A 2021 Tesla Model Y left an Alabama highway, hit two trees, and caught fire, killing its driver, 29-year-old Kayleigh Page. Her 7-month-old daughter was pulled from the burning car by a stranger who saw it happen.

Troopers reported it as a single-vehicle wreck. What they didn’t say, and likely didn’t know, is that Tesla’s own data shows the car’s driver-assist system was engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data.

A Tesla Cybercab rider found something in the robotaxi: a manual driving mode. When he got in, the touchscreen was showing a virtual joystick to drive the car by hand.

Tesla built the Cybercab with no steering wheel and no pedals. But it apparently still has a way to drive it manually, and you do it by dragging a finger across a screen.

Polestar has confirmed a new concept car, the Formula 2030, and it’s the clearest look yet at where the Swedish EV brand’s design is headed.

The concept previews styling that will show up on the next Polestar 2, due in 2027, and the Polestar 7 compact SUV coming in 2028. It’s also the design centerpiece of a broader strategy the company is pitching to investors around one goal: getting to profit.

XPeng has switched on what it calls the world’s first automated production line for advanced humanoid robots, and its IRON robot walked off that line under its own power. The Chinese automaker says the line runs with more than 80% of its core processes automated.

It’s the clearest signal yet that IRON is headed for real manufacturing and not just stage demos. XPeng is targeting mass production by the end of 2026.

A Tesla Model 3 ran a stop sign in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey, and hit a Honda Civic turning left through the intersection. The Civic’s driver, 82-year-old Stephen Field, was killed.

Police reported it as a car that failed to stop. What no one reported is that Tesla’s own data says the car’s driver-assist system was engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data.

Xiaomi launched its SkyNomad SUV family in China today, a lineup of four extended-range models that starts at RMB 209,900, or about $31,275.

It’s Xiaomi’s first move into extended-range vehicles, and the entry price lands below China’s established EREV flagships from Li Auto and Huawei-backed AITO.

Tesla is now asking businesses whether they’d like to buy and operate their own fleets of Cybercab robotaxis on its network. It’s the same pitch Elon Musk has been making since 2019: buy the cars, put them to work, and earn money while you sleep.

There’s one problem with it. And it never happened, and you shouldn’t fall for it now. If running a fleet of Cybercabs were actually profitable, Tesla wouldn’t sell you a single one.

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Tesla’s latest Cyberflop, lots of cheap Ford electric pickups, VW in trouble, and more.

Rivian is rolling out RivianOS 2, the biggest overhaul of its in-car software since the R1 first shipped. For the first time, it puts every vehicle the company sells on a single software stack.

The update, version 2026.31, started reaching eligible R1 and R2 vehicles today. It brings a rebuilt interface, Unreal Engine 5 graphics, real-time police and speed-camera alerts, and a deeper AI layer Rivian calls Unified Intelligence.

Tesla is rolling out a new version of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software that can take control of your car to avoid a crash, even when you’re driving manually.

The automaker announced the feature, part of FSD Supervised v14.3.9, in a post from its AI team early Friday.

Tesla’s Cybercab is already under federal investigation. NHTSA opened an audit into how Tesla certified the vehicle the same day the company started putting passengers in it in Austin.

The probe targets the exact thing that makes the Cybercab unusual: it has no steering wheel, no pedals, and no mirrors, and Tesla certified it as road-legal anyway.

The Mercedes EQA, Hyundai IONIQ 5, and BMW i4 hold onto their battery health better than any other electric car, according to the largest independent study of used-EV batteries ever run.

That’s the ranking that falls out of 500,000-plus battery tests published by Austrian diagnostics firm AVILOO, which measured 20 popular EVs at up to 150,000 km (93,000 miles) of use.

Xiaomi Auto confirmed it will start selling electric vehicles in Europe, including Germany, in 2027, and it’s already lining up the dealers to sell them.

At IFA Berlin today, the Chinese automaker signed memoranda of understanding with eight of Germany’s largest dealer groups. They’re its first retail partners on the continent.

A Tesla Model X struck and killed a motorcyclist at an intersection in Moraine last year and the crash went mostly unnoticed.

But Tesla’s own report to federal regulators says the vehicle was a Model X with its driver-assist system, Autopilot or Full Self-Driving (Tesla hides which one) engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data — and it’s the clearest example yet of how completely these crashes can vanish from the public record.

PG&E just expanded its Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) program, adding EVs from Tesla, Kia, Volvo, Polestar, and Nissan and opening up as much as $17,000 in incentives to turn a car into home backup power.

The California utility brought in Bidirectional Energy and PowerFlex as approved partners, and drivers now have until June 30, 2027 to enroll.

Electric cars outsold petrol cars in Australia for the first time in August. Battery-electric vehicles hit 27,078 sales, or 24.9% of the new-car market, ahead of both petrol (25,824) and diesel (23,608).

The Tesla Model Y topped every model on sale. But look past it, and Australia’s EV record is almost entirely a Chinese one.

Waymo’s robotaxis have collected more than 8,300 parking tickets in San Francisco since the start of 2025, running up close to $1 million in fines along the way.

The citations tracked the fleet’s rapid growth across the city. In 2024, Waymo caught just 589 tickets. It’s now averaging more than 100 a week.

Polestar launched the Polestar 4 SUV today, a new body style of its compact executive electric SUV that starts at €57,900 and delivers up to 630 km of WLTP range.

The bigger news for anyone who followed the original car: unlike the Polestar 4 coupé, the SUV has an actual rear window.

Tesla has settled a wrongful death lawsuit over a 2023 crash in which a Model S on Autopilot slammed into a parked fire truck, killing the driver and seriously injuring his brother.

The confidential settlement, filed in California federal court, lets Tesla avoid a jury trial that would have put Elon Musk’s own Autopilot claims in front of jurors.

Donut Lab has published a new independent test claiming its battery reached an energy density of 409 Wh/kg and 805 Wh/L, the first energy-density figure the company has put on record after months of scrutiny.

But the number lands against a promise the company has already broken: that this “solid-state” cell was in production and ready to power a production EV by the end of Q1 2026. It isn’t, and it wasn’t.