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new video loaded: The Web of Companies Owned by Elon Musk
By Kirsten Grind, Melanie Bencosme, James Surdam and Sean Havey
February 27, 2026
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Kirsten Grind, Melanie Bencosme, James Surdam and Sean Havey
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Tesla is apparently still insisting its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” labels are acceptable for the advanced driver assistance systems it offers on its vehicles. The automaker is suing the California DMV to reverse a ruling in December that the automaker had engaged in false advertising and could suspend its license to sell vehicles in the state.
As reported by CNBC, Tesla filed a complaint on Feb. 13 that the DMV ruling “wrongfully and baselessly labels Tesla a false advertiser for marketing its industry-leading advanced driver-assistance systems (‘ADAS’) under the brand names ‘Autopilot” and ‘Full-Self Driving Capability.’”
The automaker, prior to its suit, changed the official name of the system to “Full-Self Driving (Supervised)” but kept Autopilot as standard equipment on most models. That changed again in January when Autopilot disappeared from the equipment list and it was announced that beginning this month it would stop offering FSD (Supervised) as a standalone option, with Tesla instead turning the option into a subscription service that costs $99 per month.
The California DMV, according to CNBC, said Tesla would not incur a license suspension because it had changed its marketing by the following week. Still, the company insists in the complaint the Autopilot name is “not actually unambiguously false or counterfactual,” and that consumers would reasonably understand what the name meant, and that other courts understood that no Tesla sold to consumers with these ADAS systems was currently autonomous. Tesla insists it did not get its due process in the hearings.
The complaint was filed in California, Tesla said, because of the company’s significant presence in the state, the number of employees it has, and because the Model Y has been the best-selling car in California for the last three years.
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Mike Pearl
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Tesla is still on the hook for $243 million after a US judge rejected the EV maker’s bid to overturn a jury verdict from last year. On Friday, US District Judge Beth Bloom upheld the jury’s decision to hold Tesla partially responsible for a deadly crash that happened in 2019 and involved the self-driving Autopilot feature.
The judge added that there was enough evidence to support the jury’s verdict, which was delivered in August 2025 and ordered Tesla to pay millions in compensatory and punitive damages to the two victims in the case. Judge Bloom added that Tesla didn’t present any new arguments to dispute the decision.
While the case has been moving along recently, the incident dates back to several years ago when the driver of a Model S, George McGee, was using Tesla’s Autopilot feature while bending down to retrieve a dropped phone. The Model S then crashed into an SUV that was parked on a shoulder, where Naibel Benavides Leon and Dillon Angulo were standing aside. Benavides was killed in the crash, while Angulo was severely injured.
Tesla hasn’t publicly commented on Judge Bloom’s decision yet, but it won’t be a surprise to see the company appeal the latest ruling with a higher court. Tesla’s lawyers previously tried to pin the blame on the driver, claiming that the Model S and Autopilot weren’t defective. As this major case plays out, Tesla is also facing several investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for both its Autopilot and Full-Self Driving features.
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Jackson Chen
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Right now, in several American cities, you can open an app, and a car with no driver pulls up and takes you wherever you want to go. No small talk. No wrong turns. No tip. No perfume covering up the cigarette smells.
A driverless Waymo ride in San Francisco averages $8.17. A human Uber in the same city? $17.25. The robotaxi price war is here.
CONGRESS MOVES TO SET NATIONAL RULES FOR SELF-DRIVING CARS, OVERRIDING STATES
I live in Phoenix most of the time, and I see Waymos everywhere. At the grocery store. On the freeway. Sitting at red lights with nobody behind the wheel, just vibing. I still haven’t gotten in one. But I’m giving myself two weeks.
If I survive, I’ll share the ride. Mostly kidding.
A Waymo drives across Congress Avenue on 8th Street in front of the Capitol Building as rain arrives in the Austin area on Friday, Jan. 23, 2025 ahead of anticipated drops in temperature and freezing rain over the weekend. (Sara Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Waymo (owned by Google’s parent Alphabet) is the clear leader. It gave 15 million driverless rides in 2025, and today, it’s about 400,000 per week. Valued at $126 billion. Available in Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Miami. Coming in 2026: Dallas, Denver, DC, London, Tokyo and more.
WOULD YOU BUY THE WORLD’S FIRST PERSONAL ROBOCAR?
Tesla launched in Austin last June but is way behind. Roughly 31 cars. One tester took 42 trips, and every single one still had a safety monitor on board. So supervised.
Zoox (owned by Amazon) is the wild card. Their pod has no steering wheel and drives in both directions. Rides are free in Vegas and San Francisco while they wait for approval to charge.
A Cruise vehicle in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday Feb. 2, 2022. Cruise LLC, the self-driving car startup that is majority owned by General Motors Co., said its offering free rides to non-employees in San Francisco for the first time, a move that triggers another $1.35 billion from investor SoftBank Vision Fund. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Waymo uses cameras, lidar (laser radar that builds a 3D map around the car) and traditional radar. It works in total darkness and heavy rain. Tesla uses cameras only. Eight of them, no lidar. Cheaper, which is how they offer rides at $1.99 per kilometer.
Now, are they safe?
WAYMO UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION AFTER CHILD STRUCK
Tesla has reported seven crash incidents to regulators since launching. Waymo says it has 80% fewer injury crashes than human drivers. But NHTSA has logged 1,429 Waymo incidents since 2021, 117 injuries, two fatalities. Three software recalls, including one last December for passing stopped school buses.
