One of the design features that became synonymous with Tesla has been banned in China.
Under new safety rules published Monday by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cars sold in the country must have mechanical releases on their door handles. The new rules, which go in effect January 1, 2027, will prohibit the hidden, electronically actuated door handles popularized by Tesla — and now found on numerous other electric vehicles in China.
The new rule dictates that each door (excluding the tailgate) should be equipped with a mechanically released external door handle. Vehicles must also have a mechanical release on the interior of the vehicle. Bloomberg previously reported on the new safety policy.
Numerous high-profile fatal incidents, in which occupants have become trapped in their vehicles, have raised concerns among safety regulators and advocates globally. China is the first country to issue a ban.
An investigation by Bloomberg last September uncovered problems with the concealed door handles on Tesla vehicles, citing several crashes in which first responders or occupants were unable to open the doors because the electronic door locks weren’t getting enough power from the vehicle’s battery system to work properly. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration then opened a defect investigation into certain Tesla Model Y and Model 3 door handles. While Tesla does have manual releases inside its vehicles, federal investigators noted that the releases can be hard for children to access, and many owners are unaware of their existence. Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed regulation requiring manual door releases in all new vehicles.
Fatal incidents in China, including a crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan, prompted regulators there to propose changes to EV door handles last year.
The Chinese government began the process in May 2025 with more than 40 domestic vehicle manufacturers, parts suppliers, and testing institutions participating in the initial research. More than 100 industry experts held multiple rounds of discussions to determine the standard framework and form a draft standard of what would become the Safety Technical Requirements for Automobile Door Handles rule, according to the Chinese government’s standards agency.
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That included dozens of automakers, including Chinese companies such as BYD, Geely Holdings, SAIC, and Xiaomi as well as foreign automakers including General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Nissan, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Tesla, however, was not listed as an official “drafter,” according to information posted on the standards agency’s website.
Staying true to form, Tesla shuffled some terminology and names on some cars with little notice this week, as it dropped the long-standing Autopilot driver assistance system from the standard e equipment.
It’s unknown if cars ordered before the change, but not yet in owners’ hands, are affected, and Tesla no longer has a public relations department. Autopilot was launched to fanfare in 2014, first in the Model S. After the change to Tesla’s available options was noticed by the public, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed that this is the new way.
What’s left is the standard Traffic Aware Cruise Control, which maintains a consistent speed while monitoring vehicles around it and their behavior (slightly more sophisticated than the adaptive cruise control that’s standard on cars like the Honda Civic) and forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, and Tesla’s form of blind-spot monitoring. Autosteer, a lane-centering system, also appears to be gone, although it was never offered on the cheaper and decontented Model 3 and Model Y Standard models released last year.
Prospective buyers ordering a Tesla now have to go with the standard equipment above or spring for the Full-Self Driving (Supervised), an $8,000 option, but only until Feb. 14. That’s when, according to Elon Musk’s X post on Thursday, it would be offered only as a monthly subscription fee for $99.
The change is at least somewhat related to a December ruling that Tesla committed a deceptive marketing violation with its promises surrounding the abilities of Autopilot and Full-Self Driving. Tesla subsequently revised the name to Full-Self Driving (Supervised), added various disclaimers, and, now, has dropped the Autopilot name.
There’s another wrinkle in things. Even though General Motors and Ford charge a subscription fee for their hands-free driving assists— SuperCruise and BlueCruise, respectively—it comes with a three-year trial period. Tesla will charge $99 per month after 30 days.
Typically, new car owners don’t like it when a vehicle function they paid for suddenly expires after the driving period, and they find out that it doesn’t work one day. BMW infamously tried subscription services as far back as 2018 with just Apple CarPlay, which later expanded to things like heated seats, only to backtrack on that a couple of years ago while still keeping certain driver assists behind a paywall in certain markets.
On Friday, Sawyer Merritt, an EV influencer who frequently interacts with Musk, posted that “Tesla owners who previously purchased Enhanced Autopilot can now subscribe to FSD (Supervised) for $49/month, reduced from the previous $99/month.” Tesla did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Tesla, meanwhile, is doubling down on pushing new owners to the subscription-based supervised Full Self-Driving, which looks like it’s not only alienating returning buyers but has the potential to confuse new ones.
Automakers and buyers will be resetting their expectations and plans in the electric vehicle market in the U.S. in 2026. While some large companies have made quick decisions to cut slow-selling, much-promoted models from their rosters—at least temporarily—most are continuing with plans to roll out new, less-expensive models.
And that could be the best thing for the American EV market going forward. With the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit in September and a generally softer retail market in the last quarter of 2025, expectations for car sales in 2026, gas-only engines included, are pretty muted, and the emphasis on affordability looks like it’ll continue beyond the new year.
Which works well for Slate Auto, an EV startup that’s backed by Jeff Bezos and several other investors. The burgeoning company reported that since the product’s announcement in April and the launch of a $50 reservation program, there have been more than 150,000 deposits placed for the all-electric, two-door pickup truck that was supposed to cost around $20,000 before various tax credits sunsetted. For its part, though, company officials are optimistic about the bare-bones truck’s prospects in a slower economy when it rolls off the assembly line in about a year.
Slate recently posted a video with its CEO answering questions from commenters about the company, which included whether a 9-foot surfboard would fit in its truck bed, why it isn’t offered with all-wheel drive, and, above all, the cost of everything. CEO Chris Barman cut to the point that reservation holders don’t need to worry about cost hikes inflicted by tariff and tax credit turmoil in 2025.
“The Slate is still affordable,” Barman said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Barman’s line delivery was significantly sharper than what most executives, even those with successful EVs and U.S. production, have been comfortable with in the wake of the headwinds EVs have faced with lukewarm demand for high-priced battery electrics in a cost-conscious economy.
Slate’s big selling point for the truck (expected to still cost around $25,000), according to Barman, is that it’s no-frills. It offers no power windows, built-in infotainment (or audio system), or hands-free driving assistance. It will offer the option to add a higher-capacity battery pack (price still to be announced) and a package to turn it into a closed SUV (estimated at $5,000). Those extras could put it well below the roughly $50,000 average price of all new cars in 2025, but it also has to appeal to a market in the mood to go back to basics.
“Slate Auto is particularly interesting because the very fact that its truck has surpassed more than 150,000 orders shows there’s a real demand for this kind of ‘utility-over-bells-and-whistles’ approach to cars,” Mike Calise, CEO of Tellus Power, an EV charging manufacturer, told Gizmodo. “It doesn’t need a massive, expensive battery to get the job done.”
New-car affordability has been a significant point of concern for the industry, economic analysts and those watching the rate of EV adoption in the U.S. Ford’s $19.5 billion writedown of its EV business in December, coupled with a tie-up in Europe with Renault for small EVs and ending F-150 Lightning production in favor of a plug-in, gas-powered range-extender EV version comes as it hedges its bets on a $30,000 electric pickup truck, also due in 2027 and using a simpler construction and less extravagant package than the electric cars of the first half of the 2020s.
“When you strip away the $5,000 infotainment systems and the motorized seats, you aren’t just lowering the price; you’re lowering the barrier to entry for the millions of small businesses and fleet operators who just need a tool that works,” Calise said. “It’s certainly still a niche product, but it provides an interesting take on auto manufacturing and allows people who have been historically priced out of the EV market a way to enter the space.”
While the Slate Truck and Ford’s unnamed EV pickup won’t have an impact on 2026 sales figures, the redesigned Nissan Leaf, reintroduced Chevrolet Bolt, single-motor Volvo EX30 and even the new Mercedes-Benz CLA EV fall well under that $50,000 new-car average mark, even if economic circumstances indefinitely delayed the U.S. launch of the sub-$40,000 Kia EV4 sedan and puts added cost pressure on Rivian’s mainstream, $45,000 R2 SUV.
