Fred Lambert

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.

Rivian officially started production of its R2 electric SUV at its Normal, Illinois plant today, marking the most critical milestone in the company’s history.

The production launch comes just five days after an EF-1 tornado ripped through the same facility, collapsing a section of the roof in Building 2 — the very area dedicated to R2 operations.

Xpeng’s flying car division Aridge invited media to tour its massive new factory in Guangzhou, and it’s clear the Chinese automaker is pouring serious resources into making manned electric aircraft a commercial reality.

I saw about 20 aircraft at various stages of production inside the plant — from bare carbon fiber bodies to completed units in quality checks — as Aridge validates its manufacturing process ahead of planned deliveries later this year.

SERES Group’s Huawei-powered AITO brand is joining IONCHI, the premium charging joint venture between BMW and Mercedes-Benz in China, as an equal 33.3% shareholder. The deal restructures what was a 50:50 German partnership into a three-way collaboration with one of China’s fastest-growing luxury EV brands.

The move signals a significant shift in China’s EV charging landscape, where German and Chinese automakers are now directly collaborating on premium infrastructure rather than competing on separate networks.

General Motors has indefinitely suspended plans to refresh its full-size electric truck and SUV lineup, putting the future of the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, Hummer EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ in limbo beyond the current generation.

The move marks yet another retreat from GM’s once-ambitious electric vehicle strategy, as the automaker doubles down on gas-powered trucks instead.

Independent lab testing has found traces of hexavalent chromium — a known carcinogen — along with arsenic and elevated levels of lithium in wastewater discharged from Tesla’s nearly $1 billion lithium refinery in Robstown, Texas.

The Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, which manages the ditch receiving Tesla’s 231,000-gallon daily discharge, has issued a cease-and-desist letter demanding the company halt its wastewater flow pending further discussion.

Tesla’s registrations in California crashed 24.3% in the first quarter of 2026, with the automaker selling over 10,000 fewer vehicles in the state compared to the same period last year.

The data comes from the California New Car Dealers Association’s (CNCDA) Q1 2026 Auto Outlook report, which also reveals that the state’s overall zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) market share has plunged to just 13.7% — the lowest level since Q4 2021.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims the long-awaited next-generation Roadster will finally be unveiled by the end of the month, which is days away. If it actually happens, it would come nearly nine years after the original prototype was first shown in November 2017.

We’ve been down this road before — many, many times. Here’s the latest on where things stand and how we got here.

Tesla has submitted permit applications for two private Supercharger stations in Arizona that would be dedicated exclusively to its Robotaxi fleet — marking the first time the automaker has planned charging infrastructure specifically for autonomous vehicles.

The filings, discovered in municipal records in Chandler and Mesa, call for V4 Supercharger stalls that will not be open to the public.