Tag Archives: automakers

Reuters reports: Tesla employees had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service. Last summer, the company quietly created a “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible. The Austin, Texas-based electric carmaker deployed the team because its service centers were inundated with appointments from …

Ars Technica reports: Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and other current and former Tesla board members agreed to return over $735 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit that alleged Tesla directors “grossly” overpaid themselves. The Tesla directors, who also include Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk, further agreed to forego stock options and other compensation for board service in 2021, 2022, and 2023. …

The financial news site Benzinga reports: Tesla, Inc. achieved record-breaking second-quarter deliveries in China on the back of price cuts and promotional efforts implemented earlier this year. But the Elon Musk-led EV maker’s cutthroat methods have seemed to irk Xi Jinping‘s government in one way. In response to this price war initiated by major electric vehicle manufacturers, including Tesla, a …

The Hill reports: Lawmakers say the future of AM radio is in jeopardy after companies including Ford and Tesla announced some of their new models will no longer include AM receivers. “If Elon Musk has enough money to buy Twitter and send rockets to space, he can certainly afford to include AM radio in his Teslas,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) …

The Washington Post reports: Automakers, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda and Tesla, are removing AM radios from new electric vehicles because electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM stations. And Ford, one of the nation’s top-three auto sellers, is taking a bigger step, eliminating AM from all of its vehicles, electric or gas-operated. Some station owners and advertisers …

Reuters reports: Tesla Inc assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us.” The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy.” But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an …

The Associated Press reports: U.S. auto safety regulators have opened an investigation into Tesla’s Model Y SUV after getting two complaints that the steering wheels can come off while being driven. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the probe covers an estimated 120,000 vehicles from the 2023 model year. The agency says in both cases the Model Ys were …

The Guardian reports: Elon Musk is facing yet another lawsuit as shareholders of Tesla accuse the chief executive and his company of overstating the effectiveness and safety of their electric vehicles’ autopilot and full self-driving technologies. Shareholders have alleged in the proposed class-action lawsuit that Tesla defrauded them over four years with false and misleading statements that concealed how its …

Reuters reports: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has for years teased the world with his dream of an affordable electric car. This week, fans hope, he will explain what he has in mind – and perhaps how he can afford to build it. Musk said last year he shelved the plan for a $25,000 car, known as Model 2, and …

Bloomberg News reports: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked Tesla Inc. for more information about one of its vehicles colliding with a fire truck in a fatal crash in the San Francisco Bay area. The agency reached out to the manufacturer after the incident in Contra Costa County during the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. The county fire department …

The New York Times reports: Tesla is recalling more than 362,000 cars equipped with its Full Self-Driving driver-assistance system after government regulators found it increased the risk of accidents. The company’s technology, which can steer, accelerate, brake and change lanes on its own, allows vehicles to travel above legal speed limits and through intersections in “an unlawful or unpredictable manner,” …

Bloomberg News reports: A jury cleared Elon Musk of claims by Tesla Inc. investors that he defrauded them when he tweeted 4 1/2 years ago that he was considering taking the company private and had “funding secured” to make the deal happen. The verdict in San Francisco federal court rejects allegations that the electric-car maker’s CEO violated securities laws and …

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk oversaw the creation of a 2016 video that exaggerated the abilities of Tesla Inc.’s driver-assistance system Autopilot, even dictating the opening text that claimed the company’s car drove itself, according to internal emails viewed by Bloomberg. Musk wrote to Tesla’s Autopilot team after 2 a.m. California time in October 2016 to emphasize the importance of …

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports: Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s decision to halt plans for a $3.5 billion Ford Motor Co. battery plant over his concerns about Chinese influence cost one of the poorest areas of Virginia a reported 2,500 jobs with potential for more. If Ford finalized the project, the plant would have gone in the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry …

The Associated Press reports: Elon Musk claimed in a August 7, 2018 tweet that he had lined up the financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of Tesla, which he then amplified with a follow-up statement that made a deal seem imminent. But the buyout never materialized and now Musk will have to explain his actions under oath in …

Axios reports: The company overnight “dramatically” cut prices of its Model 3 and Model Y in the U.S. by a weighted average of about $10,000, or 16%, according to Evercore ISI analysts. Tesla has experienced a sharp drop in its stock price over the last several months as Musk’s Twitter management led to criticism of his leadership — and as …

Yahoo Finance reports: There are more headaches for Tesla as the automaker revealed it is recalling 321,000 vehicles due to a safety issue. In a filing posted over the weekend on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website, the automaker said some Tesla Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs had an issue that caused the tail lamps to “intermittently …

Reuters reports: Mercedes-Benz said on Wednesday it would withdraw from the Russian market and sell shares in its industrial and financial services subsidiaries to a local investor, becoming the latest carmaker to exit the country. Japan’s Nissan this month took a $687 million loss in handing over its business in Russia to a state-owned entity for one euro, mirroring an …

The Associated Press reports: Tesla is recalling nearly 1.1 million vehicles in the U.S. because the windows can pinch a person’s fingers when being rolled up. Tesla says in documents posted Thursday by U.S. safety regulators that the automatic window reversal system may not react correctly after detecting an obstruction. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that’s a violation …

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk told the father of a teenager who died in a Tesla Model S crash that the carmaker made a mistake in removing a speed limiter from the vehicle without the father’s permission, a lawyer for the family said in court. Curtis Miner, the attorney, told a jury Thursday that the billionaire chief executive officer of …