“Whether it’s a Slate truck with manual windows or a scaled-down Ford, these vehicles are the answer to the affordability crisis,” Calise said. “They make sense for the person who needs to get to a job site or a delivery route without worrying about a $1,000 monthly payment.”
The Trump Administration thinks moving away from EVs and back to hybrid and gas-only vehicles will boost U.S. auto sales in an economically tenuous time. That could be true, at least in the short term, because new cars costing below $20,000 have rapidly been vanishing or crossing that line due to inflation and tariffs, and automakers aren’t usually the most nimble companies.
“Product plans can take years to shift, and with the possibility of future policy reversals from new administrations, the regulatory landscape remains stop-and-start. Edmunds Head of Insights Jessica Caldwell wrote following the announcement of new proposed fuel economy guidelines on Dec. 3. “These fluctuations also intersect with uncertainty surrounding long-term support for transportation infrastructure like EV charging, which shapes consumer confidence in adopting EV technology.”
Calise says he predicts 2026 to be the year for infrastructure rather than the cars themselves changing the EV landscape. More vehicles will accept the North American Charging Standard (NACS) port used by Tesla’s Supercharger network, including models from Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Rivian, and others, with the port built into the vehicle rather than using an adapter. And public charging network reliability will be more important than ever.
“The winners will be the ones who can get hardware in the ground and keep it running,” Calise said. “The biggest development will be the shift from volume to reliability. With the court-ordered release of [National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure] funds and the $100 million-plus Accelerator program finally hitting the streets, 2026 will focus on the quality of chargers rather than the quantity.”
While new EV sales at the beginning of 2026 are likely to lag well behind those of the same time in 2025, there will still be many vehicles reaching the end of a lease period that land on used car lots. Aided by the end of the federal program to get as much as a $4,000 discount on a used EV, hot sellers in the third quarter of 2025 were mostly used Teslas. But cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Volkswagen ID.4, and Ford Mustang Mach-E stayed in dealer inventories for less time than a gas-only or hybrid-powered used car and cost less than half as much when new.
Tyson Jominy, senior vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, says there would be a noticeable jump in three-year-old lease returns going on sale by the second half of 2026, including a ton of Teslas. And the dealers peddling three-year-old EVs will be motivated sellers for vehicles costing a fraction of what they did when new, including discontinued cars like the F-150 Lightning, Acura ZDX, and Nissan Ariya.
“It’s still going to be a buyer’s market for used EV buyers,” Jominy told Gizmodo. “But dealers will still want those cars off their lots.”
He said dealers will still have to figure out ways to sell any EVs with little or no incentives other than any automaker support, while many will have an influx of gas-only or hybrid vehicles on sale, and companies pushing support on models subjected to tariffs that have bigger profit margins than budget EVs. The Leaf, imported from Japan, and the Bolt aren’t expected to contribute much to sales figures for their respective companies.
There could be some other curveballs for the EV market in 2026 now that Fiat says it will sell the Topolino microcar with its 28-mph top speed in the U.S. Calise says vehicles like that are, “designed for the 95% of trips that happen within a five-mile radius of home,” but moving from an “SUV-only mindset” for new cars could open the door for more compact and affordable vehicles in automaker product plans.
Slate will still have to back up its lofty and still growing reservation list when the first orders are completed. Many buyers who put their names on the list will simply ask for their $50 deposit back. Ford reported in excess of 150,000 F-150 Lightning non-fleet reservation holders ahead of that truck’s launch, but it reportedly never made more than 40,000 units in a year.
VW-owned Scout Motors will have to answer a similar question when its EV and range-extender SUVs and trucks are expected at the end of 2027 at the earliest. The company told Bloomberg earlier this fall that it had more than 130,000 people who paid the $100 fully refundable reservation fee.
But it’s still going to come down to a monthly payment for many consumers, whether looking at new or used EVs, or a new car altogether, in 2026. And Calise and Jominy think that all buyers will be looking for ways to get that payment as low as possible, even if it means sacrificing a few features, forgoing a luxury brand, or going for a basic vehicle like a Slate Truck.
“When consumers talk about affordability, they’re often sitting around their table talking about bills and monthly payments,” Jominy said. “Interest rates are certainly one of the variables feeding higher monthly payments.”
Tesla annual sales have fallen for the second year in a row, a drop fueled by the removal of the federal tax credit in the U.S. and competition from Chinese automakers.
Tesla delivered 1.63 million vehicles globally in 2025, a 9% fall from 1.79 million in 2024, according to figures released by the company. Notably, about 50,850 of those vehicles are considered “other models,” a collection that includes the Cybertruck as well as its older Model X and Model S.
Tesla reported fourth-quarter sales of 418,227, a 15.6% drop from the same period last year and far more than analysts expected. Tesla stock fell more than 2% as the market opened after the New Year holiday.
Tesla, once the global EV sales leader, has seen its market share in Europe and China eroded by the rise of Chinese competitors. China’s BYD, which delivered 2.26 million EVs in 2025, has now taken the top global EV sales spot. Tesla is also facing more competition in the United States — although notably not from Chinese automakers which are barred from selling vehicles in the country.
But it was the elimination of the $7,500 U.S. federal tax incentive that seems to have delivered the biggest blow in the fourth quarter. Tesla sold a record-breaking 497,099 vehicles in the third quarter — a 29% increase from previous quarter — as consumers raced to buy EVs before the federal EV tax credit disappeared. Since then, sales have retreated in spite of efforts to woo buyers.
Tesla’s declining sales comes as CEO Elon Musk tries to pivot the company away from the business of making and selling EVs and towards AI and robotics. Musk’s pitch is there is money to be made in “sustainable abundance,” a catchphrase used throughout the company’s recent Master Plan IV that describes an ecosystem of sustainable products, from transport to energy generation, battery storage and robotics.
And yet, the bulk of Tesla’s income comes from its EV business. For instance, Tesla generated $28 billion in revenue in the third quarter, of which $21.2 billion came from selling EVs.
Unsettling tariffs, fluctuating markets, and shifting public opinion have sent the all-electric automotive segment into tumult. Not only that, but the EV tax credit of $7,500 ended on Sept. 30. In the run up to the tax incentive expiration, Kelley Blue Book estimates that sales volume in the U.S. hit an all-time high in Q3 with 438,487 units sold.
Despite that surge, it’s been rocky. This year alone, several EVs were discontinued in the U.S., like the Acura ZDX, Genesis Electrified G80, and Nissan Ariya. And some models didn’t even make it to the market, like Volkswagen’s ID.7 and the Ram 1500 EV. Ford switched up its EV strategy, swapping out the all-electric F-150 Lightning for an extended-range EV with a gas generator.
On December 15, Cox Automotive reported that year-to-date EV sales remain 2.1 above last year’s despite the fact that the EV share of total sales was just 5.4 percent in November. That’s the lowest since April 2022 and down from 5.8 percent in October, Cox says.
In spite of all this turbulence, three American companies—Slate Auto, Scout Motors (which, to be fair, is a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group), and Telo Trucks—are standing strong in the melee, advancing their plans with key strategies and cautious optimism. Here’s how they’re handling the uncertainty going into 2026.
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Slate is focusing on simplicity
Bursting onto the scene from stealth mode in April, Slate has received more than 100,000 reservations for its bare-bones, customizable all-electric vehicles. Fifty bucks secured each reservation a place in line as Slate opens for orders in the middle of 2026, with delivery by the end of next year. Slate set up its manufacturing plant in the Midwest automotive corridor in Warsaw, Indiana, ensuring proximity to its suppliers and reducing shipping costs.
