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Auto lobby group worries that most U.S. EVs disqualified for EV tax credit
Automaker lobby group Alliance for Automotive Innovation says that if additional sourcing requirements go into effect, U.S. automakers won’t qualify for the full credit.
According to Reuters, these automakers have been privately expressing their worries about the proposal’s increasing requirements regarding batteries and critical mineral contents being sourced from the U.S.
John Bozzella, head of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, is calling for a “more gradual phase-in” of the requirements.
The lobby group represents General Motors, Toyota, and Ford Motor as well as a few other automakers. The group said that the proposal by Senators Schumer and Manchin would make 70% of 72 U.S. electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell EVs ineligible for the $7,500 tax credit if the bill is passed.
“A more gradual phase-in of the battery component, critical mineral and final assembly requirements – that better reflect current geopolitical, sourcing and mineral extraction realities – will preserve the credit for millions of Americans,” Bozzella told Reuters.
“None would qualify for the full credit…”
According to Bozzella,
“None would qualify for the full credit when additional sourcing requirements go into effect.”
The automakers represented by the lobby group have expressed their feelings about this bill previously and I wrote about this here. Senator Manchin pointed out that the U.S. needs to step away from its dependence on foreign supply chains.
Not All U.S. Automakers will have this problem as the lobby group fears.
There is one other U.S. automaker that isn’t represented by this lobby group and that’s Tesla. Yesterday, I spoke with Todd Malan, the Chief External Affairs Officer & Head of Climate Strategy at Talon Metals.
Talon Metals is a key partner of Tesla’s key nickel and battery mineral supplier of Tesla’s and it’s also based here in the U.S. The nickel mine is in Tamarack, Minnesota. Todd noted that other automotive lobby groups, such as the Zero Emissions Transportation Association (ZETA), had a more nuanced view of Manchin’s proposal.
He also pointed out that Tesla is a lead member of ZETA which is in favor of Manchin’s EV incentives. Todd also emphasized that these other automakers need to work together with their suppliers.
“We need everyone working together to meet these ambitious goals in the Manchin bill.
Mining is the front end of the supply chain and it takes enormous knowhow, capital, and risk tolerance to discover, delineate, permit, construct and then safely operate a mine to supply battery minerals.”
Todd also shared a bit of what it was like to have the off-take agreement with Tesla.
“Having a Tesla off-take agreement in place has changed the perception of our project in the community. It’s very credentializing and our employees are proud of the partnership. People clearly understand that our proposed mine has a purpose: to supply nickel for the EV battery supply chain and contribute to the energy transition. This has helped shape how people perceive the project. It has a purpose and an important one.”
“Many of the large automakers are helping supply partners apply for some of the significant new funding opportunities being made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The Department of Energy is expected to give out over $1.8 billion in funding from that legislation this fall. This is another example of how the end-users can help the front end of the supply chain for battery materials.”
You can read my full interview with Todd Malan here.
Disclaimer: Johnna is long Tesla.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.
The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.
next month or so. the next tech to merge on the v15 plan will enable it.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 4, 2026
That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.
Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.
Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.
By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.
Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.
Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.
If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.
That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone
