Fred Lambert

Elon Musk announced today that “Digital Optimus”, also called “Macrohard”, is a joint xAI-Tesla project that will use xAI’s Grok large language model to power a computer-controlling AI agent. The project is part of Tesla’s $2 billion investment agreement with xAI.

The announcement directly contradicts Musk’s own September 2024 statement that Tesla had “no need to license anything from xAI”, and it lands while Tesla shareholders are actively suing him for breach of fiduciary duty over the founding of xAI in the first place.

A Texas woman is suing Tesla for over $1 million after her Cybertruck, running on Autopilot, attempted to drive straight off a Houston overpass and crashed into a concrete barrier. The lawsuit includes an unusually pointed allegation: that Tesla was negligent in hiring and retaining Elon Musk as CEO.

The case, filed in Harris County District Court, adds to what has become an avalanche of legal consequences tied to Tesla’s “self-driving” claims, and it comes just weeks after a federal judge upheld a historic $243 million verdict against the automaker in a separate Autopilot crash case.

BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle seller, is exploring an entry into Formula 1 as the Chinese automaker looks for ways to strengthen its brand recognition outside of China. The move would represent BYD’s first push into elite auto racing.

According to a Bloomberg report, BYD is considering options ranging from acquiring an existing team to potentially building one from scratch, though no decision has been made.

Tesla, Google, and Carrier are among the founding members of a new industry coalition called Utilize, which launched today with a bold claim: the US power grid is so underused that better utilization could save American consumers over $100 billion over the next decade.

The coalition, which also includes Renew Home, Sparkfund, SPAN, and Verrus, is targeting a problem hiding in plain sight — the US electric grid operates at just 53% of its total capacity on average, according to a Duke University analysis of 22 regional power systems.

Tesla has lost another long-tenured executive: Sendil Palani, the company’s VP of Finance, confirmed his departure after a 17-year run that began when the automaker was weeks from running out of cash.

Palani is one of the last pre-IPO-era leaders still in a senior role at Tesla, and his exit deepens what has become a sweeping drain of institutional knowledge across virtually every critical function over the past two years.

Thomas Dmytryk, the director who led the team that built Tesla’s over-the-air update infrastructure and the software backbone of its Robotaxi ride-hailing service, has announced his departure after 11 years at the automaker.

The departure adds to a relentless exodus of experienced engineering talent at Tesla over the past two years — this time hitting the team directly responsible for the company’s most critical growth narrative.

A viral video shows a Tesla Model 3 on “Full Self-Driving” driving straight through railroad crossing barriers in the Los Angeles area, failing to detect the crossing gate entirely.

The incident comes on the same day as NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla to turn over critical data from its investigation into FSD traffic violations — an investigation that specifically includes railroad crossing failures.

Donut Lab has released its third independent test report from VTT, the Finnish Technical Research Centre, and it confirms another claim: the solid-state battery retains 97.7% of its charged capacity after sitting idle for 10 days.

The new report (VTT-CR-00125-26) adds self-discharge performance to the growing list of independently verified specs — but three reports in, the two most extraordinary claims remain completely untested.

Tesla has opened its first Megacharger station to Semi customers at a new location in Ontario, California, marking a significant milestone in its push to build a charging network for electric trucks.

The opening comes as Tesla ramps up Semi production at its dedicated Nevada factory and accelerates its plan to deploy 66 Megacharger locations across the US.

Elon Musk’s legal team filed a motion for mistrial in the ongoing Twitter securities fraud class action lawsuit in San Francisco, arguing that the plaintiffs’ lawyers and the judge have created an environment where Musk cannot get a fair trial. The 20-page filing, submitted on March 7, explicitly cites “the animosity in the community toward Mr. Musk apparent during jury selection.”

The motion comes just days after Musk took the stand in the Pampena v. Musk trial, where shareholders accuse him of deliberately tanking Twitter’s stock price through misleading tweets about bot accounts before completing his $44 billion acquisition in 2022.

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 the Cybertruck price increase, BYD making everyone look bad, and a Donut Lab battery update.

Two Tesla Cybertrucks were destroyed and several other Tesla vehicles were damaged after a fire broke out on the rooftop of a seven-story parking garage in Santa Monica on Wednesday. Neither truck was plugged in to charge at the time.

The Santa Monica Fire Department responded at approximately 3:16 p.m. to the 2200 block of Colorado Avenue, where heavy smoke was reported coming from the roof of the structure. The cause remains under investigation.

Tesla has wiped its entire Canadian Model 3 inventory, and according to sources familiar with the matter, the automaker sent the US-built units back to the United States.

