Fred Lambert

In a surprising move, Tesla (TSLA) has publicly released a delivery consensus for the fourth quarter of 2025 via a press release on its investor relations website. This is a significant departure from the automaker’s standard operating procedure, suggesting it is trying to get ahead of what looks to be a disappointing quarter.

We talk a lot here at Electrek about the exponential growth of electric vehicles and the massive strain that puts on the battery supply chain. Literally, the majority of that demand and production comes from China.

But there is a massive difference between processing materials and actually having them in the ground.

A new image from a gigantic materials mining and recycling company in China, gives us a sobering look at the reality of their domestic reserves. The data suggests that China’s own supply of the most critical battery metals isn’t just running low; in some cases, it’s already gone.

A major link in Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain has just snapped. South Korean battery material supplier L&F Co. announced today that the value of its massive supply deal with Tesla has been slashed by over 99%, signaling a catastrophic drop in demand for the automaker’s in-house battery cells.

This is arguably the strongest evidence yet that Tesla’s 4680 program, and the vehicle that relies on it, the Cybertruck, is in serious trouble.

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 mission is no longer being ‘sustainable’, VW Buzz is still alive, and more.

It’s official. The word “sustainable” is gone from Tesla’s mission statement.

For over a decade, Tesla’s guiding star was arguably the most impactful corporate mission statement of the 21st century. But over the last few years, we have watched the company slowly drift away from its environmental roots.

Now, Elon Musk has confirmed the final step in that divorce, rebranding the company’s goal from “Sustainable Abundance” to simply “Amazing Abundance.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has officially opened a defect petition to evaluate the emergency door release mechanisms in the Tesla Model 3. The probe covers approximately 180,000 vehicles and focuses on allegations that the manual releases are too difficult to locate during emergencies.

A Tesla drove in the wrong direction, resulting in a head-on collision with another vehicle, during a livestream, demonstrating Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ features.

Tesla Energy has secured another massive Megapack project in the UK. Matrix Renewables announced today that it has signed a full EPC agreement with Tesla for a 500 MW / 1 GWh battery energy storage system in Scotland.

An engineering student managed to reverse-engineer Tesla’s Robotaxi app and collect data that shows the autonomous but supervised ride-hailing system in Austin consists of no more than a few vehicles (~5) operating at the same time.

Tesla Cybertruck used prices are declining as more trucks reach two years old. Doug DeMuro, a popular car reviewer who became somewhat of a car pricing expert through his auction site Car and Bids, now predicts the Tesla Cybertruck will be selling for just $35,000 in 18 months.

Dutch leasing company Mistergreen, known for its “Tesla only” fleet and bold bets on a future of autonomous robotaxis, is reportedly facing bankruptcy. The company’s financial collapse highlights the danger of buying into Elon Musk’s claims that Tesla vehicles would become “appreciating assets”—a prediction that has faced a harsh reality check in the used EV market.

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 Seth and me (Fred) each buying a new EV, Tesla Robotaxi progress, Ford’s $19 billion charge on EVs, and much more.

An analysis of Tesla’s patent applications shows a slower pace of innovation in the last 2 years and a shift toward AI hardware and software as Elon Musk is betting the house on autonomous driving and robots.

GM CEO Mary Barra is reportedly considering Sterling Anderson, the former head of Tesla Autopilot and co-founder of Aurora, as her potential successor. But first, she is putting him through a “tough test” in his new role as Chief Product Officer.

As demand for the Cybertruck can’t reach more than about 10% of Tesla’s planned production capacity, Elon Musk used his privately owned company to try to boost demand.

We now learn that SpaceX has bought tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Cybertrucks – potentially over a hundred million.

Tesla has reportedly thrown a “Giga-Event” for its employees at Gigafactory Berlin, featuring German rapper Kool Savas. The goal? To rally the troops ahead of a critical union vote. The result? A “cringe” performance involving a Cybertruck, failed “Elon” chants, and some anti-union propaganda.

Waymo is reportedly looking to raise a massive new round of funding that would value the autonomous driving company at over $100 billion as it accelerates its expansion.

Tesla has filed a new patent that strongly suggests the automaker is preparing to integrate Starlink satellite receivers directly into its vehicles.

The reason why is still unclear.

I’ve put over 200 km (125 miles) on Tesla’s latest ‘Full Self-Driving Supervised’ (FSD) v14 update, and I’ve gathered my thoughts in this article.

In short, Tesla FSD v14 is an incremental improvement to the automaker’s advanced driver-assist system (ADAS) and the most impressive Level 2 system available in a consumer vehicle today.

However, it is still far from what Tesla sold to car buyers: unsupervised self-driving.

Chinese EV automaker XPeng confirmed that it has secured an L3 autonomous testing permit in Guangzhou, one of the first such permits in China.

They also released a video of their autonomous software navigating a police sobriety checkpoint without human intervention, showing that it can detect and respond to human hand signals.

Tesla has reported yet another crash involving its Robotaxi fleet in Austin to the NHTSA. The new data keeps the program’s accident rate alarmingly high compared to human drivers, even as the company prepares to remove human safety supervisors from the vehicles.

BYD is making a significant move to boost confidence in its electric vehicles in Europe. The Chinese automaker has announced a major update to its warranty terms, extending the battery coverage to 8 years or 250,000 km (approx. 155,000 miles), whichever comes first.

This new policy significantly outpaces the industry standard and puts pressure on competitors like Tesla and Volkswagen to follow suit.

Tesla has been pulling every demand lever it can find to end the year on a high note, resulting in some of the most aggressive lease pricing we’ve ever seen.

The automaker is now signaling that these deals are expiring at the end of the month, and the price jumps are going to be significant.

We are talking about monthly payments increasing by up to 67% in some cases.

It’s finally happening. After years of promises, missed timelines dating back to the “Autonomy Day” in 2019, and endless iterations of “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), a Tesla vehicle has been spotted driving on public roads in Austin without anyone in the driver’s seat or a safety monitor in the passenger seat.

Elon Musk has confirmed that Robotaxi testing has officially commenced. This is undeniably a step forward for the company’s autonomy ambitions.

But it is also a terrifying leap of faith, given the complete lack of safety data proving the system is ready for this.