Staying flexible, says CEO Chris Barman, is key. It helps that Slate’s truck is a single configuration. By offering a truck with unpainted gray composite body panels, Slate eliminated paint shops and metal stamping from its process, which can eat up a huge chunk of resources. Owners can choose to personalize their trucks with vinyl wraps, or they can leave them blank; they can even choose an SUV conversion kit. A Slate vehicle has under 700 parts, compared to a typical truck of that size that might have 3,000 or more. The simplicity, Slate believes, will serve it well by staying fleet footed.
“Slate’s price and marketing strategy was always to deliver a high-value product at an affordable price,” says the company’s head of public relations and communications Jeff Jablansky.
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The Volkswagen ID. Buzz, which as far as I can tell is the only vehicle on the American market that counts as a fully electric consumer minivan, is being paused, according to a Friday report from Carscoops. A representative of the company told that site, “Following a careful assessment of current EV market conditions, we have made the strategic decision not to move forward with [model year 2026] ID. Buzz production for the U.S. market.”
The company told Carscoops that rumors spreading through dealerships about the car being completely axed are wrong, and that the company “gave dealers this direction: The ID. Buzz continues to serve as an important halo product for the Volkswagen brand, and safeguarding its market presence remains a top priority.” VW also mentioned some kind of “transition” to a 2027 model.
In spite of this being the official line from its parent company, a car getting completely taken out of production for the U.S. market in 2026 is probably not a great sign. If I were a company killing a product, and I didn’t want the public to have a big tantrum about it, I might claim to be pausing it, and then quietly announce that actually it’s gone forever a little later when the story will get less attention.
Despite being probably the most interesting car on U.S. roads right now, the ID. Buzz has no niche to slot into. It’s relatively compact, with dual sliding doors, and three rows of seats. As a minivan and an EV, it theoretically has practical applications as a family car that costs very little to run over the long term.
But none of these considerations trump material reality for most people with kids. At-home EV charging in the U.S. is still pretty rare unless one deliberately installs it. Densely populated urban areas have chargers all over the place, but the kinds of suburban homes where people with kids live still tend not to be hospitable to the EV life.
But the price stands to reason, because the ID. Buzz only makes sense as a luxury splurge for well-heeled people interested in the novelty and nostalgic look. And that’s a shame.
Three years ago, when hype for the ID. Buzz was at its peak, Jill Lepore profiled it for The New Yorker, noting the difference between the new VW minivan and its predecessor, technically called the Volkswagen Type 2, but better known as the Minibus. She found it a bit gadget-heavy.
“The Buzz, in the way of new E.V.s, is more swoosh than boing, less a machine you operate—pulling levers, cranking wheels, pumping brakes—than a computer you ride around in while its screen flashes officious little reminders at you. This is what new cars do, what they are. It’s not what old cars did, or what they were.”
Is this the end, or just a little break? Dark clouds are forming over the U.S. economy, but seem to be dissipating, and the politics around EVs in the U.S. range from iffy to overtly hostile, but charging infrastructure is expanding anyway. Volkswagen, which is currently cutting production and exploring AI, probably isn’t being coy here: I doubt the company knows what will happen next with the ID. Buzz in the U.S. But if it comes back in 2027, it would be nice to see the next version take more cues from its humble, practical ancestor.
A fast charging EV startup is filing for bankruptcy protection amid broader disruption across the electric vehicle industry. San Francisco-based Ample filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week, citing a “deteriorating commercial and capital environment,” regulatory delays, and liquidity challenges, according to a filing.
Although the broader political and economic environment in the U.S. has certainly proven difficult for the EV industry, other failed battery swapping concepts hint there may be other factors at play in Ample’s demise, Electrek reported.
Ample was founded in 2014 with a goal of “solving slow charging times and infrastructure incompatibility” for commercial EV fleets such as those in logistics, ride-hailing, and delivery, the filing states. To-date, Ample has raised more than $330 million across five rounds of funding to finance research and development and deployment. Rather than tackling fast charging, its strategy involved developing “fully autonomous modular battery swapping,” capable of delivering a fully charged battery in just five minutes. The technology requires purpose-built “Ample stations” that look a little like carwashes. A car is guided into the bay and elevated on a platform. A robot then identifies the location of a car’s battery module, removes it, and replaces it with a charged module, Canary Media reported.
The company also boasts partnerships with Uber, Mitsubishi, and Stellantis, and notes it has deployed its technology—or is pursuing deployment—in San Francisco, Madrid and Tokyo. Even so, it ran up against funding issues.
In its filing, Ample attributed its bankruptcy to macroeconomic and industry headwinds, such as “severe supply chain disruptions,” “contraction in both public and private investment in renewable energy” and the “reduction, delay, or redirection of government incentives intended to accelerate EV adoption.” The filing notes that regulatory and permitting delays slowed its launch in international markets, after which access to capital foiled its scaling efforts.
The company eliminated all but two full-time, non-executive employees after formerly employing about 200.
Ample did not respond to Inc.’s request for comment.
Rivian is putting AI in the driver’s seat. At an event on Thursday, the Palo Alto-based electric vehicle company unveiled a new AI assistant feature and teased details about the expanded self-driving tech it’s developing. Rivian’s AI-powered Rivian Assistant, which responds to the phrase “Hey Rivian” or can be activated via a button on the steering wheel, will be integrated with Google Calendar so it can show drivers their schedule, change a meeting time, and relay information to others.
“The assistant has memory, has context, it remembers the full story,” Wassym Bensaid, the company’s chief software officer, said during the event, after a live demonstration. “Who you are talking to, where you are going, and what you just searched for, and then it puts everything into a perfect message.” With these features, he added, Rivian will deliver an “AI-defined vehicle.”
The company also announced its forthcoming autonomous driving capabilities, which involve scenarios in which the driver can have their hands off the wheel but need to watch the road ahead, and eventually situations in which the driver can have their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road. Coming down the pike next year is point-to-point travel, “in which the vehicle can drive address-to-address,” said Rivian founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe. “What that means is that you can get into the vehicle at your house, plug in the address to where you’re going, and the vehicle will completely drive you there.” When that happens, your hands can be off the wheel but you still need to be watching the road.
After that, he said, comes “eyes-off [driving], meaning you can navigate point-to-point with your hands off the wheel, but importantly, your eyes off the road. This gives you your time back. You can be on your phone, or reading a book—no longer needing to be actively involved in the operation of the vehicle.”
Rivian’s forthcoming R2 vehicle (pictured below) is expected to cost around $45,000 when it goes on sale next year, making it more affordable than the company’s R1T truck and R1S SUV. Both of those vehicles start at north of $70,000.
Scaringe also said that after the hands-off and eyes-off travel comes something more ambitious: an even greater level of autonomy approaching that of true self-driving vehicles, like in the ballpark of what Waymo already offers. “The next major step will be personal Level Four,” he said. “With this, the vehicle will operate entirely on its own. This means it can drop the kids off at school, it can pick you up at the airport.” Eventually, he said, “this also enables us to pursue opportunities in the ride-share space.”
Scaringe also said that the quantity of roads in North America that existing Rivian second-gen vehicles can drive in hands-off mode will expand after an over-the-air update. That will allow Rivians to handle over 3.5 million miles of roads in hands-off mode, he said.
Tesla’s record sales quarter has offered the company a reprieve after a terrible start to 2025. But CEO Elon Musk is focused on building a “robot army” and making good on his years-long, unfulfilled promise of self-driving cars — tasks he needs to accomplish if he is to unlock the full value of the $1 trillion compensation package that Tesla wants to award him.
The tension between Tesla’s current automotive-driven business and the AI-centric one that Musk is aiming for has never been more clear.
Tesla delivered a record number of vehicles in the third quarter of 2025, thanks in large part to a rush of customers in the United States who took advantage of the expiring federal EV tax credit. But that record quarter did not lead to greater earnings. In fact, Tesla’s third-quarter profit was still 37% lower than it was in the same quarter last year.
