports Car Kickstarting Audi’s Design Future

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    Car companies love a mission statement. With the arrival of the Concept C, Audi’s new one is crystal clear: “radical simplicity”. An all-electric two-seater with a retractable folding hard-top, the Concept C is a “progressive interpretation” of the company’s legacy, says Audi—and it’s not hard to see the TT has factored pretty heavily in that.

    But as you pick your way through the messaging—key words here are precision and clarity, as well as a re-emphasis on our old friend, “Vorsprung durch Technik”—this feels like a substantial reset after a period of aesthetic drift. This isn’t just a piece of conceptual eye candy, then: it’s Audi engaging combat mode in an industry currently beset with challenges.

    “Our vision is a call to action for the whole company—and is essential for making our brand truly distinctive once again,” Audi’s Chief Creative Officer Massimo Frascella explains. “It is the philosophy behind every decision we make, and we aim to apply its principles across the entire organization. We call it ‘The Radical Next’.”

    Let’s start with the car itself. Although the e-tron GT set the bar high, Audi’s model range has been light on coherence and drama. The Concept C isn’t quite a first-principles machine, but it definitely strips things back and seeks to stoke some good old-fashioned flames of desire. It’s a terrific looking thing in the flesh: stocky, solid, and charismatic. Audi CEO Gernot Döllner, in charge for exactly two years, personally pushed for a new sports car; Frascella used it to push the boundaries in terms of design creativity and manufacturing technique.

    Courtesy of Audi

    It’s also one for marque historians: although there’s nothing explicitly retro here, the Thirties Auto Union Type C Grand Prix car, the early Noughties Rosemeyer concept and more pertinently the original TT are all in the mix, as is Bauhaus and German modernism.

    Frascella, it should be noted, is an Italian who rose to prominence as Head of Design at Jaguar Land Rover, and is credited with the current Range Rover, a universally admired vehicle (though he also worked on the rather more polarising Jaguar Type 00.) A lack of adornment and commitment to what car designers are wont to call “monolithic” surfaces are evidently two of his trademarks.

    That much is certainly apparent here. The Concept C’s taut, machined look suggests something carved from a giant billet of aluminium, and there’s a strong new vertical front grille shape with a slim but powerful light signature that echoes the four-ring logo. We reckon it’s best appreciated from an elevated position above the rear three-quarters, though. There’s no rear window, minimal decoration and slender LED tail-lights, with three slats in the rear deck to suggest a more emotionally charged, mid-engined configuration. We’re told the window-less, slatted look will make production, the new car slated to arrive in 2027.

    The Concept C Is the AllElectric Sports Car Kickstarting Audis Design Future

    Courtesy of Audi

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    Jason Barlow

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  • Touted As The Tesla-Killer, Lucid Scrambles to Stay On The NASDAQ

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    Beleaguered electric vehicle company Lucid Motors (LCID) has implemented a reverse stock split, consolidating shares to meet NASDAQ’s $1 minimum trading price and prevent delisting.

    As of Friday, Lucid’s share price was down over 96% from its all-time high of $64.86, reached in February 2021. 

    While this move may protect the company from being removed from the exchange for now, it does little to address the underlying issues plaguing the struggling electric vehicle maker.

    Founded in 2014 by former Tesla (TSLA) engineer Peter Rawlinson, Lucid initially aimed to compete in the luxury EV segment with its flagship Air sedan, positioned as a premium rival to Tesla’s Model S.

    It had ambitious production targets, initially aiming for 20,000 vehicles in 2022, then 49,000 in 2023, and 90,000 in 2024. But the company struggled to meet demand and in 2024, Lucid delivered just over 10,200 vehicles.

    The company’s financials highlight the scale of its challenges, with revenue rising 36% to $808 million in 2024 but net losses widening to $3.1 billion. That is a loss of around $299,000 per vehicle sold.

    Lucid has been trying to stay in the game

    Multiple price cuts for the Air sedan from around $80,000 to roughly $71,400 reflect ongoing efforts to stay competitive, but the company has limited room for price increases due to high manufacturing costs.

    Despite having ample liquidity of about $4.8 billion and expanding manufacturing facilities in Arizona and Saudi Arabia, Lucid’s growth prospects remain uncertain. The company faces stiff competition from Tesla and other automakers, and its delayed launch of the more affordable Gravity SUV, a potential game-changer, has yet to materialize.

    Analysts forecast modest near-term growth, with 2025 revenue expected to reach $1.3 billion, with a 61% increase, and losses projected to decline slightly.

    However, even optimistic forecasts place Lucid’s market cap at just $6.4 billion, roughly five times its expected 2025 sales. In contrast, Tesla’s valuation remains over $1 trillion, with a price-to-sales ratio of around 12.

    If Lucid can deliver on its growth plans, the stock has the potential to double or triple, if it achieves a valuation comparable to Tesla’s. For now, the reverse stock split provides a temporary reprieve, but investors should think about it carefully given the company’s volatile financials and stiff competition.

    Will Lucid have a market for long?

