Fred Lambert

Tesla posted on X that it plans to expand FSD V14 Lite to HW3 vehicles in international markets — but only after the US rollout is complete and with no timeline attached.

The vague commitment comes as HW3 owners across Europe and other international markets are in open revolt after Tesla launched FSD abroad exclusively for HW4-equipped vehicles.

Nio’s budget sub-brand Onvo officially launched the L80, a five-seat electric SUV priced from 245,800 yuan (~$36,020), undercutting Tesla’s Model Y by 17,700 yuan (~$2,400) in China.

The L80 opens pre-orders immediately, with first deliveries scheduled for May 15 — adding another aggressive competitor to the most contested EV segment in the world’s largest auto market.

CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, signed a 60 GWh sodium-ion battery deal with energy storage integrator HyperStrong — the largest sodium-ion battery order ever placed. The three-year agreement is equivalent to half of all energy storage batteries CATL delivered in 2025.

The deal marks what CATL calls proof that it has “overcome the challenges of the entire sodium-ion battery mass production chain.” Industry observers are already calling it a potential “DeepSeek moment” for the global energy storage industry.

I got behind the wheel of the next-generation Xiaomi SU7, and the upgrades are significant. The refreshed electric sedan delivers up to 902 km (560 miles) of CLTC range, 800V charging architecture across all trims, and standard LiDAR — all while still undercutting the Tesla Model 3 in China.

Xiaomi started deliveries of its updated best-seller in April after securing over 100,000 pre-orders, building on the 381,000 first-gen SU7s sold since the original launch in March 2024.

BYD unveiled the Seal 08, its new flagship electric sedan, at the Beijing Auto Show this weekend. The vehicle packs BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery targeting over 1,000 km of CLTC range and megawatt-level flash charging that adds 400 km of range in five minutes.

It marks the first time the Blade Battery 2.0 and flash charging combination land in a full-size sedan, positioning it as a direct challenger to higher-end electric sedans.

Tesla has filed an S-8 registration statement with the SEC to register 303,960,630 shares of common stock for CEO Elon Musk under his 2018 pay package. At today’s share price of ~$376, those shares are worth over $114 billion.

The filing confirms what many expected after the Delaware Supreme Court restored the award in December: the years-long legal fight over the largest executive compensation deal in corporate history is officially over.

Tesla has released its “Robotaxi” app on the Google Play Store, making the ride-hailing service available to Android users for the first time. The iOS version launched in September 2025 — putting the Android release nearly a year behind.

The app arrived on April 24, just days after Tesla “expanded” its “Robotaxi” service from Austin to Dallas and Houston.

Ford Racing’s new Mustang Cobra Jet 2200 just became the quickest electric car on the planet, running a 6.87-second quarter mile at 221 mph at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte this weekend.

The run demolished Ford’s own previous EV record — a 7.623-second pass set by the Cobra Jet 1800 in September 2024 — by a massive 0.75 seconds, a staggering improvement in a sport measured in thousandths.

I just spent two days at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show (Auto China 2026), and I need to tell you something: the future of the auto industry is electric and Chinese. I’m not being dramatic. Just realistic.

In a single hall at the show, there were more EV models on display than there are available ones in the entire United States. There are 17 halls at this show. Seventeen. And they all have more EVs than the US market.

Tesla is bringing back free Supercharging for new Model 3 Premium and Performance orders in North America, bundling one year of complimentary charging with new purchases.

The automaker also used the announcement to take a shot at non-Tesla EV owners using the Supercharger network, claiming they pay a “~40% premium” — but the actual figure is closer to 30-35% based on available data.

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 disaster earnings, the Beijing Auto Show being absolutely insane, and a plethora of new EVs unveiled this week.

XPeng officially unveiled the GX, its new flagship SUV, at the Beijing Auto Show today. The full-size six-seater starts at 399,800 yuan (~$58,000) and packs up to 750 km (466 miles) of AWD range in its pure electric version.

The GX represents XPeng’s most ambitious push into the premium market yet, bringing together the company’s most advanced autonomous driving hardware, a Bosch steer-by-wire system, and aviation-grade safety redundancy — all in a package that directly undercuts European luxury SUVs.

