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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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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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Take Back Tesla urges pension funds to vote ‘no’ on Musk’s $1 trillion pay day

A new campaign is adding to the growing chorus of pushback against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s absurdly large proposed $1 trillion pay package, this time led by unions and public interest groups. The campaign encourages individuals to get in contact with their pension or retirement funds and ask them to vote against Musk’s payday.

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Tesla’s ‘more affordable’ Model Y is now available in EU – it’s a better deal there

Tesla is now selling its stripped-down, “more affordable” vehicle, the Model Y Standard, in Europe, just three days after releasing it in the US. Its US release was widely panned as the massive number of missing features outweighed the relatively small price cut. But the new European release has fewer cut features and a larger price differential, making the calculus much different in a territory where Tesla sales have fallen rapidly.

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Tesla releases ‘more affordable’ Model 3/Y that costs $2k+ more than last week

Tesla’s new ‘more affordable models’ have been released, and they’re stripped-down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y. They’re currently the cheapest cars in Tesla’s lineup at base price of $37k and $40k.

But that price is actually more expensive than the cars were a week ago in the US, due to the expiration of the US federal EV tax credit which Tesla CEO Elon Musk pushed for.

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Pension funds call to vote down Musk’s $1T pay package, replace Tesla board

Elon Musk Tesla Money hero

An investor group representing several large public pension funds has sent a letter urging Tesla shareholders to vote down Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package, and to replace all of the board members up for re-election, detailing its concerns about Tesla’s corporate governance and risk to long-term shareholder value.

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The $7,500 EV tax credit is gone, but each gas car still gets $20k+ in subsidies

The $7,500 US federal EV tax credit is no more, having expired yesterday, a deadline which was set when republicans voted to reverse climate progress and channel trillions of dollars from everyday Americans to wealthy elites.

However, that’s not the end of subsidies for the American auto industry, as most gas cars continue to benefit from over $20k in subsidy for each vehicle over the course of their lifetime.

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The oil shill running the Energy Dept. just banned the words ‘climate change’

In its mission to destroy American energy independence, the Energy Department has now banned any discussion of any of the technologies that might get America off of foreign oil, or of the problem that those technologies might solve – and all at the behest of the former oil executive who wants to raise your fuel prices in order to steal more of your money for his industry.

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