    Lucid Motors’ stock had a rough week, reflecting broader investor concerns about the future demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and overall market sentiment. The luxury EV maker’s shares fell sharply after analysts highlighted ongoing challenges in the industry, including increased competition, rising production costs, and moderating consumer interest.

    Despite earlier excitement around Lucid’s technological innovations and plans to expand its luxury lineup, recent earnings reports and market data suggest that the company may be facing a more challenging environment than previously anticipated.

    Persistent supply chain disruptions, combined with skepticism over EV adoption rates, are weighing on investor confidence.

    For investors, Lucid’s recent decline, which has now reversed nearly all of its recent gains, signals heightened caution among shareholders in a fluctuating EV sector.

    As automakers compete fiercely for market share, especially in the premium segment, Lucid’s future profitability remains under close scrutiny.

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    Riley Gutiérrez McDermid

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  • Oregon could join Hawaii in mandating pay-per-mile fees for EV owners as gas tax projections fall

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    Oregon could become the second U.S. state to require electric vehicle owners to enroll in a pay-per-mile program as lawmakers begin a special session Friday to fill a $300 million transportation budget hole that threatens basic services like snowplowing and road repairs.

    Legislators failed earlier this year to approve a transportation funding package. Hundreds of state workers’ jobs are in limbo, and the proposal for a road usage charge for EV drivers was left on the table.

    Hawaii in 2023 was the first state to create a mandatory road usage charge program to make up for projected decreases in fuel tax revenue due to the growing number of electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars. Many other states have studied the concept, and Oregon, Utah and Virginia have voluntary programs.

    The concept has promise as a long-term funding solution, experts say. Others worry about privacy concerns and discouraging people from buying EVs, which can help reduce transportation emissions.

    “This is a pretty major change,” said Liz Farmer, an analyst for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ state fiscal policy team, noting “the challenge in enacting something that’s dramatically different for most drivers.”

    Oregon’s transportation department says the budget shortfall stems from inflation, projected declines in gas tax revenue and other spending limits. Over the summer, it sent layoff notices to nearly 500 workers and announced plans to close a dozen road maintenance stations.

    Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek paused those moves and called the special session to find a solution. Republican lawmakers say the department mismanaging its money is a main issue.

    Kotek’s proposal includes an EV road usage charge that is equivalent to 5% of the state’s gas tax. It also includes raising the gas tax by 6 cents to 46 cents per gallon, among other fee increases.

    The usage charge would phase in starting in 2027 for certain EVs and expand to include hybrids in 2028. Should the gas tax increase be approved, EV drivers either would pay about 2.3 cents per mile, or choose an annual flat fee of $340. Drivers in the program wouldn’t have to pay supplemental registration fees.

    Drivers would have several options for reporting mileage to private contractors, including a smartphone app or the vehicle’s telematics technology, said Scott Boardman, policy adviser for the transportation department who works on the state’s decade-old voluntary road usage charge program.

    As of May, there were over 84,000 EVs registered in Oregon, about 2% of the state’s total vehicles, he said.

    Under Hawaii’s program, which began phasing in last month, EV drivers can pay $8 per 1,000 miles driven, capped at $50, or an annual fee of $50.

    In 2028, all EV drivers will be required to enroll in the pay-per-mile program, with odometers read at annual inspections. By 2033, the program is expected to expand to all light-duty vehicles.

    In past surveys commissioned by Oregon’s transportation department, respondents cited privacy, GPS devices and data security as concerns about road usage charges.

    Oregon’s voluntary program has sought to respond to such concerns by deleting mileage data 30 days after a payment is received, Boardman said. While plug-in GPS devices are an option in the program, transportation officials anticipate moving away from them because they’re more expensive and can be removed, he added.

    Still, not everyone has embraced a road usage charge. Arizona voters will decide next year whether to ban state and local governments from implementing a tax or fee based on miles traveled after the measure was referred to the ballot by the Republican-majority Legislature.

    Many people don’t realize that “both your vehicle and your cellphone capture immense amounts of data about your personal driving habits already,” said Brett Morgan, Oregon transportation policy director for the nonprofit Climate Solutions.

    Morgan added that road usage charges exceeding what drivers of internal combustion engines would pay in gas taxes could dissuade people from buying electric and hybrid cars. Already, federal tax incentives for EVs are set to expire under the tax and spending cut bill recently passed by the GOP-controlled Congress.

    “We are definitely supportive of a road usage charge that has EVs paying their fair share, but they should not be paying extra or a penalty,” Morgan said.

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  • Oregon could join Hawaii in mandating pay-per-mile fees for EV owners

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    Oregon could become the second U.S. state to require electric vehicle owners to enroll in a pay-per-mile program as lawmakers begin a special session Friday to fill a $300 million transportation budget hole that threatens basic services like snowplowing and road repairs.

    Legislators failed earlier this year to approve a transportation funding package. Hundreds of state workers’ jobs are in limbo, and the proposal for a road usage charge for EV drivers was left on the table.