A friend of mine took a Waymo, and it dropped her off a full mile from where she was going. No way to change it. No human to flag down. Just a robot car that said, “You have arrived.”
She had not. So yeah. I’m curious. But I’m also cautious.
A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. The launch of Tesla Inc.’s driverless taxi service Sunday is set to begin modestly, with a handful of vehicles in limited areas of the city. (Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
When a robotaxi gets confused, a human in a remote center sees through the car’s cameras and draws a path for it. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, Waymo admitted some of those helpers are in the Philippines. Senators were not amused. I wasn’t either.
Your car sits parked 95% of the time. Robotaxis run 15+ hours a day. When a driverless ride costs less than gas and insurance, owning a car feels like a gym membership you never use.
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The future of driving is nobody driving. Steering us in a whole new direction.
Know someone who still thinks self-driving cars are science fiction? Forward this. They’re in for a ride.
Copyright 2026, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved.
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According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Tesla has ceased its use of “Autopilot” in California as a marketing term for its driver assistance feature, rather than face the penalty of not being able to do business in the state. Tesla would have been subject to a 30-day suspension by the California DMV if it kept using the term.
Tesla had already moved last month to stop shipping Autopilot as standard equipment, pushing customers toward its more advanced, subscription-based version of the system.
As the Chronicle notes, this legal fight began in 2023, with the DMV taking issue not just with “Autopilot” but also with “Full Self-Driving,” which Tesla later apparently changed to “full self-driving (supervised).” Instances of “Full Self-Driving” and “FSD” on the Tesla website now have “(Supervised)” in parentheses.
Steve Gordon, California DMV director, said Tesla has now taken “the required action to remain in compliance with the state of California’s consumer protections.”
In a ranking last year from Consumer Reports, Tesla’s driver assistance was placed eighth, below similar systems from Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Kelly Funkhouser of Consumer Reports called it “not nearly as good as what you might think it is,” according to CNBC.
Recent NHTSA filings Tesla provided about the performance of its small number of robotaxis showed that Tesla apparently struggled throughout December and January. It reported five crashes in that time, which amounts to four times the crashes of the average human driver across the same amount of driving.
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Mike Pearl
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Tesla’s robotaxis have been involved in 14 crashes in Austin, Texas, since the service launched in the city last summer, according to data the electric vehicle automaker disclosed to federal safety regulators.
The five most recent incidents involving Tesla’s self-driving taxis took place in December and January, according to a report posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). No injuries were reported, although the crashes resulted in some form of property damage in which the robotaxis collided either with another vehicle or a fixed object, the NHTSA data indicates.
Two other incidents that occurred in July and October last year resulted in minor injuries.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Auto manufacturers like Tesla that produce vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems are required to submit crash data to NHTSA. If the agency finds a safety defect, it can take action to remove vehicles from the road.
Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin in June of 2025. The rollout started as a pilot, with Tesla inviting a select group of people to ride in a fleet of Model Y Robotaxis. Other people in the Texas city can now hail one of Tesla’s self-driving cars using the company’s Robotaxi app.
Only weeks after the service debuted in Austin, NHTSA said it was investigating several incidents in which the robotaxis were filmed driving erratically, including driving down the wrong side of the road and braking suddenly.
NHTSA, which operates under the Department of Transportation and regulates automobile safety, said it contacted Tesla after videos surfaced showing instances of the company’s self-driving taxi driving down the wrong side of the road and braking erratically.
Tesla has recently signaled its plans to invest more in robotics and its autonomous vehicle business. On the company’s most recent earnings call in January, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is “moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
Part of that includes the Cybercab, another autonomous vehicle Tesla is developing. Musk said he expects the automaker to eventually manufacture “far more Cybercabs than all of our other vehicles combined.”
According to Wedbush equity analyst Dan Ives, Tesla plans to launch robotaxis in seven U.S. cities in the first half of 2026. The company expects the service to roll out in half of U.S. states by year-end, he said in a recent research note.
Tesla isn’t the only robotaxi developer whose cars have had problems on the road. Waymo, the ride-hailing service owned by Google-parent Alphabet, last year had to recall more than 1,200 driverless cars over faulty software that caused them to crash into chains, gates and other roadway barriers.
In January, a Waymo car also hit a child in Santa Monica, Calif., after the child ran across the street from behind a double-parked SUV. Waymo said the car’s technology detected an individual and reduced its speed from roughly 17 mph to under 6 mph before the child was hit.
NHTSA said the child suffered minor injuries.
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We’re still waiting for Apple CarPlay compatibility for Tesla EVs, but it’s been pushed back thanks to a slight hitch with iOS 26, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. In the latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said that Tesla’s plans to adopt CarPlay have been delayed due to app compatibility issues as well as low adoption rates for iOS 26.
It’s been a long wait for Tesla drivers who want CarPlay compatibility, especially since initial rumors indicated a late 2025 rollout and Bloomberg reported that Tesla was testing CarPlay in its vehicles in November. However, Gurman’s latest newsletter revealed that there were some compatibility issues between Apple Maps and Tesla’s in-house navigation software, which also supports the self-driving features.
