Transportation

As noticed by Automotive News, the Little Tike Cozy Coupe — yes, the classic red and yellow toy car that has delighted children for over 40 years — is going zero-emission. Little Tikes recently introduced the Cozy E-Charging Station ($33) for the Cozy Coupe’s theoretical EV battery. Now your kid can simulate standing around for 45 minutes to an hour waiting for their EV to recharge. Fortunately I don’t think there’s an app that goes along with it. And no word on the E-Charging Station’s charging speeds. Probably slower than BYD’s.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is testing advanced driver assist systems, and the first vehicle to receive passing grades is the 2026 Model Y. The vehicle was inspected in four categories: pedestrian automatic emergency braking; lane keeping assistance; blind spot warning; and blind spot intervention. These pass/fail tests have recently been added to the agency’s New Car Assessment Program. NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said that the Model Y demonstrated “lifesaving potential of driver assistance technologies and sets a high bar for the industry.”

The EV company, which just had a relatively good quarter, is apparently working on some interesting new projects. In an interview with Reuters, CEO RJ Scaringe said the company has “other variants” of the R2 that it hasn’t shown publicly, including a pickup truck version and a sportier R2X model. Rivian is also considering building its own lidar, perhaps in partnership with a Chinese company. The company is planning on adding lidar to the R2 later this year as part of a big shift into autonomous vehicles.

In an earnings call last month, Elon Musk was feeling bullish that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) would soon be authorized in the European Union, especially after the Level 2 automated system was approved for use in the Netherlands. But according to emails seen by Reuters, EU regulators are in no rush to give the green light. They have issues with FSD, including “the system’s tendency to speed, whether it is safe to use on icy ​roads and drivers’ ability to circumvent features designed to prevent cell-phone use.”

Di Jin says the robo taxi took off with his luggage still in the trunk. But the real issue is how the company handled the issue. First, it told him the cab couldn’t be turned around to return his items, then it tried to charge him for shipping.

While Apple TV broadcasts F1 action from Miami over the next few days, a throwback celebrating the company’s 50th birthday will be on two 963s run by Porsche Penske Motorsport competing in an IMSA event at Laguna Seca. They probably don’t have CarPlay inside, but the look is a reference to one that started running on a Porsche back in 1980.

No courtroom updates today, but we have updated our rundown of the evidence with the latest exhibits added in Elon v. Musk, including details of the donated Tesla Model 3s.

Several outlets are reporting that the demise of the ultra-low-cost carrier is imminent, after Spirit failed to secure a lifeline from the Trump administration. As our aviation correspondent Darryl Campbell reported last week, the loss of Spirit is likely to drive already soaring airfares even higher.

California cops will now be allowed to give tickets to self-driving cars for traffic violations, raising some interesting philosophical questions.

Emergency response officials from San Francisco and Austin met with regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a private meeting last month to clear the air about robotaxis, according to a recording obtained by Wired. Waymo vehicles are “freezing” in front of fire stations and committing more traffic violations, the officials said. Waymo declined to attend the meeting.

For the first time, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles approved new regulations allowing for the testing and deployment of heavy-duty autonomous trucks. The agency also expanded its current rules to allow law enforcement to cite operators for moving violations involving their autonomous vehicles. AV companies are also now required to respond to first responder calls within 30 seconds, and to allow officials to clear AVs from emergency zones.

Eight months after the iOS app launched, Tesla has released an Android version of its Robotaxi app. The service expanded to Houston and Dallas last week, but still seems to only have a small number of vehicles actually on the road.

We already reported that Geely, which also owns Volvo and Polestar, is the Chinese automaker best positioned to sell its vehicles in the US. Now the company is reportedly in talks with Ford about that exact possibility — though it seems that negotiations have already stalled. Ford is considering licensing Geely’s tech for its own cars, but there are heavy restrictions on Chinese software in US vehicles.

It’s slightly smaller than the full Cayenne EV, and costs a little bit less, with a starting price of $116,000 that can be specced all the way up to $170,000 for the top trim. It can do 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds while putting out 1,141 horsepower. And it’s 113 kWh battery offers up to 350 miles of range, with a peak charging speed of 400 kW.

The Amazon-owned company is testing robotaxi rides with employees as passengers to and from the Las Vegas airport. The plan is to offer the service publicly in the near future. But as many have noted, it may be tough going in a vehicle without any dedicated storage space for luggage.

“This guy’s legit.”

If you haven’t learned enough about John Ternus, this WSJ profile has a note about his race car hobbies, and a pic from his college yearbook.