Tesla Cybertrucks full of trash, Google's driverless robotaxis, and a billionaire in space: Tech news roundup
Tesla Cybertrucks are being delivered to customers covered in dirt and full of trash
After a never-ending stream of delays, Tesla finally started delivering its Cybertruck to buyers across America over the past year. However, the automaker may wish it pushed the deliveries back by a few hours to give it time to clear the junk out the six-figure trucks it was dropping off at excited buyers.
Lucid has ‘without a doubt’ surpassed Tesla as the EV industry’s tech leader, CEO says
Tesla’s (TSLA) technology is no match for what electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors (LCID) is cooking up, CEO Peter Rawlinson says.
“Clearly we have the best technology in the world. We’ve now taken the mantle from Tesla (TSLA) — we have the best tech,” Rawlinson told Yahoo! Finance. “We’ve taken the mantle. Without a doubt.”
Google’s Waymo now has 100,000 driverless robotaxi rides a week
The robotaxi company Waymo said Tuesday that it is operating more than 100,000 paid trips per week, a major milestone for the driverless car company that has faced a good deal of skepticism from consumers.
A lot of new Tesla Model 3s are just sitting in a field in Florida
If you need another reminder of just how bad Tesla’s sales slowdown is, just look for a random field or parking lot like this one in Florida that’s become a storage lot for Model 3s.
SpaceX is sending a billionaire into orbit for the first private space walk. Here’s what to know
A billionaire is going to space — again. But this time, he says he’s doing it for science too, not just for his own enjoyment.
Next week, billionaire Jared Isaacman will do the first-ever private spacewalk during the Space X Polaris Dawn mission. The crew will also be doing a slew of tests on human health in space as SpaceX tries to understand if and how we could viably live in the stars.
Tesla will pay you to pretend to be a robot
You might think of Tesla as America’s largest electric car maker, but that’s not really how the company thinks of itself anymore. Instead, Tesla (TSLA) boss Elon Musk is determined to turn the automaker into a tech and artificial intelligence company, hence his intense focus on self-driving cars and robots. Now, after slashing its workforce across America, the company is looking for new employees who can pretend to be robots in order to train the algorithms that will power its future humanoid machines.
No, Elon Musk did not give a Putin-backed warlord a Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was forced to make a rather unusual denial on Sunday: No, he did not give Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov a Cybertruck as a gift.
EVs are losing hundreds of dollars in value every day
The depreciation of electric vehicles is far steeper than data showed just last year. EVs can now lose up to half their value over a single year, based on recent observations. This is a sharp shift from when electric cars were projected in December 2023 to lose half their value in three years. However, the factors causing plummeting values might be good for drivers down the road.
EV sales growth is far outpacing the rest of the car industry
Sales of electric cars here in America is a hot topic these days, with some applauding its growth in recent years and others warning that sales aren’t rising as fast as they should be. Now, new analysis of new car registrations across America show that electric car sales are actually growing at a much faster rate than the rest of the auto industry.
Diddy, a Saudi prince, Larry Ellison, and more newly revealed investors in Elon Musk’s X
Thanks to newly-unsealed documents, we now know every shareholder who has backed Elon Musk’s X Corp, formerly known as Twitter.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered X to unseal its list of shareholders, which was made public on Wednesday and first reported by The Washington Post. The filing lists almost 100 entities, several of which are controlled by the same firm or individual, including a litany of venture capital funds with ties to Musk and his allies.