Tesla's Cybertruck win, Hertz's EV headache, Trump and Musk tout Starlink: Tech news roundup
Plus, Tesla kills its cheapest car as Chinese EV tariffs take a toll
GM’s rollout of its new EVs has been slow, but it’s picked up a bit. Between Cadillac, Chevy and GMC, the automaker moved nearly 38,000 EVs in Q2 of this year. Among those is the Chevy Silverado EV. A few fleet sales have been made to companies like Hertz, but with the rental company looking to get out of its bad EV bet, it’s starting to sell some of those electric pickups as used. And if you’re in the market for one, you may score a deal.
For years, Tesla $TSLA has proudly paraded its advanced driver assistance system, Full Self-Driving as being the real deal. It’s claimed the system can navigate traffic, manage highway driving and repeatedly claimed it’s the future of driving, despite the number of crashes, collisions and even deaths linked to the system mounting. Now, a new study has looked into just how far the system can actually drive before needing assistance from a human, and it’s not very far.
Tesla $TSLA (TSLA) delivered slightly more electric vehicles between June and September than Wall Street analysts had expected, partially due to the increased popularity of the Tesla Cybertruck.
Tesla $TSLA and CEO Elon Musk got a big win in court when the automaker won the dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit that alleged misleading statements about the capabilities of self-driving were said to prop up its stock price. While this is certainly a win, Tesla and Musk can’t breathe too big of a sign of relief yet. The company still faces a number of other complaints and regulatory investigations into its marketing.
This was an important week for Tesla $TSLA as it announced its sales for the third quarter of 2024. Thankfully, its sales were up at the electric car maker, but not in the way experts had predicted and that meant the company’s stock still isn’t doing great. While all that was going on, the automaker made another step that’s sure to irritate investors and buyers, it killed off its cheapest model.
Ford $F (F) is trying to sweeten the deal for people who buy EVs as it struggles to sell electric F150 trucks and Mustangs.
The automaker announced a new program called the Ford Power Promise on Monday, where anyone who buys or leases an electric vehicle from Ford will get a free home charger and a complimentary installation.
Tesla $TSLA (TSLA) has started rolling out its driving assistance software to some of its Cybertrucks, finally giving those owners of the futuristic electric truck what every other customer could already use.
Elon Musk first promised that a Tesla $TSLA robotaxi network was coming in April 2019. Back then, the billionaire was envisaging a fleet of autonomous Tesla cars that could ferry people around town whenever they weren’t needed by their owners. Now, he’s promising a fully-fledged autonomous taxi that will be unveiled for the first time on October 10.
Tesla $TSLA’s Supercharger network has become the North American Charging Standard and tons automakers are building their EVs with this network in mind. While this is good for mass EV adoption, it’s turning out to be a headache in practice.
After former president Donald Trump said he spoke to Elon Musk about using Starlink in Hurricane Helene-hit areas, the U.S. government said it already had a plan to deploy the systems.