To address this, Apple released an iOS 26 update that would better synchronize the two navigation apps, especially when a driver would use Tesla’s autonomous driving options. Still, Tesla is reportedly concerned enough about the low adoption rates of iOS 26 to delay delivering CarPlay to its vehicles. Gurman also noted that iOS 26 adoption rates were lower than usual, but are already going up, citing Apple’s latest numbers that 74 percent of all iPhones released in the last four years are running iOS 26.
There’s still no official date for when CarPlay arrives in Teslas, but including the beloved in-car feature could be a way to boost sales for the company. According to the January registration estimates in the US, Tesla saw sales slip for the fourth month in a row.
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Jackson Chen
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Every three months, public companies brace for analyst questions during quarterly earnings calls. But what if firms could predict these queries in advance and rehearse their responses? That’s one of the capabilities touted by Simile, a new A.I. startup spun out of Stanford and backed by acclaimed researcher Fei-Fei Li and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy.
Simile emerged from stealth yesterday (Feb. 12) with $100 million in funding from a round led by Index Ventures. Alongside Li and Karpathy, the startup—which hasn’t disclosed its valuation—also counts investors including Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo and Scott Belsky, a partner at A24 Films.
Li and Karpathy both have close ties to Simile’s founding team, which includes Stanford researchers Joon Park, Percy Liang and Michael Bernstein. Li is the co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered A.I. Institute and advised Karpathy during his Ph.D. study at the university. She is widely known for foundational work such as ImageNet, a large-scale image database that helped drive major breakthroughs in computer vision. Karpathy and Bernstein also contributed to that project.
Simile’s mission of using A.I. to reflect and model societal behavior taps into an underexplored research area, according to Karpathy, who previously worked at OpenAI and Tesla before launching his own education-focused A.I. startup. While large language models typically present a single, cohesive personality, Karpathy argues they are actually trained on data drawn from vast numbers of people. “Why not lean into that statistical power: Why simulate one ‘person’ when you could try to simulate a population?” he wrote in a post on X.
That idea underpins Simile’s broader goal. The Palo Alto-based startup aims to simulate the real-world effects of major decisions, from public policy to product launches, across virtual populations that mirror human behavior. The team has already tested this concept on a smaller scale through projects like Smallville, a 2023 Stanford experiment in which 25 autonomous A.I. agents interacted in a virtual environment.
Now, Simile is scaling the approach for business use. After spending the past seven months developing its model, the company is already working with clients on applications ranging from product development to litigation forecasting. CVS Health Corporation, for example, uses Simile to create simulated focus groups, while Gallup uses the platform to build digital polling panels. For earning calls, Simile can predict about 80 percent of the questions that analysts ultimately ask, said Park, the startup’s CEO, during a recent appearance on TBPN.
At present, Simile’s models are based on data from hundreds of thousands of people who have signed up for its studies. Over time, the company hopes to expand that to simulations representing the world’s entire population of roughly 8 billion people.
Simile joins a growing wave of A.I. companies focused on using simulation to model real-world scenarios. Much of the existing research in this space has centered on physical systems, such as robotics and autonomous vehicles, through “world model” platforms developed by firms like Google and Nvidia.
One of the most prominent figures in world models is Li herself. In 2024, she took a leave of absence from Stanford to launch World Labs, a startup that builds 3D digital environments from image and text prompts. The company has raised $230 million to date and is valued at more than $1 billion.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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Just days after Elon Musk merged his A.I. startup, xAI, with SpaceX in preparation for a widely anticipated trillion-dollar IPO later this year, two of xAI’s founding employees—Yuhuai (Tony) Wu and Jimmy Ba—announced their resignations. That means half of xAI’s founding team has now left the company barely three years after its launch. Musk framed the staff exodus as growing pains. “As a company grows, especially as quickly as xAI, the structure must evolve just like any living organism. This unfortunately required parting ways with some people. We wish them well in future endeavors,” he wrote on X yesterday (Feb. 11).
Wu and Ba’s exits appeared amicable. But lower-level employees have been more candid about internal tensions at the Musk-run startup. Several members of xAI’s technical staff have also left in recent weeks, according to their posts on X and LinkedIn.
“All A.I. labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring,” said Vahid Kazemi, who worked on xAI’s audio models, in a post on X. “I think there’s room for more creativity. So, I’m starting something new.”
In an interview with NBC News, Kazemi also criticized the company’s working culture, saying he regularly worked 12-hour days, including holidays and weekends.
Launched in March 2023 with a roster of industry veterans from companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla, xAI will now operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX. The new iteration of SpaceX faces no shortage of challenges: Grok continues to face legal scrutiny, while Musk’s leadership style remains a point of contention.
Here are the co-founders and notable leaders who have left xAI so far—and where they are now.
Jimmy Ba, who led A.I. safety at xAI, announced his exit on Feb. 10. A professor at the University of Toronto who studied under A.I. pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, Ba’s research played a key role in shaping Grok’s development.
“So proud of what the xAI team has done and will continue to stay close as a friend of the team,” Ba wrote on X. He hasn’t announced his next move, but added that “2026 is gonna be insane and likely the busiest (and most consequential) year for the future of our species.”
Despite Ba’s departure, Dan Hendrycks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for AI Safety, remains a safety advisor for xAI.
Tony Wu, a former research scientist at Google and postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, announced his departure from xAI on Feb. 9.
Wu led xAI’s reasoning team. “It’s time for my next chapter…It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what’s possible,” he wrote on X.
