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Ford EV sales boost led by Mustang Mach-E, loses #2 sales spot to GM

Credit: Ford Europe

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Ford has released its sales report for the first quarter of the year, showing the company remains on track to outpace traditional rivals.

Ford has been moving quickly to introduce electric vehicles that Americans want to buy, but this task has been far from easy due to consistent supply snarls. Nonetheless, the Blue Oval’s sales report for the first quarter of the year shows it is on the right track, set to overtake its traditional rivals, and maybe eventually challenge the likes of Tesla.

Ford reports a massive 10.7% increase in overall sales in the first quarter of the year, year over year, but the news is even better from its EV segment, where sales grew 41% during the same timeframe. Ford sold 10,866 EVs in the year’s first quarter and a total of 456,972 EV and ICE vehicles combined.

The Mustang Mach-E made up the majority of Ford’s EV sales, selling 5,407 units, which was a decline from the previous quarter, as Ford notes that the Mach-E production facility underwent significant production upgrades. Just behind the Mach-E was the F-150 Lightning, the current leader in the electric truck segment, selling 4,291 units. Finally, Ford’s market-leading electric van, the E-Transit, sold 1,168 units.

While Ford still falls behind its long-time rival, General Motors, who recently reported selling roughly 20,000 EVs, Ford remains on track to achieve EV production significantly higher than its counterpart, planning to reach an annual run rate of 150,000 F-150 Lightnings alone by the end of the year. Recently, Ford executives shared that the company remains on track to achieve its 2 million annual electric vehicle run rate goal by 2026.

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“Ford is off to a fast start to the year. Ford’s sales growth and investments are a direct result of strong customer demand across our truck, SUV, and electric vehicle segments. And this year’s highly anticipated new product launches with Super Duty, Escape, Mustang, and Ranger will only add to this momentum,” said Andrew Frick, VP of sales distribution and trucks.

Outside of its current sales success, Ford is poised to introduce numerous new EVs, many of which are expected to improve its standing in the ever-more competitive EV market dramatically. This notably includes Ford’s latest EV offering, the electric Explorer (unrelated to the current gas-powered Explorer), though at least for now, that model will be locked to Europe. As for North America, Ford also plans to introduce another full-size truck model parallel to its successful F-150 Lightning.

What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk is setting high expectations for Tesla AI5 and AI6 chips

Musk confirmed this week that Tesla had just completed a design review for AI5.

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Image used with permission for Teslarati. (Credit: Tom Cross)

Elon Musk is setting high expectations for Tesla’s in-house silicon program. As per Musk in a set of recent posts on X, Tesla’s AI5 and AI6 will be game-changing. 

Tesla’s AI5 and AI6 are incredibly important for Tesla’s future, which will likely be built on the back of very high-volume products like Optimus and the Cybercab.

Musk sets high expectations

Musk confirmed this week that Tesla had just completed a design review for AI5, which will initially be manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan before production ramps in Arizona. As per Musk, consolidating Tesla’s chip design efforts into one architecture has allowed the company to focus its silicon talent on delivering a single high-performance platform. 

“Just had a great design review today with the Tesla AI5 chip design team! This is going to be an epic chip. And AI6 to follow has a shot at being the best (by) AI chip by far. Switching from doing 2 chip architectures to 1 means all our silicon talent is focused on making 1 incredible chip. No-brainer in retrospect,” Musk wrote in his post.

In a follow-up post, the CEO also stated that the company’s upcoming AI5 chip “will probably be the best inference chip of any kind” for models below ~250 billion parameters, with the “lowest cost silicon and best performance per watt.” Musk added that AI6, which follows AI5, “has a shot at being the best AI chip by far.”

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AI6 as Dojo’s successor

While AI5 is nearing production, Musk has also pointed to AI6 as Tesla’s next major target. The chip will be manufactured at Samsung’s upcoming Texas facility, part of a multibillion-dollar deal to support Tesla’s next-generation products such as the Cybercab and the Optimus humanoid robot. Musk also noted that AI6 could effectively replace Project Dojo as Tesla’s training platform, given its potential for both inference and training workloads.