Tesla shipped 497,099 cars in the third quarter, which generated $21.2 billion in automotive revenue — the company’s best revenue figure in more than a year. But Tesla only pulled in a profit of $1.4 billion, up just $200 million from the second quarter of this year, according to a shareholder letter released Wednesday. The record quarter came after an abysmal start to the year for Tesla, which saw sales drop mightily in part because of Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration.
The company explained in the letter that a big increase in operating expenses — 50% higher compared to the third quarter last year — was one of the culprits. That operating expense bump was thanks to spending on AI and other R&D projects, as well as “restructuring” charges of nearly $240 million. Tesla didn’t explain what those restructuring charges were for, but it’s possibly related to the recent decision to shut down the company’s six-year-old Dojo supercomputer project.
Tesla cited tariffs as another drag on profits this past quarter, meaning Musk spent around $300 million to help elect a president who has hurt the company’s business. Tesla’s chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, said on a conference call Wednesday the tariff hit was about $400 million.
“We’re at a critical inflection point for Tesla and our strategy going forward as we bring AI into the real world,” Musk said on the call. Tesla is at the “beginning of scaling, quite massively, Full Self-Driving and Robotaxi, and fundamentally changing the nature of transport,” he said.
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All of this will put even more pressure on the company’s final quarter of the year.
Tesla already needs another record quarter (and then some) if it wants to simply match the number of cars it shipped in 2024 or 2023. The company could get some help from the new slightly cheaper stripped-down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y EVs. But even in that best-case scenario, Tesla is way off the path of 50% year-over-year growth that it once promised to investors and shareholders.
But Musk has spent the last few years trying to get shareholders, investors, employees, and everyone else to look beyond the company’s core business of making and selling cars. He’s bet the future of Tesla on being able to create a vast network of self-driving vehicles that he thinks can challenge Uber. And he thinks the humanoid robot, Optimus, will become the best-selling product ever.
Tesla offered little new info on those programs in Wednesday’s letter. Musk said on the conference call that Tesla may start building the third version of Optimus in the first quarter of 2026. He had once promised to build thousands of the robots by the end of this year, but as The Information has reported, Tesla has run into problems in early production with Optimus.
“Bringing Optimus to market is an incredibly difficult task, to be clear. It’s not like some walk in the park,” Musk said.
But Musk continued Tesla’s gauzy, unspecific claims about how much Optimus will change the world. “You can actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care,” he said. “Optimus will be an incredible surgeon.”
The increased focus on AI, robotics, and self-driving cars (including starting production of the two-seater “Cybercab”) will also cost Tesla more next year. Taneja said capital expenditures will increase “substantially” in 2026 thanks to those projects. He also said Tesla has had to increase employee-related spending to stay competitive in the ongoing AI talent war.
Tesla’s third-quarter results come amid the backdrop of the company’s proposal to hand $1 trillion worth of shares to Musk. That plan is up for a vote at the Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in a few weeks. The company — and Musk — are campaigning hard. While advisor groups like ISS and Glass Lewis are recommending against the pay package, it’s most likely going to pass given the overwhelming support from shareholders on previous efforts.
On Wednesday’s call, he reiterated his claim that he cares more about the voting control the compensation package would afford him than the money.
“I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no friggin’ clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists,” Musk said.
This story has been updated with new information from Tesla’s third-quarter conference call.
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (aka PHEVs) are a popular choice among those who want to reduce their carbon footprint but are not yet ready to make the full commitment to all-electric vehicles.
But a previous assumption by regulators like the European Union that PHEVs emit 75% less carbon than gasoline and diesel-dependent cars is actually false, according to researchers from Brussels-based non-profit Transport & Environment who studied hundreds of thousands of cars registered in Europe between 2021 and 2023.
In a new study published on Thursday, the researchers claim that plug-in hybrids actually only emit 19% less than cars with internal combustion engines.
“I think it’s quite a scandal to have this gap between real world and official data,” one of the co-authors of the study, Yoann Gimbert, told Gizmodo.
That gap has also been widening over the years. In 2021, PHEVs actually emitted 3.5 times the official emissions estimates. By 2023, that number was nearly five times.
There are several reasons why this could be the case, according to Gimbert.
The first is that plug-in hybrid owners, at least Europeans, might not be using the cars in their intended way. Both plug-ins and standard hybrids rely on both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. But, unlike standard hybrids, plug-in hybrids have a larger battery. As the name suggests, this allows them to be plugged in to charge externally and to drive some distances while relying entirely on the electric motor.
Gimbert said that European drivers might not be incentivized to drive it fully in electric mode. This could be due to things like a lack of fast charging capability or relatively lower power of the electric motor, he says. This gap is shown in the data as well when you look at something called “the utility factor,” which is the ratio of miles that a car travels in electric mode over the total travel distance. It’s used by EU estimates as well.
Official EU estimates had the utility factor of PHEVs penciled in at over 84%, but the researchers found that it was much lower at just 27%.
And even with the utility factor completely accounted for, the real-life to estimate gap still exists. That’s because plug-in hybrids are never fully electric, Gimbert said.
Even in electric mode, the car continues to rely partially on hybrid mode. That is, the researchers found that PHEVs are not designed to operate fully in electric mode: the internal combustion engine still provides significant additional power and burns fossil fuels for at least one-third of the way when driving in electric mode. The engine especially assists the electric motor while accelerating, driving at higher speeds, or going uphill.
“It’s actually 68 grams of CO2 per kilometer in electric mode, instead of being zero emission,” Gimbert said. The number is nine times higher than the 8 grams per kilometer estimated by the EU’s methodology. “That’s something that is often not really expected by consumers,” he added.
“Frequent reliance on the combustion engine means many PHEVs emissions are no better than many conventional hybrids or petrol cars,” the researchers concluded.
The EU has announced some corrections to its measure of the utility factor, and is getting ready to review its carbon emissions standards for cars completely next year. Researchers say that the corrections are a good start, but real-world emissions will still be 18% higher than official figures without a full review of the standards.
But the European automotive industry stands against it. German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is lobbying to cancel the corrections, keep the current methodology, and roll back a controversial ban on new combustion engine cars in the EU by 2035, Gimbert said.
According to the researchers, the underestimation of carbon emissions from plug-in hybrids has helped major automakers like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW to avoid roughly €5 billion (a little under $6 billion) in fines between 2021 and 2023. The EU has strict fleet-average carbon emissions targets for automakers.
If the auto industry’s lobbying efforts succeed, the researchers claim it can result in a 64% increase in the carbon emitted by 2050 under current EU regulations.
“PHEVs are not fitted for 100% emission reduction by 2035,” Gimbert said.
Across the pond, Americans are growing less interested in electric vehicles than their European counterparts as EV prices continue to soar high in the U.S., especially in the absence of the electric vehicle tax credit. The American Automobile Association thinks consumers might show more interest in hybrids and plug-in hybrids as electric vehicle demand continues to wane. But according to preliminary data from earlier this year, while demand for hybrid cars is soaring, plug-in hybrid demand, at least for now, is pretty much stagnant.
The sinking demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is starting to take a hit on car manufacturers. In recent years, carmakers have made major investments, betting on electric cars becoming more mainstream, as well as to meet government regulations, but recent shifts in policy and politics have now made those bets costly.
General Motors is the latest company to show how this change is hitting its bottom line. The company said today, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it would take a $1.6 billion hit on its quarterly earnings ending Sept. 30. The charge stems mostly from a drop in the value of its plants and equipment tied to its EV operations along with $400 million in fees and settlements related to canceling supplier contracts associated with EV investments.
“Following recent U.S. Government policy changes, including the termination of certain consumer tax incentives for EV purchases and the reduction in the stringency of emissions regulations, we expect the adoption rate of EVs to slow,” the company said.