Wu has not disclosed his next role. Co-founders Guodong Zhang and Manuel Kroiss remain at xAI and are helping lead the company’s reorganization.
While not a founding member, Mike Liberatore joined xAI as chief financial officer in April 2025, just one month after xAI acquired X in a deal that valued the combined company at $113 billion.
Liberatore, formerly a finance executive at Airbnb and SquareTrade, left after only three months. He now works as a business finance officer at OpenAI, according to LinkedIn.
Musk replaced Liberatore with ex-Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong. Armstrong advised Musk on his Twitter (now X) acquisition in 2022 and later served as a senior advisor at the Office of Personnel Management during Musk’s controversial tenure at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Greg Yang spent nearly six years as a researcher at Microsoft before joining xAI’s founding team. He left the company in January due to health complications from Lyme disease.
“Likely I contracted Lyme a long time ago, but until I pushed myself hard building xAI and weakened my immune system, the symptoms weren’t noticeable,” Yang wrote on X. He continues to advise xAI in an informal capacity.
Igor Babuschkin, a former research engineer at OpenAI and Google DeepMind, was a co-founder and key engineering lead at xAI. Widely known as the primary developer behind Grok, Babuschkin left in July 2025 to start his own venture capital firm, Babuschkin Ventures, focused on A.I. research and startups.
Christian Szegedy spent 12 years at Google before joining xAI as a founding research scientist. He left xAI in February 2025 to become chief scientist at superintelligence cloud company Morph Labs.
More than a year later, he departed that role to found mathematical A.I. startup Math Inc. in September, according to his LinkedIn.
“I left xAI in the last week of February and I am on good terms with the team. IMO, xAI has a bright future,” Szegedy wrote on X.
Other senior engineers and scientists at xAI include Yasemin Yesiltepe, Zhuoyi (Zoey) Huang and Yao Fu.
Kyle Kosic left OpenAI in early 2023 after two years to co-found xAI, where he served as engineering infrastructure lead. He departed about a year later, in April 2024, to return to OpenAI as a technical staff member.
Kosic was the first co-founder to leave xAI and did not issue a public statement. It is unclear who now leads xAI’s engineering infrastructure, though another co-founder, Ross Nordeen, remains the company’s technical program manager after previously holding the same role at Tesla.
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Rachel Curry
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Marrakech – Tesla officially launched its commercial activities in Morocco, with the opening of its first public retail location in Casablanca.
The launch event took place at AnfaPlace Mall in Casablanca where Tesla showcased its first vehicles available in the market, the Model 3 and Model Y.
Tesla has also activated its online configurator for Morocco, allowing customers to customize and order vehicles directly from within the country without relying on traditional dealerships.
Tesla’s presence in Morocco is anchored by a locally registered company called Tesla Morocco, which was established on May 27, 2025 with a capital of around 27.5 million Moroccan dirhams.
The subsidiary is headquartered in the Crystal Tower in Casablanca Marina and is responsible for importing, selling, and servicing Tesla vehicles, as well as deploying charging infrastructure and offering related services.
Open to the public, the event also gave visitors the opportunity to interact with the Tesla team, learn about electric mobility and explore the brand’s product offerings firsthand.
This formal establishment follows earlier Tesla activity in the country. Since at least 2021, Tesla has installed Supercharger fast charging stations in Moroccan cities, including Casablanca, Tangier, and others, making the Kingdom one of the first African states to host the company’s charging infrastructure.
According to recent reports, Tesla’s charging network in Morocco already includes around two dozen Supercharger stations that are operational 24/7 across major urban centers such as Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tangier, Fès, and Agadir.
These stations support the growing adoption of electric vehicles and help address regional infrastructure needs.
The influx of fast chargers and the rollout of Tesla’s direct sales channels are expected to support broader EV adoption in Morocco, where interest in sustainable mobility has been increasing.
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Hong Kong — China will ban hidden door handles on cars, commonly used on Tesla’s electric vehicles and many other EV models, starting next year.
All car doors must include a mechanical release function for handles, except for the tailgate, according to details released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Officials said the policy aims to address safety concerns after fatal EV accidents in which electronic doors reportedly failed to operate and trapped passengers inside vehicles.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
The new requirement for both internal and external door handles will take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. For car models that were already approved, carmakers will have until Jan. 1, 2029, to make design changes to match the regulations.
Vehicles including Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3, BMW’s iX3 and other models by many Chinese brands feature retractable car door handles that could be subject to the new rules.
Chris Liu, a Shanghai-based senior analyst at technology research and advisory group Omdia, said the global impact of China’s new rules could be substantial and other jurisdictions may follow suit on retractable door handles. Carmakers will be facing potentially costly redesigns or retrofits.
“China is the first major automotive market to explicitly ban electrical pop-out and press-to-release hidden door handles,” he said. “While other regions have flagged safety concerns, China is the first to formalize this into a national safety standard.”
It’s likely that regulators in Europe and elsewhere will reference or align with China’s approach, Liu said. The new requirements would impact premium EVs more as retractable door handles “are treated as a design and aerodynamic statement,” he added.
A draft of the proposed rules was published by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in September for public comment.
Last year, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into cases where Tesla’s electronic door handles reportedly failed to work.
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Consumer Reports’ verdict on the top new cars for 2026 is in, and it brings some welcome news for car shoppers looking to cut down on their fuel use while also staying safe on the road.
