Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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gizmodo.com

Beijing Pulls Further Ahead With Strict New EV Battery Safety Mandate

Starting in July 2026, the country will have some of the world's strictest EV battery safety and testing requirements.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

China is introducing new regulatory standards for electric car batteries that will represent some of the strictest safety and testing requirements in the world. Set to take effect on July 1, 2026, the “Safety Requirements for Power Batteries of Electric Vehicles” will essentially prohibit fires and explosions even after thermal propagation, or the spread of an uncontrolled temperature increase from one battery cell to another.


Electric car fires are already rare, and some critics contend that China’s new rules demanding no fires or explosions are unrealistic. Whereas in the past, China had mandated that vehicles warn passengers five minutes before a potential fire or explosion event, they simply cannot happen under the new rules. That could raise the cost of vehicles from smaller brands if they struggle to develop battery technology that can meet the standard.
 

As several sources confirmed, Tesla Cybertruck demand has fallen off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. A new report confirms that Tesla is scaling back production at Giga Texas and moving Cybertruck workers to the Model Y lines.
Tesla started deliveries of the Cybertruck two years later than planned, citing difficulties during the pandemic lockdown and the following supply chain bottlenecks. However, when the series production began, reservation holders learned that the truck would be much more expensive and provide significantly less range than announced in 2019. This essentially poured cold water on Tesla's plans to sell millions, as many canceled their reservations or simply did not follow through with the purchase.

While Tesla has tried to conceal this fiasco by bundling Cybertruck delivery numbers with the Model S and Model X in the "Other Models" category, it soon became clear that the demand for the weirdly-shaped pickup truck was waning. Whereas Elon Musk was confident production should reach 250,000 units a year in 2025, a recall showed that Tesla delivered less than 50,000 units by the end of 2024.

A Cox Automotive report estimated the Cybertruck deliveries at 6,400 units in the first quarter, which means the 2025 production rate might be closer to 25,000 units, one-tenth of what Musk predicted. The second quarter began with a swelling inventory estimated at over 2,000 trucks. Unsurprisingly, Tesla now offers up to $10,000 discounts on trucks in its inventory. Even more telling, you can still find Foundation Series models if you want one, despite Tesla phasing it out last October.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
That design just screams of someone who has never done physical labor in his life.

Maybe he didn’t intend it to be used for real work purposes but 1) why would you design it to exclude so many customers and 2) the lack of utility really destroys its street cred which is kind of important in a truck even for people who rarely use the truck for what it was made for.
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If you're referring to Elon, you are off according to Isaacson's biography. The story is he left South Africa as a 17 year old to avoid military service and get away from his Dad. He moved to Canada and was broke and crashing with relatives. He worked at a lumber mill, shoveled grain, and cleaned boilers. During college in Canada and the US he worked odd student jobs. Dude definitely did physical labor.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
If you're referring to Elon, you are off according to Isaacson's biography. The story is he left South Africa as a 17 year old to avoid military service and get away from his Dad. He moved to Canada and was broke and crashing with relatives. He worked at a lumber mill, shoveled grain, and cleaned boilers. During college in Canada and the US he worked odd student jobs. Dude definitely did physical labor.
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I heard he also walked uphill through the snow both ways to attend his classes at Wharton.
 
nycfan said:
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That is the weirdest thing. There are so many relatively easy ways, I would assume legally required ways, to measure mileage. Why would you guess based on those metrics? Be interesting to see if this lawsuit goes anywhere but my guess would be no. Not because Musk has been an honest businessman on Tesla but this just seems like a weird one to cheat on.
 
nycfan said:
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It's worth noting, I think, that the allegations are in a plaintiffs' suit against Tesla and there's not been discovery yet. There is really nothing to this right now except a couple of people saying they think that their mileage was messed up and also Tesla filed a patent (which isn't terribly relevant).

The cute ploy is that the car supposedly maintains proper mileage until it gets near the warranty expiration. So it's not the easiest thing to detect.
 
U.S. Rep Bacon (R) calls out junk being amplified by Musk -



Bacon is a last remaining Republican moderate who has been a sort of lone coal opponent to some Trump policies, so nothing new for him.
 

Things are undoubtedly bad at Tesla. Its sales are dwindling. Its profits are plunging, as is its share price. There are regular protests outside its showrooms. The Cybertruck is a flop. And somehow, it’s actually a lot worse than that.

The 71% drop in net income it just reported may have been overshadowed by CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that he would be stepping back from his controversial duties at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But that drop is just one indication of serious financial sickness at the EV maker, problems brought on by falling sales for the first time in its history and falling prices for electric vehicles.

The bottom line problem at Tesla is its vanishing bottom line. A deeper look at its first quarter report shows it’s now losing money on what should be its ostensible reason for existence – selling cars.

It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.

But if the Trump administration gets its way, the company can kiss those regulatory credits keeping it in the black goodbye, too.
 
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