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Jameson Dow

Jameson is based in Southern California and has been driving electric vehicles since 2009 and writing about EVs, sustainability and policy for Electrek since 2016.

You can contact him at jamie@electrek.co, or on his bluesky account that he just set up and maybe will never use at https://blskyl.ink/jamesondow

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China cracks down on absurdly fast 0-60 times, sleek EV door handles for safety

The Chinese government has proposed new safety standards for cars that would default to a slower-accelerating mode to enhance road safety, cracking down on the extremely quick acceleration speeds we’re seeing on the market these days, according to CarNewsChina.

The same draft includes regulations on sleek EV door handles and the usage of autonomous-drive systems.

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When Tesla’s FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn’t, you get blamed.

Tesla has engaged in a pattern of taking credit for the successes of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, even though the car still relies on an attentive driver, and yet blaming the driver rather than the software whenever things go badly.

But new moves towards allowing more distracted driving could make it harder for the company to blame drivers when its software fails.

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Tesla (TSLA) shareholders shoot selves in foot, approve Musk $1T payday (upd.)

Elon Musk

Tesla shareholders have voted once again to approve an absurd, biggest-in-history pay package for Tesla’s part-time CEO, Elon Musk. In doing so, they’ve voted to relinquish any control they could have had over the company, and instead to put it deeper into the hands of its largest saboteur.

Update, Nov 7: Full voting results are out, discussed below.

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Tesla recalls 6,197 Cybertrucks, about 10% of all sold, for using the wrong glue

Tesla Cybertruck off-road hero

Tesla is recalling 6,197 Cybertrucks with the “Off Road Lightbar” attachment, citing incorrect use of adhesives which could lead the accessory to fall off during vehicle operation.

It’s about 10% of the 63,619 Cybertrucks in existence, which we know about due to another recall from last week (though that one was fixed by a software update) – showing that the Cybertruck is selling a lot more poorly than initial estimates would have suggested.

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Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay day gets more ridiculous the more you look into it (upd.)

Elon Musk Tesla Money hero

Tesla, a company that prides itself on not advertising, is in the midst of a serious marketing effort. In doing so it’s exploiting employees, attacking shareholders, and retaining outside strategy firms to help it advertise.

It’s running these ads not to boost its falling sales, but rather to advocate for another unprecedented award for its CEO, which would keep the company stuck with him for years even as earnings drop precipitously under his direction.

(Update: This article, originally posted 10/18, has now been updated to acknowledge Musk’s comments this week on “corporate terrorism” and on his desire to “control” an “enormous robot army”)

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Tesla changes ‘all cars have self-driving hardware’ wording as HW3 lawsuits loom

Tesla no longer promises that all of its cars have the hardware onboard for Full Self-Driving, instead now saying that its cars are “designed for autonomy.”

The change happens amidst a growing call for Tesla to upgrade old cars, sold with the promise of complete autonomous operation, but whose hardware is increasingly becoming incapable of running the latest versions of Tesla’s driver assist software.

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