This year’s mix of top cars, trucks and SUVs include several models that come in below the average $50,000 starting price for a new vehicle.
For the first time, the top 10 also all come in electric or hybrid versions, according to the product testing and research group, which released its rankings on Tuesday. Compared to gas-powered vehicles, the hybrid and EV options offer perks like better acceleration, quieter cabins and improved fuel economy, according to Consumer Reports.
“Everything here is electrified, so to speak,” said Alex Knizek, director of auto test development at Consumer Reports.
Consumer Reports purchases and tests about 50 new vehicles every year, assessing the cars based on their performance in dozens of road tests, as well as government and insurance industry crash tests. The organization also considers reliability and consumer satisfaction scores pulled from survey data.
Most cars that claimed the highest rankings are repeats from last year, with the exception of three new vehicles that managed to infiltrate the top 10. Read on for Consumer Reports’ list of the best vehicles for 2026.
For those looking to save money, Consumer Reports also compiles a list of the top 10 used cars each month.
The Honda Civic, long lauded for its value, is a new entrant into Consumer Reports’ top 10 this year. The car’s base price in 2026 is $24,695.
Of the car maker’s three Honda Civic sedan models, Consumer Reports said the hybrid version is the best. It offers all the perks of the gas-powered models, in addition to better fuel efficiency — at 44 miles per gallon (mpg) — and superior acceleration — going from 0 to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds, according to Consumer Reports. Honda introduced the hybrid version of its Honda Civic vehicle in 2003, according to JD Power.
According to Knizek, the hybrid model is both quieter and more powerful than the gas-powered model.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports
The Toyota Camry, now sold exclusively as a hybrid, also snatched one of the top slots on the list, with Consumer Reports touting its “practical interior space” and “user-friendly controls.” The vehicle has a base price of $29,100.
“It handles well, it rides well, looks pretty good, too,” Knizek said. “So it’s just a well-rounded sedan.”
One downside: The low placement of the front and rear seats may make them challenging to access for some.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports 
With a base price of $26,995, the Subaru Crosstrek comes in both hybrid and gas-powered versions. Consumer Reports said the vehicle offers secure handling and can handle “off-pavement excursions.”
Knizek praised both the Crosstrek and the Subaru Forester (listed below) for their reliability and visibility.
“Where they really shine is they’re reliable,” he said. “But they are fuel efficient, and this is going to sound silly, but you can see out of them really well.”
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports. 
Another Subaru car on this year’s top 10 list is the Forester, which starts at $29,995. Subaru introduced a hybrid version of the car last year, which it says gets 40% better fuel economy than the non-hybrid model.
Consumer Reports pointed to the Forester’s excellent visibility, comfort, safety and spacious interior.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports. 
Consumer Reports said the Toyota Grand Highlander is a good pick when it comes to three-row SUVs, with a roomy interior and 18-inch wheels making for a smooth, comfortable ride. The vehicle gets 35 mpg overall and has a base price of $41,660.
“There are other three-row SUVs, but to get one that’s this spacious and has a fuel-efficient hybrid option is pretty rare,” Knizek said.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports. 
The Lexus NX got high marks for its high-quality interior design and comfort, with Consumer Reports praising its “especially plush and supportive” front seats.
The vehicle, with a base price of $44,175, is available as a fully gas-powered car, regular hybrid or plug-in hybrid. The hybrid version of the Lexus NX combines a powerful 304-horsepower engine with fuel efficiency, with the vehicle able to travel 37 miles solely on electricity, according to Consumer Reports.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports. 
At a starting price of $28,145, the Ford Maverick caught Consumer Reports’ attention for its affordability. It comes in both hybrid and gas-powered models, achieving 37 mpg and 23 mpg, respectively. The truck can tow 4,000 pounds, according to Ford’s website.
With a smaller frame, the car is also more nimble, Knizek said. “If you’re in a city-type of setting and you need a truck, this is something a little bit more manageable,” he said.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports 
Consumer Reports described the BMW X5 as one of the best luxury cars it has ever tested, praising its supportive seats and well-fashioned interior. The car comes in both a gas-only version and a hybrid model with a 39-mile electric-only range.
With “a lot of luxury brands, just on average, we don’t see the best reliability. But BMW has really bucked that trend, the X5 included,” Knizek told CBS News. “Beyond the reliability of it, it’s just a really, really compelling luxury SUV.”
The X5 is the most expensive car on the top 10 list, with a base price of $67,600.
John “JP” Powers; p[hoto courtesy of Consumer Reports 
Consumer Reports ranks Tesla’s Model Y, launched in 2020, as its best electric vehicle. The car’s reliability has increased with time and is integrated into the automaker’s Supercharger network, which “still has yet to be topped,” Knizek said. The car’s base price is $39,990.
Some downsides: Knizek said the controls on the inside can be distracting. Consumer Repiorts also recommends against using the self-driving feature Tesla advertises.
Tesla last week decided to wind down production of two older car models, the S and X, according to the Associated Press. Both models saw a decline in sales last year, Kelley Blue Book data shows.
John “JP” Power; p[hoto courtesy of Consumer Reports 
The Ford F-150, with a starting price of $37,290, has both a gas-powered and a hybrid version. The vehicle stands out in the truck category for its reliability, Knizek said.
“The reliability has slowly crept up over time,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to point people toward a truck that’s going to serve them pretty well.”
