Connect with us

News

Cruise announces reduced operations, further delays to Origin production

Image Credit: Cruise/Twitter

Published

on

Cruise says it won’t produce any of its Origin self-driving vans in the near future, alongside an announcement that the company is substantially scaling back its operations going forward.

The General Motors (GM) self-driving subsidiary Cruise has been on a nightmare spiral over the last several weeks, after one of the company’s driverless vehicles ran over a pedestrian in San Francisco early last month. Following news that Cruise and GM would halt production of the Origin self-driving van, the subsidiary said on Wednesday that it wouldn’t produce any of the driverless vehicles in 2024, adding that it will reduce operations to just one city once it restarts operations, according to a report from Automotive News.

“We’ve made the decision to focus on the Bolt-based Cruise AVs in the near term, with a longer-term strategy around the Origin,” a Cruise spokesperson said.

Cruise had either already debuted or was planning to debut its driverless vehicles in 13 U.S. cities. However, the company didn’t say which city it would select nor did it say when operations would resume.

The company also says it will produce a “small number” of pre-commercial prototypes in the coming weeks, though a GM spokesperson added that the company wouldn’t build production models or prototypes in 2024.

Advertisement

Currently, Cruise doesn’t have a timeline for resuming Origin production.

It’s not entirely clear how many Origin vans GM has produced for Cruise by this point, though former CEO Kyle Vogt said in a meeting this month that the automaker had produced hundreds of the vehicle so far.

Vogt resigned as CEO at Cruise earlier this week, and he was followed by former fellow executive and co-founder Daniel Kan.

After the October 2 accident in which a Cruise robotaxi hit and pinned a pedestrian who had been struck by another car, the company’s permit to operate driverless vehicles was revoked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The company also faces a federal investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and it has hired third-party legal and tech firms to help review its technology and its response to the accident.

Cruise recalls almost 1,000 self-driving cars following pedestrian accident

Advertisement

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.

Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.

The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.

This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.

Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results

  • Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
  • Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
  • Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
  • Profit -$ 4.751B

Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.

Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.

In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.

Advertisement

Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.

You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever

Published

on

Tesla FSD 14.3 [Credit: TESLARATI)
Tesla FSD 14.3 [Credit: TESLARATI)

Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.

Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:

Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.

Advertisement

Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.

Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.

The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:

Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.

Advertisement

Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla starts preparing for Optimus in its smartphone app

Published

on

Tesla is starting to prepare for the launch of the Optimus robot in its smartphone app, new coding strings show. Elon Musk has referred to Optimus as what will be the greatest-selling product of any kind of all time, and now, Tesla is getting ready for its launch.

Tesla’s smartphone app had several first-time mentions of the Optimus program, according to Tesla App Updates, who intially reported on the appearance. Here’s what they found:

A Dedicated “Robot” Phone Key Authentication

Tesla is working on a Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, authentication that is specifically for robots. This does not only apply to Optimus, though, as Robotaxi, which is Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, might also identify vehicles within the fleet as robots as well.

Tesla shows rapid teardown of Model S and X lines, paving the way for Optimus at Fremont

Essentially, pairing your phone as a key to anything Tesla identifies as a robot to a “whitelist” of authorized devices. Optimus, Robotaxi, or other products that fall into this category will only respond if the device trying to communicate with it is authorized.

Advertisement

This is a great security feature that will eliminate at least face-value and low-level threats.

Home Data Collection and System Alerts

This appears to be somewhat of a neural network for Optimus within your house. There will be a dedicated screen that asks for consent to collect both video and spatial data while Optimus performs in-home tasks. Everything from vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, and other activities will be tracked.

There will also be a comprehensive alert system that will track everything from low battery to mechanical issues.

Other Changes

Most of the changes tracked in this particular app update are related to Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, and include things such as image assets for new features, a preview of the new custom wraps feature, and other unique features.

You can check out our coverage on what is included with the 2026 Summer Update here:

Advertisement

Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

Continue Reading