15 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Electric Cars

The future of transportation is electric. Tesla proved with the Model S that customers would want to buy luxury vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries. Other EV startups like Faraday Future, Byton, Lucid Motors, and SF Motors are chasing after Elon Musk. And major automakers like Jaguar, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz have each released their own Tesla challengers. There are obstacles, such as the need for a more robust charging network. But battery-powered cars are here to stay.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla isn’t the only EV company having a bad quarter.

Rivian just released a miserable production and delivery report for the first quarter of 2025. The company produced 14,611 vehicles, but only sold 8,640 of them, a 36 percent drop year over year.

As noted by TechCrunch, Rivian warned last earnings call that its sales would be affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, as well as a “challenging demand environment.” Still, the company reaffirmed its full-year guidance to sell 46,000 to 51,000 vehicles in 2025.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Don’t touch that dial.

A Senate bill requiring all new cars to have AM radio now has over 60 cosponsors, meaning it can overcome a filibuster, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said today. It’s a response to new electric vehicles increasingly lacking the first-generation radio broadcast technology.

Automakers, including Tesla, argue that AM radio is incompatible with EVs, citing electromagnetic interference from the powertrain. Supporters say they’re worried about losing a crucial medium for emergency broadcasts during natural disasters. And conservatives love it for right-wing news and media. The bill passed the House last year, and it’s looking increasingly likely that, despite changing listening habits, AM radio is here to stay.

Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
The Cadillac Vistiq EV is already quietly on sale.

The three-row Cadillac Vistiq SUV was scheduled to arrive in “spring” as a 2026 model, which usually means late June, but they’re already popping up for sale — here’s a dramatic TikTok from a dealer in Indiana. It’s expensive, with a starting price of $77,395, but it’s in the same zone as similar Rivian R1S and Kia EV9 trims, and you get the feeling Cadillac is pushing these out to capitalize on the wave of Tesla trade-ins and general anxiety about the $7500 EV tax credit going away.

We went to 10 anti-Tesla protests — and a couple counter protests, too

As it enters its third month, the Tesla Takedown movement shows no signs of slowing down.

The Verge
Trump pardons ex-Nikola CEO Trevor MiltonTrump pardons ex-Nikola CEO Trevor Milton
Andrew J. Hawkins
Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
Hyundai’s new Android-based infotainment software looks like Tesla’s.

Pleos Connect is the name of Hyundai Motor Group’s next-gen vehicle software interface based on Google’s Android Automotive OS, launching in Q2 2026. Today, the automaker kicked off a new annual conference to accelerate the development of Pleos and its “Cloud Mobility” software ecosystem, where “all forms of mobility are connected through software on the cloud,” including urban infrastructure.

Here’s a first look at the Pleos Connect interface:

hyundai pleos connect software
Pleos Connect has car controls and status on the left, maps on the right, and a toolbar with apps on the bottom.
Image: Hyundai
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The toxic trouble with Tesla.

Is Tesla really cooked? Watch as The Verge transportation editor, Andrew Hawkins, walks us through how Elon Musk’s unprecedented takeover of the federal government has transformed public opinion of his car company into something increasingly toxic instead of futuristic, with some owners suddenly selling their cars even at a loss.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Las Vegas police say Paul Kim has been arrested for Tesla vandalism.

An arrest has been made in connection with a recent incident where someone wearing all black threw Molotov cocktails at vehicles and spray painted “resist” on the doors of a Tesla collision center in Las Vegas.

As reported earlier by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and other outlets, Paul Hyon Kim has been arrested and is facing charges including arson as well as the destruction of property, and law enforcement officials said he would also be booked on federal charges later today.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla continues to plummet in Europe.

The company’s sales in January and February are down nearly 43 percent year over year, according to new registration data from the EU. Meanwhile, overall electric vehicle registrations are up 28 percent across the continent, as EVs capture 15.2 percent of total EU market share. People still really like EVs, just not the one associated with Elon Musk.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
BYD beats Tesla.

The Chinese automaker reports 777 billion yuan ($107 billion) revenue for 2024, comfortably topping Tesla’s $97.7 billion over the same period. The two companies shipped similar numbers of EVs last year, but add in BYD’s hybrids and it delivered more than double the vehicles Tesla did.

Last week the company unveiled car charging tech that’s twice as fast as Tesla’s, delivering 249 miles of range in just five minutes.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Elon Musk live streamed a surprise ‘all hands’ Tesla meeting tonight.

Tesla news lately includes a leader with a second or maybe seventh job in politics, protests, vandalism, a White House lawn advertisement, record high trade-in numbers, and a Cybertruck recall to fix glued-on trim pieces that can’t stay attached.

So, to beat the allegations that it might be cooked, tonight Musk and Tesla put on a hastily announced “all hands” meeting that was streamed publicly. Business Insider reports employees were only notified of the unusual event shortly before its scheduled start at 9:30PM ET. You can watch it here (Tesla says you should skip to 28 minutes in since it didn’t start on time, or try YouTube), but today’s Decoder episode on Tesla is probably better and shorter.

Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
It’s “a brand tornado crisis moment” for Tesla.

One of Tesla’s usually favorable Wall Street analysts, Dan Ives from Wedbush, published a note pleading with CEO Elon Musk to spend less time at DOGE. “Tesla and Musk are facing a defining chapter in their future and how Musk handles this next few months will be pivotal to the long term growth trajectory of Tesla in our view,” Ives wrote. Another thing Ives says Musk needs to do is prepare lower-cost vehicles for 2025.

How the Tesla brand turned so toxic

The Tesla Takedown movement is rallying against Elon Musk, and it’s only getting bigger.

Nilay Patel
Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Have you seen Tesla’s missing $1.4 billion?

The Financial Times compared the electric automaker’s capital expenditure in the last six months of 2024 to its valuation of the assets that money was spent on, and discovered that $1.4 billion has “gone astray.”

Looking at last year, in the third and fourth quarter combined, Tesla spent $6.3bn on “purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales” according to its cashflow statements. Over on the balance sheet, however, the gross value of property, plant and equipment rose by only $4.9bn in that period, to $51bn.

$6.9 billion minus $4.9 billion equals $1.4 billion, or the sum the paper says appears unaccounted for. It’s a bit complicated, but unless Tesla reports the missing money in its next earnings report, it could indicate that something fishy is going on — beyond a stock collapse amid a global protest movement.

Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
Volvo’s EX30 is getting Apple Car Key support.

The automaker’s bigger EX90 EV got CarKey last year, and now Volvo is adding it to the smaller EX30. Volvo’s software rollout on the EX90 has been buggy, with features like CarPlay arriving slowly and owners complaining that their digital keys don’t work.