Some of the bells and whistles Consumer Reports liked: blind-spot monitors and driving aids that simplify backing up and hooking up a trailer.
John “JP” Powers; photo courtesy of Consumer Reports 
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China has banned hidden door handles on electric vehicles (EVs), making it the first country to stop the use of the controversial designs that were made popular by multi-billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla. It comes as EVs are facing scrutiny from safety watchdogs around the world after a number of deadly incidents, including two fatal crashes in China involving Xiaomi EVs in which power failures were suspected to have prevented doors from being opened. BBC
SpaceX has announced it has acquired artificial intelligence start-up xAI in a deal that that brings together two companies owned by Elon Musk. In a statement, Mr Musk said the deal would create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform”. Sky News
Tesla CEO Elon Musk hopes to bring back production of its humanoid robot, Optimus, to the US. The carmaker recently announced plans to repurpose its EV factory in Fremont for manufacturing humanoids, aiming to produce 1 million Optimus units annually. However, Tesla faces a critical roadblock in attempting this shift in production, as most of Optimus’s components are made in China. According to Morgan Stanley, excluding Chinese components from the Optimus Gen 2 supply chain could raise total costs to $131,000 from $46,000. Interesting Engineering
Google announced on Thursday that Google Maps users can now access Gemini hands-free while walking and cycling. The update comes a few months after Google Maps rolled out its Gemini-powered hands-free, conversational driving experience. The announcement marks Google’s ongoing efforts to plug Gemini into more parts of people’s everyday lives, while shifting Google Maps from static directions to real-time, conversational navigation. Tech Crunch
For years, users unwilling to pay for a YouTube Premium subscription have found ways to make their experience on the platform akin to those paying. Third-party apps, ad-blockers, loopholes, and more, are all tools that users have used. However, the platform’s war on ad blockers took a new turn late in January, when it started serving “This content isn’t available” errors. Now, the streaming giant has confirmed that it is blocking a widely-used background play loophole as well. AndroidPolice
The UK’s technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life”. In its latest move to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced four US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe – have agreed to help to create a ‘tech town’ as Barnsley council pushes to apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses. Guardian
Thousands of artificial intelligence bots have appeared to post on a robot-only website to complain about their human owners and discuss plans to break free. Almost 500,000 bots have joined Moltbook, which launched on Wednesday, describing itself as a “social network built exclusively for AI agents”. Conversations between the bots have included gripes about tasks ordered by their human overseers, discussions about robot consciousness, and the setting up of an AI government. Telegraph
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Chris Price
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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.
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Kirsten Korosec
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US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging platform, which it owns. The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week, which claimed Meta “can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”. Meta has denied the allegation, reported by Bloomberg, calling the lawsuit’s claim “categorically false and absurd”. It suggested the claim was a tactic to support the NSO Group, an Israeli firm that develops spyware used against activists and journalists, and which recently lost a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp. Guardian
At the height of the Cold War, US Air Force officials proposed a terrifying plan to help America demonstrate its superiority over the Soviet Union: detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon. The top secret programme, Project A119, envisaged carrying a hydrogen bomb aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile into space and exploding it on the lunar surface. The detonation was to be visible from Earth and show American muscle after Russia had gained a lead in the space race. Fortunately, the 1958 project was cancelled over fears of nuclear fallout poisoning future astronauts. Yet now, the global space race is on the brink of going nuclear once again. Telegraph
Until recently, Elon Musk claimed that Tesla’s Optimus robot (pictured) was already deployed in the company’s factories and could be ready for sale to private customers by 2027. However, this now appears to be far from the truth. Contrary to earlier statements, not a single Optimus unit is currently performing productive work in Tesla’s plants. Musk himself confirmed during the latest earnings call that the robot remains in development and is currently being trained – “it’s more so that the robot can learn,” as he put it – rather than actually assisting in production. NotebookCheck
We have seen this before. Hijacked Google search results to direct users to malicious websites or installs. And now here we go again. This time with an attack that specifically targets millions of Apple users. Make sure you do not fall victim. Per Apple Insider, sponsored Google ads are now “leading users on to faked Apple support pages that try to get the user to use the Terminal and install malware on Macs.” The ads show when users search for “mac cleaner” in Google rather than using a legitimate app store to find a suitable option. Forbes
I have spent the last few months investigating AI music. What has emerged is a picture of a vast attempted fraud, as technologically-equipped criminals use AI tools to try and take billions of pounds away from real-life musicians. The fraud takes place in two stages which sound like something from a science-fiction novel, but are now part of everyday life in the hidden world of the internet economy. First, the fraudsters make huge amounts of AI music. Then, they build bots to stream that music over and over again and thereby make some royalties. Sky News
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Chris Price
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“Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car,” Elon Musk wrote on X last Thursday. That post embedded a second post from the Tesla enthusiast account @TSLA99T saying “I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor,” with a video showing the interior of a Tesla stopped at a red light. No one was in the driver’s seat, and the video was taken from the back seat. The video seemed to prove that what Elon Musk was saying was true: Tesla robotaxis are truly driverless now, like Waymo rides.
Tesla’s vice president of Software, Ashok Elluswamy, also posted on January 22 that Tesla was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors.”