U.S. demand for EVs had already started to drop early last year, but it’s now expected to really crater under President Donald Trump’s policies targeting the market. The biggest blow is the end of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which officially expired on Sept. 30. That incentive was scrapped under the administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But the loss of subsidies isn’t the industry’s only hurdle. Earlier this year, Trump rolled back federal emissions standards and stripped states of the ability to set their own stricter rules. That move wiped out California and other states’ requirements that automakers sell more zero-emission vehicles.
The EV industry also faces cultural and consumer challenges. Elon Musk’s growing unpopularity has turned off some buyers, potentially dragging down demand not only for Teslas but for EVs in general.
GM said a “reassessment of our E.V. capacity and manufacturing footprint” is ongoing and could lead to even more costs in the future.
GM isn’t the only company bracing for an EV slowdown. Car companies like Nissan, Honda, and Ford are shifting their strategies, delaying launches and quietly shifting money back into internal combustion vehicles.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if EV sales in the US go down to 5%,” Farley told the audience, according to Bloomberg. EVs currently account for nearly 10% of the broader domestic market.
For his part, Farley thinks the industry should move toward “partial electrification” with more hybrid options. In his view, fully electric models make the most sense as commuter vehicles with short drives, accounting for only about 5% to 7% of the market. He said Ford is already looking to retool its battery and EV plants to include hybrid production.
Ferrari has unveiled the technology which will power its hotly-anticipated first electric car, the Elettrica, as the 78-year-old luxury Italian sportscar maker looks to add battery power to its hybrid and petrol-engine models.
In a closely-guarded event at its Maranello headquarters, a Ferrari-red cover was pulled back on a stage to reveal the Elettrica’s production-ready chassis: a car base, with battery pack and electric motor, though with no wheels or outer shell.
The completed car, which Ferrari is expected to present next year at a global premiere, will have a top speed of 310 kilometres per hour (193 miles) – slightly slower than most of its engined models and a range of at least 530 km.
The four-door, four-plus seat car will have a specially-designed sound system to amplify actual vibrations from its powertrain to create a distinctly electric Ferrari sound, rather than just faking engine noise.
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The unveiling of the inner workings of Ferrari’s maiden electric car marks a milestone for the auto industry that is grappling more widely with a shift from the internal combustion engine to the electric battery.
“Today… is an historic day for us. We all have goosebumps,” said CEO Benedetto Vigna, who said the electric car would complement, not replace, the company’s existing models. “The EV is an addition, not a transition.”
Ferrari needs an EV for the next generation of rich kids
Like other high-performance brands, Ferrari has been cautious about electrification. Reuters reported in June that it had delayed a second EV model until 2028 because of a lack of demand. Rival Lamborghini, part of Volkswagen, has delayed its first EV until 2029, saying the market is not ready.
Luxury automaker Porsche forged ahead with EVs, but has been caught between a crowded Chinese market and Western buyers who still want Porsche’s loud combustion engines. Delays to its EV roll-out have hit parent Volkswagen.
Ferrari is aiming to have 20 percent of its model line-up fully-electric by 2030, its long-term business plan unveiled on Thursday shows. That is below the 40 percent target it set for 2030 in its business plan three years ago.
Ferrari is under less pressure than mainstream automakers to go electric ahead of a 2035 European Union ban on new fossil-fuel car sales, as it can sell combustion-engine models running on higher-cost synthetic e-fuels its customers can afford.
But wealthy younger buyers are keen to go electric.
“If you think about the next generation of kids, to remain relevant, maybe Ferrari needs an electric line-up that represents the pinnacle of its type,” former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer told Reuters.
Ferrari needs “an EV that is more than an EV”
The Ferrari Elettrica, expected to cost at least 500,000 euros ($580,400), Reuters reported last year, comes almost two decades after the first hybrid technology appeared in its Formula One cars in 2009. Ferrari began selling hybrid models in 2019.
The Elettrica’s chassis and body will be made from 75 percent recycled aluminium and the battery is fully integrated into the floor to help lower its centre of gravity, which will help with performance and speed. It will have a fast-charging battery.
Industry experts said the challenge for brands like Ferrari was how to create something more than just a high-spec version of a premium EV, which already has instant acceleration.
The upcoming Tesla Roadster, for example, is advertised with a top speed of more than 250 mph.
Ferrari’s cars, which start with a price tag of more than 200,000 euros, need to offer more.
“If Ferrari is going to be successful, it has to bring to the market an EV that is more than an EV,” Palmer said. “(It) is not offering you acceleration, it’s not offering you top speeds because you can buy that in a 30,000 euro BYD.”
Phil Dunne, a managing director at consultancy Grant Thornton Stax, said demand was yet to catch up, but Ferrari’s strength would be offering its large base of wealthy consumers the same experience and feeling its combustion-engine models do today.
“If their customers want to be environmentally friendly today, they can have a Tesla, they can have some other EV,” Dunne said. “Teslas can give you an amazing feeling of power, but it doesn’t feel anything like a Ferrari.”
($1 = 0.8615 euros)
Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari in Maranello; Editing by Nick Carey, Adam Jourdan and Jane Merriman.
Lucid Motors delivered a record 4,078 vehicles in the third quarter, likely buoyed by a combination of more Gravity SUVs hitting the road and a rush of customers taking advantage of the expiring federal EV tax credit.
The Saudi-owned luxury EV startup is still way off the projections it used to go public in 2021 — a transaction that netted it $4 billion. But Lucid Motors has seen deliveries steadily climb over the last two years. The third-quarter delivery figures announced Monday mark the seventh consecutive quarter that Lucid Motors has seen sales increase.
Lucid Motors was not alone in seeing a big third-quarter bump in EV sales. Tesla recorded its best quarter in company history, and legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors saw big increases as well. Even Rivian, which is forecasting a worse overall year for total EV deliveries than 2024 or 2023, saw a boost in the third quarter.
Like Rivian, only customers who leased Lucid Motors vehicles were eligible for the federal EV tax credit, meaning the impact of its expiration is hard to quantify. It’s also unclear how many Gravity SUVs were delivered compared to the company’s first model, the Air sedan. Lucid Motors will reveal full financial results for the quarter on November 5.
Lucid Motors has struggled to generate interest for its luxury EVs since going public in 2021, with former CEO Peter Rawlinson openly admitting the company needed to beef up its marketing operations. Earlier this year, the company announced it signed actor Timothée Chalamet to be its first “global ambassador.” The company has also benefited from rental sales and company leases in some quarters, as TechCrunch previously reported.
The company is also increasingly looking to Saudi Arabia — which owns around 60% of the publicly traded company through its sovereign wealth fund — as a market for its vehicles. On Monday, Lucid Motors said it built more than 1,000 vehicles specifically for the Saudi market. (The company currently operates an assembly facility in the Kingdom and plans to open a full-fledged factory there.)
Lucid has also locked in future demand from an unlikely customer: Uber.
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Uber announced last month plans to buy at least 20,000 Gravity SUVs over the next six years and use them as robotaxis on its network. For that deal, Lucid Motors will work to integrate autonomous vehicle company Nuro’s technology into the vehicles.
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.
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.
Michigan’s electric vehicle industry is praising the Biden administration for its latest investments in EV manufacturing and innovation.
About $650 million will go toward retooling auto plants in Lansing and Marysville to produce newer EV models. The funding is part of the Inflation Reduction Act, going to Michigan and seven other states to make more EVs.
Sophia Schuster, policy principal for the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, said the money should help the state fight “brain drain.” She noted Michigan is 49th in the U.S. in population growth since 1990.
“I think it’s exciting to show that investments like these not only encourage people to stay and come in (to) Michigan but that there is a lot of potential for the clean energy workforce,” Schuster explained. “Particularly in the auto manufacturing space.”
In Michigan, the plans are expected to retain more than 1,000 jobs and create a few dozen new ones. Billions of dollars have already been spent during the Biden administration to reduce vehicle emissions and combat climate change. Transportation is the top source of emissions in the U.S.
