#Tesla

Elon Musk may have his hands full with whatever he’s doing to Twitter at the moment, but his car company is still developing new (not you, Cybertruck) models. Automotive News reported that Tesla is working on an updated Model 3 sedan, which it hopes will reduce its production costs and give it new charm against newer and less controversial rivals.

Startup electric automakers are facing a series of crises that could cripple them financially and make it hard to grow in any meaningful way in the future. Inflation and incredible jumps in raw materials costs have led companies like Rivian and Lucid to lose staggering sums of money over the last year. 

Tesla said yesterday that it will work with Chinese law enforcement to investigate why a Model Y went out of control in that country earlier this month, killing two people and injuring three more.

Many of us are living in a remote work world now, which means we now sit through endless video meetings instead of piling into boardrooms. Tesla hopes to turn your car into another meeting space, announcing that Zoom would soon come to its EVs’ infotainment systems. 

Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold 19.5 million Tesla shares worth almost $4 billion since he took over Twitter, according to regulatory filings.

We've covered two stories today in which the dealership model comes into play.

Electric-vehicle startup Lucid has sued the state of Texas, saying that the rules around selling cars in the Lone Star state are so restrictive they amount to "economic protectionism."

Tesla is once again claiming a delivery date for the Cybertruck. We're once again rolling our eyes.

When I posted Friday's QOTD, I was wondering if perhaps I was overthinking things. I wondered how Tesla boss Elon Musk owning Twitter -- a social-media platform used by Tesla's competitors -- would affect the automotive industry and the automotive press.

Apparently, I am not the only one with concerns.

It's official. Tesla boss Elon Musk now owns Twitter, one of the most influential social media platforms.

News broke Wednesday that Tesla was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, regarding the company’s claims about the self-driving nature of its vehicles. The DOJ has been working on the investigation for some time, as it was launched in 2021 but was not disclosed at that time. Turns out it might be time for a government evaluation of whether “Full Self-Driving” Teslas are misleading.

Tesla executive Martin Viecha has reportedly shared some of the automaker’s short-term goals with investors during an invite-only Goldman Sachs tech conference held in San Francisco on Monday. As the company rarely engages in any form of public outreach and scrubbed its PR department in 2020, leaks from the event immediately became newsworthy.

Not to be outdone by the likes of BMW and Volkswagen Group, Tesla has decided to begin linking its connected services to a subscription-based payment plan. German automakers may be careening headlong into an era where you have to pay a monthly fee just to activate already installed hardware like heated seats. Though Tesla remains the master at conning customers into overpaying for nebulous features and we need only look at the Full-Self Driving suite, that has yet to manifest into genuine vehicular autonomy and just keeps getting more expensive, for an example.

While the standard connectivity package has always been free for the vehicle's lifespan, Big T is now saying that's only going to be true for the first eight years of ownership. The rationale here is that automotive companies have to continue supporting connectivity services and that there needs to be something to help offset that ongoing financial investment.

Tesla is opening its supercharger network of electric-vehicle chargers up to non-Tesla EVs.

What’s more, the news about this was scooped by the White House.

Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink, gave birth to twins last year. The father was Neuralink — and Tesla — boss Elon Musk.

This happened in November, just weeks before Musk and singer Claire Boucher, who performs under the name Grimes, announced the birth of their second child.