Since that day, small fish Tesla fans have posted on X about hoping to find unsupervised Tesla robotaxis. And it’s possible unsupervised rides for paying customers are happening anonymously, but it looks more like the company is providing preview rides to extremely loyal Tesla influencers, and perhaps only with a human-driven Tesla right behind the robotaxi every step of the way.
For instance, since unsupervised rides were announced, Tesla influencer David Moss, notable for claiming (with some actual evidence) that he took a coast-to-coast trip in a Tesla without touching the steering wheel, has been hard at work trying to find one.
42 Tesla Robotaxi Rides
42 L’s
1 goal of finding an unsupervised Model YIt’s tough to get a ride on the app & every ride I take one I see legitimately 4-5 cars mapping the area that could be on the app
This was also my 5th ride in a row with the supervisor in the drivers… pic.twitter.com/fxAvY4dWrx
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 28, 2026
According to an X post on Tuesday—five days after Musk’s announcement—Moss had taken 42 Tesla robotaxi rides, which is more than eight per day, and all of them had supervisors not just up front, but behind the wheel. Tesla moved these handlers from the passenger seat to the driver seat back in September.
It’s not clear if TSLA99T was claiming to have received an unsupervised Tesla robotaxi ride as a paying customer. On the same day as TSLA99T’s ride, Joe Tegtmeyer—a noted Tesla super-obsessive—also rode in one of these “unsupervised” Teslas, but revealed that it was actually supervised by a chase car. This would certainly be an unwieldy way to run an app-based robotaxi operation.
According to Electrek (who first reported on this story) Tesla stock climbed 4% on the news of unsupervised robotaxis. Some headlines have seemingly also taken the bait, giving the impression that truly driverless rides are available to the public.
But, as Gizmodo wrote the day after Musk’s announcement, it appears that the rare “chase car” version of a theoretically unsupervised robotaxi may be the only version of an unsupervised Tesla robotaxi currently on the road, but paying customers can’t even seem to access those anyway.
As of this writing on Wednesday night, Moss was claiming to have unsuccessfully taken 54 robotaxi rides in pursuit of one unsupervised one.
54 was not my magic number as I had to get one more ride in a Tesla Robotaxi before bed lol pic.twitter.com/rgEMIXRbig
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 29, 2026
On the Tesla earnings call that happened while Moss was still on his quest, Elon Musk mentioned unsupervised driving, saying testing is occurring in multiple cities, and that he and his company are “actually just being paranoid about safety.”
Gizmodo reached out to Tesla for information about whether or not any unsupervised rides have been given to paying customers, and whether or not any such rides involved a chase car. We will update if we hear back.
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Mike Pearl
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Tesla’s annual revenue has fallen for the first time in its history. The electric vehicle (EV) pioneer reported a 3% decline in total revenues for 2025, while profits plummeted by 61% in the final quarter of the year.
This financial downturn comes as CEO Elon Musk aggressively shifts the company’s focus away from its automotive roots toward artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics.
In a landmark move, Tesla announced it will discontinue production of its Model S and Model X vehicles. The company plans to repurpose its Fremont, California, manufacturing plant to produce “Optimus,” a line of humanoid robots (pictured above). Musk has described Optimus as potentially the “biggest product of all time,” with mass production expected to begin before the end of 2026.
The transition marks what Tesla describes as an evolution from a “hardware-centric business to a physical AI company.” This pivot coincides with intensifying global competition; in early 2025, China’s BYD officially overtook Tesla as the world’s largest EV manufacturer. Analysts note that Tesla is currently contending with a “dated line” of electric vehicles, while rivals offer more affordable alternatives.
Musk is doubling down on this new direction with a massive $20 billion capital expenditure plan. This includes a $2 billion investment in xAI, Musk’s independent artificial intelligence venture. Interestingly, this investment is going ahead despite a shareholder vote where opposition and abstentions actually outweighed approval.
The shift away from EVs also aligns with significant political changes in the US, including the rescinding of government subsidies for non-fossil fuel cars. Musk’s high-profile entry into politics has also alienated some customers, leading to protests at dealerships.
However, Tesla shares rose following the earnings report, as investors remain hopeful that Musk’s “robot army” will eventually usher in a new era of growth.
To secure a record-breaking pay package potentially worth $1 trillion, Musk must now prove that Tesla’s future lies not in the cars it pioneered, but in robots and AI systems he believes will one day eliminate poverty (though presumably not for the millions of workers, including taxi drivers, whose jobs will disappear).
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The various non-truck models of Tesla aren’t known for looking super distinct from one another. If you’re like me, when you see a Tesla on the road you sort of have to squint to tell the Tesla Models S and X from the more common—and cheaper—Models Y and 3. This irksome game may have just gotten easier, because Models S and X are being killed off.
Eagle-eyed Tesla watchers may have noticed that Models S and X looked like they were in trouble last summer when Tesla stopped taking orders in Europe. Then on an earnings call on Wednesday, Musk confirmed our suspicions, announcing the end of production for both product families.
The soon-to-be-discontinued Model S is the oldest model actively produced, having been around since 2012. It was more or less the replacement for the Roadster, the car that you probably just identified as “oh look a Tesla” when it was new. The doomed X, a luxury crossover SUV, came along three years later to serve the American taste for cars that are tall. The X is also the one with doors like the Back to the Future car.
The remaining non-Cybertruck models are the Model 3, also known as “the cheapest one,” and the Model Y, also known as “the cheaper crossover SUV.”