Jane McCurry, executive director of the trade group Clean Fuels Michigan, said it is an exciting time to be in the renewable energy industry. Public and private dollars are also pouring into EV chargers, zero-emission school buses, and other alternative mobility sources. She argued it will ultimately give consumers more choices.
“No matter what your choice is, you know that you can fuel it in your community, on your commute, on your way up north for vacation,” McCurry emphasized. “That is where public dollars come in, is making sure that people can get everywhere they need and want to go within Michigan in a safe, efficient, effective, enjoyable way.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has set a statewide goal of building 100,000 EV chargers in the state by 2030, enough to support 2 million vehicles.
Kia’s infotainment software is zippy and responsive, befitting the EV9’s modern displays. Wireless CarPlay and Android Auto support also makes it easy to connect your phone without fiddling for cables. The EV9 has a large wireless charging pad that should fit my iPhone 15 Pro Max just fine, and there’s enough room to squeeze in even bigger phones. It was a bit finicky to find the right wireless charging zone, so much so it made me wish Kia had implemented MagSafe or the newer Qi2 standard to keep my phone in place. I’d recommend always having a USB-C cable handy to take advantage of the EV9’s fast charging port.
I was blown away by the GT-Line EV9’s 14-speaker Meridian system, which has just enough low-end oomph (thanks to an open-air subwoofer) for music and precise clarity for voices while listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Meridian says its DSP (digital sound processing) optimizes sound for the EV9’s cabin, and it also upmixes audio for 5.1 surround sound (or the equivalent with many more speakers).
The EV9 is chock full of ambient lighting at night. (Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget)
The company’s Intelli-Q Equalization also transforms audio as the EV9’s in-cabin noise changes — instead of just raising or lowering the volume, it can emphasize specific frequency ranges to cover something like tire noise. In my testing, the Meridian system sounded great during both noisy highway driving and relaxed local trips. I definitely noticed when the Intelli-Q software kicked in, but it wasn’t unbearable like older cars that would just get louder on the highway. (You can also adjust the level of automatic sound equalization, and audio purists can disable it entirely.)
The EV9’s second row captain’s chairs are just as comfortable as the front seats, but they have cushioned headrests instead of flexible mesh. As much as I like the second row, though, my family would likely be better off with the 7-seat arrangement from Light or Wind EV9 models. Those rely on a bench seat instead of two captain’s chairs, which my wife prefers when she needs to ride beside my two-year old.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The EV9’s third row seats are comfortable as well, but as in many three-row SUVs, most adults won’t have much legroom to work with. I was able to squeeze in my 5-foot 8-inch frame, but I wouldn’t call the experience ideal. Anyone riding in the EV9’s last row will likely have to bargain with the person in front of them for some leg space. It’s also worth noting that the second row is immovable with child seats, since they lock seat belts down. So be sure to have the second row at a comfortable spot for rear passengers before hooking up child seats.
Unfortunately, the US version of the EV9 won’t have second-row seats that can swivel 180-degrees to face the third row, because they don’t meet federal safety standards. That feature, which was a major part of Kia’s initial EV9 publicity blitz, will be available in South Korea and other countries.
The EV9’s trunk space with the third row of seats folded down. (Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget)
For cargo, the EV9 sports 20.2 cubic feet behind its third row seats, and a more usable 43.5 cubic feet of storage when the third row is folded flat. If you push down the second row seats as well , you can fit in up to 81.7 cubic feet of gear. There’s a front trunk, or frunk, underneath the hood too, but it’s not as useful as other EVs. It can hold 3.2 cubic feet in the rear-wheel EV9, and an even more minuscule 1.8 cubic feet in the all-wheel drive models. In both cases, you have just enough room to hold Kia’s level 1 charging cable and a few other small items.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Driving
On the road, the EV9 feels like a paradox. Similar to Rivian’s R1S, it’s a large SUV that’s surprisingly quick and nimble for its size. I was able to effortlessly glide through local traffic, launch quickly from stoplights and pass cars on the highway with ease. It wasn’t as easy to maneuver as my 2019 Volvo XC90, but I was still impressed since the EV9 is a far boxier car.
After visiting my parent’s home, a 45-mile highway trip each way, the EV9 dropped from 80 percent charge to 52 percent. The AC was blasting heavily to combat Georgia’s heat and humidity, so that range felt about right. Just be aware that an EV’s estimated mileage can easily change depending on AC usage, external temperatures and how fast you’re driving.
My wife, who hasn’t spent much time with EVs, noted that she didn’t feel like she was actually driving while behind the wheel of the EV9. On well-paved roads, it rides smoothly without much discernible road noise. My wife took a while to adjust to the EV9’s touchy brakes — it’s easy to slam the vehicle to a halt — but that’s something I’ve noticed on many EVs. You can use the EV9’s paddle shifters to adjust regenerative braking, which puts a bit of power back into the battery and doesn’t use the car’s traditional brake pads.
In its most extreme form, the EV9’s regenerative braking allows for one-pedal driving, which allows you to completely stop the car simply by lifting your foot off of the accelerator. It’s an odd feature to get used if you’ve only ever driven gas cars, but it’s one of those things that EV owners learn to love quickly.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
It would be nice to see Kia offer adaptive suspension on the EV9 eventually, since you can feel the impact of rough roads and large bumps far too easily. For a car that scales up to near $80,000 — like our GT-line review unit — smarter and smoother suspension should at least be an option. Without it, the EV9 doesn’t feel nearly as luxurious as the Rivian R1S as driving conditions get worse.
I didn’t have much trouble parking the EV9 in most lots, but backing out of spaces could sometimes be painful. That was particularly true in locations designed for smaller cars–I’m looking at you, Trader Joe’s. It took me six bouts of reversing and precarious turning to make it out of one spot at my local Regal Cinema. Even then, I could only leave in one direction, thanks to a slew of other large cars (including a particularly ugly Cybertruck) sitting around me.
Thankfully, the EV9’s high-resolution cameras, proximity sensors and 360-degree overhead camera (on the GT Line only) helped me get out of tight spots. But even with those assists, it was still more annoying than the chunky Pacifica hybrid minivan I used to own.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Charging
The Kia EV9 supports 210 kilowatt fast charging, and it’s compatible with both 400- and 800-volt chargers. Using the most powerful 800V hardware (which admittedly isn’t always easy to find), the EV9 can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in 24 minutes. Using a local Electrify America charger, which clocked in at 150kW, the EV9 went from 21 percent of battery to 90 percent in 39 minutes.
I don’t have a Level 2 charger at home, which could completely juice up the EV9 in six to seven hours, but I was able to plug it into a Level 1 charger using a standard 120V outlet overnight. That typically added an additional 10 to 15 percent of charge after eight to 10 hours. This level of charging may not be feasible for the long term, but it’s helpful if you don’t have the ability to add a Level 2 system at home, or if you’re traveling and need to add a bit more juice to reach the next fast charger.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Pricing and the competition
The Kia EV9 starts at $54,900 (not including destination charges) for the “Light” model, which includes rear-wheel drive, 215 horsepower and 230 miles of range. Leasing options start at $487 a month on average, with $2,000 due at signing for a 36-month term. These numbers could also change depending on the offers Kia makes available, as well as what local dealers are willing to charge.
The “Light Long Range” model gets you a bigger battery with 304 miles of range for $59,200 and a slightly weaker 201hp motor. Higher-end trims are nearly twice as fast with 379hp all-wheel drive motors. That includes the $63,900 “Wind” EV9 and the $69,900 “Land” model, both of which have 280 miles of range.
At the top end, there’s the flagship GT-Line model we reviewed, which starts at $73,900. It has a bit less range (270 miles) than mid-range choices, but it also has just about every feature Kia could throw in, including a 12-inch heads-up display on the windshield, 21-inch alloy wheels and the 14-speaker Meridien sound system.