Industry veterans have echoed this view, with former Apple and Rivian engineer Phil Beisel suggesting that “AI6 is now Dojo.” Musk appeared to agree, responding with a “bullseye” emoji. Musk has also noted on X that he would personally be walking the line in Samsung’s upcoming AI6 factory in Texas, to make sure that the facility’s output is accelerated according to Tesla’s requirements. 

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk: Neuralink could restore partial vision to the blind next year

The executive posted the update on social media platform X.

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Credit: Steve Jurvetson/Twitter

Elon Musk has suggested that Neuralink could attempt to restore limited sight to visually impaired patients as early as 2026. 

The executive posted the update on social media platform X amid news of Neuralink’s first successful Telepathy implants outside the United States. 

Blindsight trials

In a response to a post from Neuralink’s official X account about its first Canadian patients, Musk wrote that the company is “Aiming to restore (limited) sight to the completely blind next year.” The update was well-received on social media, as the device would most likely provide notable quality of life improvements to patients. Neuralink’s current implant, Telepathy, is already changing lives today, and the same will likely be true for Blindsight.

This was not the first time that Musk has provided an update to Neuralink’s Blindsight trials. Earlier this year, Musk told the Qatar Economic Forum that the first human implantation of Blindsight could occur early 2026, potentially in the United Arab Emirates. Neuralink has explored collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to perform the initial surgery. Blindsight has also received a “breakthrough device” designation from the US FDA, hinting at the implant’s development.

Blindsight’s potential

Musk has previously described Blindsight as Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) designed to restore vision. During Neuralink’s 2022 Show & Tell event, Musk stated that Blindsight would target the brain’s visual cortex, bypassing damaged eyes entirely to generate visual perception. This means that vision could be restored even for people who were born blind. 

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“The first two applications we’re going to aim for in humans are restoring vision, and I think this is notable in that even if someone has never had vision ever, like they were born blind, we believe we can still restore vision. The visual part of the cortex is still there. Even if they’ve never seen before, we’re confident they could see,” Musk said.

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Sweden Mediation Institute throws in the towel on Tesla vs IF Metall union conflict

After nearly two years, the union’s strike has become the country’s longest labor dispute to date.

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Credit: @NicklasNilsso14/X

Sweden’s Mediation Institute has formally ended its efforts to resolve the conflict between Tesla Sweden and trade union IF Metall. After nearly two years, the union’s strike has become the country’s longest labor dispute to date. 

Launched 677 days ago by the IF Metall union, the strike was intended to push Tesla Sweden into signing a collective agreement. Tesla Sweden, however, remained firm, maintaining that its working conditions are already better than union standards.

Mediation Institute withdraws

The state-run Mediation Institute, which had been involved early in the strike, confirmed this week that it was officially closing the case. The two parties have had several meetings, but neither side has been able to come to an agreement.

Director General Irene Wennemo described the effort as unprecedented in difficulty in a comment to Ekot. “We have tried in every possible way to get the parties to come closer to each other in a way that allows this conflict to end. But now we have come to the end of the road and have realized that it is just as good to end the case,” she told the Swedish outlet.

Union signals flexibility

The mediators noted in their final report that Tesla Sweden had limited authority in the talks, with key decisions appearing to rest with executives in the United States. The situation, they stated, created barriers to compromise that made the conflict “unlike anything else.” Tesla has maintained throughout that its Swedish workers already receive strong benefits and protections without the need for a formal collective agreement, as noted in a CarUp report.

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IF Metall, for its part, has begun hinting that it was open to alternatives. This was highlighted by Union Chair Marie Nilsson, who noted that while the preferred outcome of the country’s longest strike in history is a signed agreement, “other alternative solutions” are now on the table. “You can do it in different ways. The easiest thing would be to sign a collective agreement. But when that is not possible, we have to find other alternative solutions as well, so we are open to discussion,” the union official stated.

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