The move comes as Canada officially opened its new Chinese EV import program on March 1, allowing up to 49,000 Chinese-built electric vehicles into the country at a drastically reduced 6.1% tariff, down from the 100% surtax that had blocked imports since 2024.

Tesla registered 17,425 vehicles across 15 major European markets in February 2026, a 10% increase compared to February 2025. It’s the first meaningful year-over-year growth Tesla has posted in Europe in over a year.

But let’s put this in context: Tesla is comparing against Q1 2025, which was a total bloodbath for the automaker in Europe. And despite the February bump, Tesla’s year-to-date registrations are essentially flat, 25,451 units in January-February 2026 versus 25,474 in the same period last year.

Nashville’s Metro Council voted 20-15 to formally oppose the Boring Company’s Music City Loop, a proposed 13-mile underground tunnel system that would shuttle passengers in Tesla vehicles between downtown Nashville and the airport.

The non-binding resolution signals growing resistance to a project that the state of Tennessee is pushing forward anyway, with bills in the legislature to strip Nashville of oversight authority over the tunnel.

IG Metall’s vote share at Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin decreased from 39.4% to just 31.1% in the works council election that concluded today, a devastating 8-percentage-point drop that came after weeks of threats, police involvement, and a direct warning from Elon Musk that expansion would stop if the union gained influence.

The management-aligned “Giga United” list won 40.4% of the vote, securing a commanding lead over the union and ensuring that Germany’s only non-union auto plant stays that way.

Tesla has quietly reversed a key change to its Full Self-Driving (FSD) transfer program, switching the deadline back from “order by March 31” to “delivery by March 31.” The move effectively kills the transfer path for thousands of Cybertruck AWD buyers.

The reversal, which happened overnight on February 27-28 with no public announcement, is the latest chapter in the long and frustrating saga of Tesla’s “one-time” FSD transfer program, a program that has been ended and revived so many times that it has become a running joke.

Elon Musk declared today that Tesla will be “one of the companies to make AGI” and “probably the first to make it in humanoid/atom-shaping form.” It’s the latest in a long string of grand AI predictions from the Tesla CEO.

The problem is that Musk has been making similar claims about AI breakthroughs for years, and he has been wrong every single time. Now, with Tesla’s sales declining for a second consecutive year and earnings crashing, this looks like yet another attempt to attach Tesla to the AI hype cycle.

Toyota and Stellantis are both withdrawing from Tesla’s European CO2 emissions pool for 2026, according to new EU filings. The two automakers were among the largest paying members of the pool.

The move is the latest blow to Tesla’s regulatory credit revenue, which has already been shrinking globally after the US eliminated its own emission credit market last year.

Elon Musk’s xAI is now operating 62 unpermitted methane gas turbines across two data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, and Southaven, Mississippi. According to xAI’s own permit application, the facilities could emit more than 6 million tons of greenhouse gases and over 1,300 tons of health-harming air pollutants every year.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s latest impact report brags about avoiding 32 million metric tons of CO2. Musk is single-handedly erasing a significant chunk of his own company’s climate legacy to power a middle-of-the-pack AI model.

Xiaomi has revealed the full technical specifications of its Vision Gran Turismo electric hypercar concept at MWC Barcelona, and the details are genuinely impressive — including a magnetic wheel system that keeps wheel covers stationary while the car is moving.

The concept, which we first reported on last week when it leaked ahead of MWC, is now on full display at the show with a detailed spec sheet and some unique engineering solutions that go well beyond a typical concept car design exercise.

I spent a full day drifting the Polestar 4 on ice at Quebec’s Mecaglisse track, and I came away seriously impressed with how well Polestar has tuned the dynamics of its 544-hp electric SUV coupé.

The ice driving event gave me a chance to experience the dual-motor Polestar 4’s all-wheel-drive system in slow motion — pushing the vehicle to its limits in a controlled environment that reveals every nuance of how power is distributed and how the chassis responds.

Donut Lab has released a second set of independent test results for its controversial solid-state battery — this time proving the cell can discharge at extreme temperatures up to 100°C and actually gain capacity in the process.

The new VTT report, released just one week after the first test confirmed the cell’s fast-charging capability at 0-80% in 4.5 minutes, adds another data point in favor of Donut Lab’s claims. But the most extraordinary specs remain unverified.

Tesla has increased the price of the new Cybertruck AWD from $59,990 to $69,990 — a 17% price hike that took effect today, just 10 days after the trim was introduced.

The price increase follows what might be one of the most cynical new trim introductions in the history of the auto industry: launch at a low price, create urgency by announcing the price will increase in 10 days, then claim the price hike is justified by the inflated demand you just created.