While its price escalates quickly, the EV9 is still a better deal than every other three-row EV on the market. The Rivian R1S starts at $75,900, and it currently leases for $699 a month with at least $8,500 in signing fees. The aging Tesla Model X starts at $77,990. Those cars are also both significantly faster than the EV9, and they offer better ride options like adaptive suspension.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Wrap-up
After eagerly awaiting the perfect family EV for years – following my time with the Rav4 hybrid, Sienna hybrid and the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid – I’m surprised it’s coming from Kia and not a more established brand like Toyota. The EV9 is spacious, more affordable than other EVs and it drives (mostly) like a dream. It charges quickly, and most models have more than enough range to deal with the occasional road trip. Simply put, the Kia EV9 is everything I’ve been looking for in a three-row family EV.
Fisker is just a few days into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the fight over its assets is already charged, with one lawyer claiming the startup has been liquidating assets “outside the court’s supervision.”
At issue is the relationship between Fisker and its largest secured lender, Heights Capital Management, an affiliate of financial services company Susquehanna International Group. Heights loaned Fisker more than $500 million in 2023 (with the option to convert that debt to stock in the startup) at a time when the company’s financial distress was looming behind the scenes.
That funding was not originally secured by any assets. That changed after Fisker breached one of the covenants when it failed to file its third-quarter financial statements on time in late 2023. In exchange for waiving that breach, Fisker agreed to give Heights first-priority on all of its current and future assets, giving Heights considerable leverage. Heights not only gained pole position to determine what happens to the assets in the Chapter 11 proceedings, but also gave them the chance to tap a preferred restructuring officer to oversee the company’s slow descent into bankruptcy.
Alex Lees, a lawyer from the firm Milbank who represents a group of unsecured creditors owed more than $600 million, said in the proceeding’s first hearing on Friday in Delaware Bankruptcy Court that it took “too long” to get to this point. He said Fisker’s tardy regulatory filing was a “minor technical default” that somehow led to the startup “basically hand[ing] the whole business over to Heights.”
“We believe this was a terrible deal for [Fisker] and its creditors,” Lees said at the hearing. “The right thing to do would have been to file for bankruptcy months ago.” In the meantime, he said, Fisker has been “liquidating outside the court’s supervision” for the benefit of Heights in what he said amounts to “suspect activity.” Fisker has spent the run-up to the bankruptcy filing slashing prices and selling off vehicles.
Scott Greissman, a lawyer representing the investment arm of Heights, said Lees’ comments were “completely inappropriate, completely unsupported,” and derided them as “designed as sound bites” meant to be picked up by the media.
an”There may be a lot of disappointed creditors” in this case, Greissman said, “none more so than Heights.” He said Heights extended “an enormous amount of credit” to Fisker. He added later that even if Fisker is able to sell its entire remaining inventory — around 4,300 Ocean SUVs — such a sale “will maybe pay off a fraction of Heights’ secured debt,” which currently sits at more than $180 million.
Lawyers told the court Friday that they have an agreement in principle to sell those Ocean SUVs to an unnamed vehicle leasing company. But it’s not immediately clear what other assets Fisker could sell in order to provide returns for other creditors. The company has claimed to have between $500 million and $1 billion in assets, but the filings so far have only detailed manufacturing equipment, including 180 assembly robots, an entire underbody line, a paint shop and other specialized tools.
Lees was not alone in his concern over how Fisker wound up filing for bankruptcy. “I don’t know why it took this long,” Linda Richenderfer, a lawyer with the U.S. Trustee’s Office, said during the hearing. She also noted that she was still reviewing new filings late Thursday and in the hours before the hearing.
She also expressed “great concern” that the case could convert to a straight Chapter 7 liquidation following the sale of the Ocean inventory, leaving other creditors fighting for scraps.
Greissman said at one point that he agreed that Fisker “probably took more time” than needed to file for bankruptcy protection, and that some of these quarrels could have been “more easily resolved” if the case had started sooner. He even said he agrees with Richenderfer that “even with a fleet sale, Chapter 11 may not be sustainable.”
The parties will meet again at the next hearing on June 27.
Before he dismissed everyone, Judge Thomas Horan thanked all the parties involved for getting to the hearing “pretty cleanly” despite the rush of filings this week. He particularly called out the U.S. Trustee’s office for working under “really difficult circumstances” to “get their heads around” the case with “minimal controversy, in the scheme of things.”
“I imagine there are a few people who want to catch up on some sleep now,” he said with a smile, as he ended the hearing.
Two years ago, an employee at Fisker Inc. told me that the most pressing concern inside the EV startup was not whether its Ocean SUV would get built. Fisker was outsourcing the manufacturing of its first EV to highly respected automotive supplier Magna, after all. The startup’s November 2022 start-of-production target was aggressive, but not impossible for a company like Magna, which builds vehicles for the likes of BMW.
Instead, this person said, employees were increasingly worried that Fisker wouldn’t be ready to handle all the problems that come after a company puts a car on the road. They were worried the focus was all on building the car and not on the company.
The conversation stuck with me because Fisker founder and CEO Henrik Fisker had an automotive startup fail a decade ago for, arguably, this reason. That company, Fisker Automotive, got a hybrid sports car into the hands of a few thousand customers. But the company buckled soon after as it faced complaints about quality, the failure of its battery supplier, and a hurricane that literally sunk a ship full of vehicles.
The employee’s warning that the new Fisker was heading down a similar path was striking and ultimately prescient. Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week after spending only just one year shipping its SUV to customers around the world. In large part, its undoing is directly tied to its inability to address the worries that employee raised in 2022.
This person wasn’t alone. Dozens of others who worked at Fisker have echoed this sentiment to me in conversations since, nearly all of them on the condition of anonymity because they feared losing their jobs or retaliation from the company. Those conversations informed stories I reported on — the Ocean’s quality and service problems, Fisker’s internal chaos, and decisions from Henrik Fisker and his co-founder, wife, CFO and COO, Geeta Gupta-Fisker, that dragged the company down.
Most all of them told me about how the lack of preparedness ran deep and permeated almost every division of the company, as I’ve previously reported for TechCrunch and Bloomberg News.
The software powering the Ocean SUV was underbaked. It contributed to the delay of the launch of the SUV, and it even kneecapped the very first delivery in May 2023, which Fisker had to turn around and troubleshoot shortly after handing it over. A similar thing happened when the company made its first deliveries in the U.S. in June 2023, when one of its board members’ SUVs lost power shortly after taking delivery.
The company shipped far fewer Ocean SUVs than it originally projected. Even after it lowered its target for 2023 multiple times, it still struggled to hit its internal sales goals. Sales employees have recounted stories of calling potential customers repeatedly in hopes of selling vehicles because so few new leads were coming in. Others wound up pitching in to sell cars even if they worked in completely different departments.
Many customers who did take delivery of their Ocean ran into problems like sudden power loss, trouble with the braking system, glitchy key fobs, problematic door handles that could temporarily lock them in or out of the car, and buggy software. (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened four investigations into the Ocean.)
Fisker struggled with the quality of some of its suppliers, and employees have said it did not build out a proper buffer of spare parts. This put extra pressure on the people in charge of trying to fix the cars as they ran into problems, and ultimately led to the company plucking parts from not only Magna’s production line in Austria, but also from Henrik Fisker’s own car. (Fisker has denied these claims.)
This whole time, lower- and midlevel employees went to great lengths to do what they could to help out the slow-growing customer base. One owner told me an employee took a phone call on their personal cell phone while at a funeral. Other employees relayed stories of workers doing company business while at the hospital. Many worked long days, nights and weekends — to the point where at least one hourly employee has filed a prospective class action over this very issue.
The company itself admitted on multiple occasions that it did not have enough staff to handle the influx of customer service requests. This was another place where workers from other departments pitched in. Some are even still fielding customer calls today, despite having left Fisker weeks or months ago.