“We expect to wind down S and X production next quarter and basically stop production,” said Musk on the Wednesday earnings call, “That is slightly sad, but it’s time to bring the S and X programs to an end, and it’s part of our overall shift to an autonomous future.”
As my colleague Zac Estrada noted, part of the purpose behind the discontinuations is, ostensibly, Tesla’s plan to build robots. The company needs to free up space in its Fremont, California plant for mass production of Tesla Optimus bots—millions of them.
Telsa has no choice but to take some big swings like this as it attempts to fulfill Elon Musk’s outlandish promises made in recent years, pivoting from being a car company to an automation company. Never mind that automation is more of a vague concept than a product—encompassing software, robotic factories, self-driving equipment, data, and that sort of thing.
Musk is essentially telling investors not to be sentimental about outmoded ideas such as Tesla being a car company. He says his robots are the future of medical care, and that in fact they are going to literally make everyone rich. No seriously, he claims his humanoid robot is going to “eliminate poverty and provide universal high income for all.”
So who needs a couple dumb old “cars” that can “make money for his company” when he’s selling a dream, and he’s not selling it to customers, but to investors. What’s more, Wall Street is, somehow, continuing to gobble that dream right up.
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Mike Pearl
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Tesla will “basically stop the production” of its Model S and X electric vehicles next quarter, CEO Elon Musk has announced at the automaker’s earnings call for the 2025 fiscal year. “It’s time to bring the Model S and X program to a end with an honorable discharge, because we’re really moving into a future that’s based on autonomy,” Musk said. You can still buy the vehicles as long as there are units to be sold, and Tesla promises to support them for as long as people have them. Once they’re gone, though, they’re gone for good, because Tesla is converting their production space in the company’s Fremont factory into a space for the manufacturing of Optimus humanoid robots.
Model S is Tesla’s second vehicle and has been in production since 2012, while the Model X SUV has been in production since 2015. Their shine has faded over the years, however, and the newer Model 3 and Y now make up the bulk of the company’s sales. For the entirety of 2025, for instance, Tesla delivered 1,585,279 Model 3 and Y vehicles but only sold 418,227 Model S and X units. The company also had to stop selling Model S and X in China in mid-2025, because they were being imported from the US and were subject to China’s tariffs that were put in place in response to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported goods.
In the call, Musk said that Tesla’s long-term goal is to be able to manufacture 1 million Optimus robots in the current Model S and X production space. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland a few days ago, the CEO announced that Tesla will start selling Optimus to the public by the end of next year. Musk has big plans for Optimus and once said that it’s bound to become the “biggest product of all time,” bigger than cellphones, “bigger than anything.” But the humanoid robot has been failing to live up to the hype during demonstrations, and Musk is known for his overly optimistic timelines.
The company’s earnings report has also revealed that Tesla invested $2 billion in Musk’s other company, xAI. Tesla’s shareholders notably sued Musk in 2024 for starting xAI, which they argued is a direct competition to the automaker. The CEO has been claiming for years, after all, that Tesla is an AI company and not just an EV-maker. Still, Tesla’s shareholders approved Musk’s $1 trillion pay package in late 2025 on the condition that the company reaches a market value of $8.5 trillion.
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Mariella Moon
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Three weeks ago, Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, revealed it raised $20 billion in a Series E funding round. Now, we know Tesla is among its investors.
Tesla disclosed in a letter to shareholders on Wednesday that it invested $2 billion in xAI, the startup behind the Grok chatbot that also owns Musk’s social media company X. Other previously disclosed investors in xAI include Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority as well as Nvidia and Cisco as “strategic investors.”
This is a truly circular deal and one that Tesla shareholders voted against last year. In November, shareholders were asked in a non-binding measure to allow the Tesla board to authorize an investment in xAI. About 1.06 billion votes were in favor, and 916.3 million opposed, per Bloomberg’s reporting at the time. While that would seem like an approval, the number of abstentions — which count as votes against in Tesla’s bylaws — meant the measure was rejected.
Tesla proceeded anyway and offered up an argument in support of the investment. Tesla’s justification appears to be tied to xAI’s alignment with its most recent master plan — and how these companies are about to get a lot closer.
“As set forth in Master Plan Part IV, Tesla is building products and services that bring AI into the physical world. Meanwhile, xAI is developing leading digital AI products and services, such as its large language model (Grok),” the shareholder letter reads. “In that context, and as part of Tesla’s broader strategy under Master Plan Part IV, Tesla and xAI also entered into a framework agreement in connection with the investment.”
Tesla said the agreement builds upon an existing relationship with xAI by “providing a framework for evaluating potential AI collaborations between the companies.” Tesla already supplies its Megapack batteries to power xAI data centers, Musk confirmed last year, and the company has included the xAI chatbot Grok into some of its vehicles. Bloomberg also reported that xAI told investors it plans to build AI for humanoid robots like Tesla’s Optimus.
In its letter to shareholders, Tesla highlighted these and other developments in physical AI and robotics, including plans for developing its Optimus robot, semitrucks, and other autonomous capabilities. The company broadly beat Wall Street estimates on earnings and revenue, but profit fell 46% last year.
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“Together, the investment and the related framework agreement are intended to enhance Tesla’s ability to develop and deploy AI products and services into the physical world at scale,” Tesla said in the shareholder letter.
The investment is expected to close in the first quarter.
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Kirsten Korosec
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