    Hawaii in 2023 was the first state to create a mandatory road usage charge program to make up for projected decreases in fuel tax revenue due to the growing number of electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars. Many other states have studied the concept, and Oregon, Utah and Virginia have voluntary programs.

    The concept has promise as a long-term funding solution, experts say. Others worry about privacy concerns and discouraging people from buying EVs, which can help reduce transportation emissions.

    “This is a pretty major change,” said Liz Farmer, an analyst for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ state fiscal policy team, noting “the challenge in enacting something that’s dramatically different for most drivers.”

    Oregon’s transportation department says the budget shortfall stems from inflation, projected declines in gas tax revenue and other spending limits. Over the summer, it sent layoff notices to nearly 500 workers and announced plans to close a dozen road maintenance stations.

    Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek paused those moves and called the special session to find a solution. Republican lawmakers say the department mismanaging its money is a main issue.

    Kotek’s proposal includes an EV road usage charge that is equivalent to 5% of the state’s gas tax. It also includes raising the gas tax by 6 cents to 46 cents per gallon, among other fee increases.

    The usage charge would phase in starting in 2027 for certain EVs and expand to include hybrids in 2028. Should the gas tax increase be approved, EV drivers either would pay about 2.3 cents per mile, or choose an annual flat fee of $340. Drivers in the program wouldn’t have to pay supplemental registration fees.

    Drivers would have several options for reporting mileage to private contractors, including a smartphone app or the vehicle’s telematics technology, said Scott Boardman, policy adviser for the transportation department who works on the state’s decade-old voluntary road usage charge program.

    As of May, there were over 84,000 EVs registered in Oregon, about 2% of the state’s total vehicles, he said.

    Under Hawaii’s program, which began phasing in last month, EV drivers can pay $8 per 1,000 miles driven, capped at $50, or an annual fee of $50.

    In 2028, all EV drivers will be required to enroll in the pay-per-mile program, with odometers read at annual inspections. By 2033, the program is expected to expand to all light-duty vehicles.

    In past surveys commissioned by Oregon’s transportation department, respondents cited privacy, GPS devices and data security as concerns about road usage charges.

    Oregon’s voluntary program has sought to respond to such concerns by deleting mileage data 30 days after a payment is received, Boardman said. While plug-in GPS devices are an option in the program, transportation officials anticipate moving away from them because they’re more expensive and can be removed, he added.

    Still, not everyone has embraced a road usage charge. Arizona voters will decide next year whether to ban state and local governments from implementing a tax or fee based on miles traveled after the measure was referred to the ballot by the Republican-majority Legislature.

    Many people don’t realize that “both your vehicle and your cellphone capture immense amounts of data about your personal driving habits already,” said Brett Morgan, Oregon transportation policy director for the nonprofit Climate Solutions.

    Morgan added that road usage charges exceeding what drivers of internal combustion engines would pay in gas taxes could dissuade people from buying electric and hybrid cars. Already, federal tax incentives for EVs are set to expire under the tax and spending cut bill recently passed by the GOP-controlled Congress.

    “We are definitely supportive of a road usage charge that has EVs paying their fair share, but they should not be paying extra or a penalty,” Morgan said.

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  • Tesla sales plunge again in Europe as anger at Musk keeps buyers away for 7th month in a row

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    NEW YORK — Europeans angry at Elon Musk still aren’t buying his cars months after the billionaire predicted a “major rebound” in Tesla sales, data released Thursday shows.

    Tesla sales plunged 40% in July in the 27 European Union countries compared with the year earlier even as sales overall of electric vehicle soared, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Meanwhile sales of Chinese rival BYD continued to climb fast, grabbing 1.1% market share of all car sales in the month versus Tesla’s 0.7%.

    Tesla stock fell 1.5% in afternoon trading Thursday.

    Musk angered many Europeans by wading into politics there, embracing far-right candidates, calling a British prime minister an “evil tyrant” who belongs in prison and telling Germans “things will get very, very much worse” in their country if they didn’t vote for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Protests broke out in several cities, including a hanging of the billionaire in effigy in Milan and posters in London likening him to a Nazi.

    The company has several other problems that have hurt sales.

    The company is still awaiting European regulatory approval to allow Tesla owners there to use its most advanced driver-assistance features available in the U.S., a big appeal to buyers. Musk had predicted approval of its so-called Full-Self Driving software was going to happen by March of this year.

    Another hit came from Tesla’s decision to close down factories temporarily earlier this year to retool for a new version of its best selling Model Y sport utility vehicle

    The company is hoping the introduction of cheaper Teslas in the last three months of this year will boost sales.

    Overall, the company sold 6,600 cars in July in the EU versus 11,465 a year ago. The plunge came despite a 39% surge in battery electric vehicle sales overall.

    For the first seven months of the year, Tesla sales have fallen 44%. For that entire period, as opposed to just July, Tesla was still the EV market leader. It accounted for 1.1% of European sales of all types —- battery, hybrid and gas powered —- versus 0.9% for BYD.

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