Fisker struggled at the mundane-yet-serious work of being a public company, too. It lost track of around $16 million in customer payments at one point, thanks to messy internal accounting practices. It suffered multiple delays in its required reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of those delays allowed one of the company’s largest lenders to eventually take the reins in the final months.
Despite all this, Fisker is still touting its speed to market as an accomplishment as it begins the bankruptcy process. “Fisker has made incredible progress since our founding, bringing the Ocean SUV to market twice as fast as expected in the auto industry,” a nameless spokesperson said in a press release about the Chapter 11 filing.
This ephemeral corporate representative goes on to say that Fisker “faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently.” While that is certainly true to an extent, there is otherwise no introspection about the myriad issues that got the company to this moment in time.
Perhaps that will surface in the Chapter 11 proceedings, where the company looks to settle its debts (of which it claims to owe between $100 million and $500 million) and offload or otherwise restructure its assets (totaling between $500 million and $1 billion).
What happens next will depend on how those proceedings go. Fisker always took an “asset-light” approach, likening itself to how Apple leveraged Foxconn to help build the iPhone into a global phenomenon. The problem with being asset-light is that it naturally means there is less to borrow against or sell when things break bad.
Magna has stopped production of the Ocean and expects a $400 million revenue loss this year as a result. It’s unclear how much progress Fisker made on its future products, the sub-$30,000 Pear EV and the Alaska pickup. The engineering firm that was co-developing these vehicles with Fisker recently sued the startup, calling the projects into question.
Fisker said in its press release that it will continue “reduced operations,” including “preserving customer programs, and compensating needed vendors on a go-forward basis.” In other words, it will continue to manage a bare-bones operation in case there is a willing buyer of the assets it’s putting up for sale in the Chapter 11 case.
A decade ago, the bankrupt Fisker Automotive did find a buyer. It ultimately morphed into a startup known as Karma Automotive, which is still nominally around today. There have been similar outcomes lately. Three other EV startups that recently filed for bankruptcy — Lordstown Motors, Arrival and Electric Last Mile Solutions — were able to sell off assets to peer companies in the space.
But the ultimate fate of this startup, and its assets, won’t change the fundamental problem: Fisker wasn’t ready to grapple with bringing a flawed car to market.
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Automakers reported auto sales for Q1 and, welp, turns out that pricing sure does matter if you want to sell EVs. Who would have thought? A recent survey by Edmunds comes to a similar conclusion (at least for American buyers), finding a big gap between what consumers want and what is actually available on the market.
Here’s the crux. According to the Edmunds survey, 47% say they are seeking an EV purchase below $40,000, and 22% are interested in EVs priced below the $30,000 threshold. Today, there are no new EVs priced below $30,000 and only four below the $40,000 mark. The average price of an EV in 2023 was $61,702, while all other vehicles stood at $47,450.
This mismatch of realities is squeezing automakers as they try to move inventory by slashing prices. This downward pressure has forced automakers like Ford to delay future EV launches and put more resources toward hybrids. Even Tesla, a bellwether in the EV world, fell well below analysts’ expectations with deliveries down 20% from Q4 2023. Meanwhile, EV upstart Rivianposted tepid results.
What’s the answer? Well, over at Tesla, it seems the solution is twofold: slash prices again and try to capture revenue through sales of its Full Self-Driving software that costs $12,000 and is currently being offered in a free one-month trial to all customers.
OK, folks, let’s jump into the rest of the news!
A little bird
Founders, investors, engineers, policy wonks and others tell us things. And we’re here to pass along the verifiable information that those little birds have shared with us.
This week, a little bird tipped us on the closure of Ghost Autonomy, which had raised upward of $220 million and recently partnered with OpenAI. A couple of calls, emails and a fresh posting on the company’s website confirmed the tip. About 100 people were affected.
As I noted in my article, Ghost has pivoted a few times since it was founded in 2017. When I asked founder and CEO John Hayes what happened, he said the company had completed a highway driving product and was moving in urban environments through what he described as “last-mile delivery.”
“Ultimately, the years required to bring the product to market could not be financed,” he wrote to me in an email.
Startup founders, listen up — a new fund just closed. Get your slide decks ready.
Maniv, the Israel and now NYC-based VC firm, raised a $140 million fund with plans to stick to its early-stage investment strategy of backing startups at the intersection between mobility, transportation and energy.
As I noted in my longer feature, the firm’s approach has evolved a bit by expanding geographically and diversifying its investor base. The firm has also largely stopped using the once trendy umbrella term “mobility” (often leaving it out of its original name Maniv Mobility) and has opted instead to talk about deep tech, decarbonization and digitization of the transportation sector.
Investors in the fund are no longer dominated by automakers and Tier 1 suppliers. Instead, Maniv has opened up to a broader swath of strategic and institutional financial investors, including BNP Paribas Personal Finance and the venture arms of Shell and Enterprise Mobility.
The Maniv III fund also includes return investors Valeo and Jaguar Land Rover venture arm InMotion Ventures. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Woven Capital, vehicle leasing company Arval, transportation infrastructure giant Ferrovial, the industrial manufacturing firm ITT Inc., fleet payments business WEX and an unnamed European insurance company also participated in the fund.
Other deals that got my attention …
Alsym Energy, a Massachusetts-based startup developing nonflammable battery chemistry, raised $78 million in a Series C round led by General Catalyst and Tata, the Indian conglomerate, with participation from Drads Capital, Thomvest and Thrive Capital.
Waymo and Uber expanded on an ongoing partnership that will affect Uber Eats’ customers in the metro Phoenix area. Now when folks order a burrito or a pizza or some other treat through Uber Eats, they may have their meals delivered by a Waymo vehicle. The tie-up will begin with select merchants in Chandler, Tempe and Mesa, including restaurants like Princess Pita, Filiberto’s and BoSa Donuts.
Electric vehicles, charging & batteries
Apple is laying off 614 employees in California after abandoning its electric car project. According to the WARN notice posted by the California EDD, most of the affected employees were working at buildings related to its canceled car project, while others were working at a facility for its next-generation screen development, Bloomberg reported.
Canoo finally reported its Q4 and full-year earnings. Tucked inside the regulatory filing is a nugget regarding the use of CEO Tony Aquila’s private jet — just one of many expenses that illustrates the gap between spending and revenue at the EV startup. Tl;dr: Canoo spent double its annual revenue on the CEO’s private jet in 2023.
Faraday Future narrowly avoided an eviction from its Los Angeles headquarters. The company reached an agreement with the owner of the building, Rexford Industrial, to stay at the facility as long as it meets a few conditions. If Faraday violates any of the terms, Rexford has the right to trigger a 48-hour demand for payment and can boot the startup if it doesn’t pay up. If Faraday Future makes its payments, it can stay in the building until September 2025 when the lease expires.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a third investigation into Fisker’s Ocean SUV, this time centered on problems getting the doors to open.
Tesla is reportedly abandoning its plan to build a lower-cost EV thought to cost around $25,000, according to Reuters, despite that vehicle’s status as a pivotal product for the company’s overall growth. Apparently, Tesla will instead focus on a planned robotaxi that is being built on the same small EV platform that was also supposed to power the lower-cost vehicle. This is where it gets a bit silly. Just hours after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Reuters was lying, he posted on X that the Tesla robotaxi would be revealed August 8. Go figure.
This week’s wheels
This week’s wheels is taking a one-week hiatus while I enjoy a bit of vacation time. But don’t worry, it’s back next week and I have a few vehicles lined up, including the Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 4Matic sedan, a Lexus LC500 hybrid and a Mercedes eSprinter. Plus, some e-bikes will soon be in the mix.
What vehicles — including the two-wheeled variety — are you interested in reading about? I’ll put them on my list.