Hyundai unveiled the IONIQ V at Auto China 2026 in Beijing today, a sleek electric liftback with over 600 km of CLTC range built on an 800V platform with CATL batteries. It’s the production version of the Venus concept the automaker revealed earlier this month.

The IONIQ V is the first dedicated IONIQ production model for the Chinese market, and it marks the beginning of an aggressive 20-model offensive as Hyundai tries to claw back relevance in the world’s largest EV market.

Tesla lists Giga Berlin’s Model Y production capacity at more than 375,000 units per year — roughly 93,000 per quarter. The plant manager just celebrated a “record” Q1 2026 of 61,000 units and announced a 20% production increase. None of that adds up.

André Thierig, Tesla’s senior director of manufacturing at Gigafactory Berlin, announced today that the plant will increase Model Y production by 20% starting in July, hire approximately 1,000 new employees beginning in May, and convert 500 temporary workers to permanent positions.

Tesla has fully drawn down its China Working Capital Facility to $5.8 billion, according to its Q1 2026 10-Q filing — a 35% increase in a single quarter. The facility, which didn’t exist two years ago, now represents 64% of all Tesla’s non-recourse debt.

The company tapped every available dollar from the Chinese credit line while sitting on $44.7 billion in cash and short-term investments in the US — and while its retail sales in China crashed 16% year-over-year.

A Tesla Model YL test mule has been spotted driving on Interstate 280 in the San Francisco Bay Area, marking the first time the longer-wheelbase, 6-seat SUV has been photographed on American roads.

The sighting comes despite CEO Elon Musk’s suggestion that the Model YL might never come to the US — and it strongly suggests Tesla is actively preparing the vehicle for the North American market.

Tesla agreed to acquire an unnamed AI hardware company for up to $2 billion in stock and equity awards, according to a single sentence buried in its Q1 2026 10-Q filing. The company never mentioned the deal in its shareholders’ letter or during last night’s earnings call.

The disclosure appeared in Note 14 — Subsequent Events, the very last note in the financial statements, in what may be the most expensive one-sentence disclosure Tesla has ever made.

During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call, CEO Elon Musk revealed that Tesla is planning an “AI4.1 or AI4 Plus” upgrade to its self-driving computer that doubles the RAM from 16 gigabytes to 32 gigabytes per chip — taking the total system memory to 64 gigabytes.

The announcement came on the same call where Musk confirmed (or rather reconfirmed after backing away from the admision last year) that HW3 “simply does not have the capability” for unsupervised FSD.

For the millions of Tesla owners currently driving HW4 cars, the timing raises an uncomfortable question.

CEO Elon Musk confirmed during Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call that Cybercab production has officially begun at Giga Texas.

VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy confirmed that the Cybercab will not be subject to NHTSA’s 2,500-vehicle annual production cap for autonomous vehicles.

During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call today, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Optimus robot production will begin at Fremont in late July or August — just four months after the last Model S and X roll off the line in early May.

Musk warned, however, that initial output will be “quite slow,” calling it “literally impossible to predict” the production rate this year given Optimus has 10,000 unique parts across an entirely new production line.

Elon Musk has once again pushed back the Tesla Roadster unveiling. During yesterday’s Q1 2026 earnings call, the CEO said the car might debut “in a month or so” — blowing past the late April timeline he had set just weeks ago.

It marks at least the eighth time Musk has moved the goalposts on the Roadster since the prototype was first revealed in November 2017, nearly nine years ago.

During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call today, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that unsupervised Full Self-Driving for consumer vehicles won’t arrive until Q4 2026 at the earliest — pushing the timeline yet again after years of broken promises.

When asked directly when FSD unsupervised would reach customer cars, Musk replied: “I’m just guessing here, but probably in the fourth quarter.”

Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings beat looks impressive on the surface — 21.1% gross margin, 136% operating income growth, $0.41 non-GAAP EPS. But dig into the shareholders’ letter and a pattern emerges: Tesla pulled every accounting and financial lever available to make a stagnant quarter look like a turnaround.

One-time warranty reserve releases, tariff refund windfalls, stretched supplier payments, and new debt all contributed to headline numbers that mask a fundamental problem — Tesla’s core auto business isn’t growing.

Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the first quarter (Q1) 2026 after market close today.

We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.