As the United Auto Workers (UAW) union continues attempts to ratify new contract agreements with Big Three automakers General Motors (GM), Ford and Stellantis, one GM plant in Michigan has narrowly voted against the recently proposed deal following a historic six-week strike.
GM secured a tentative deal with the UAW late last month after Ford and Stellantis had come to tentative agreements within the prior week. The strike-ending agreements followed the initial walkouts against all three automakers on September 14 after previous union contracts expired and multiple waves of strike escalations in the weeks in between.
Since coming to the tentative agreements, the UAW is going to local chapters to explain the deals and have them ratified by workers through a vote. On Thursday, UAW Local 598 workers at GM’s Flint, Michigan assembly plant said they narrowly voted against adopting the contract, with 51.8 percent of votes cast going against the proposal, according to Reuters.
GM’s Flint assembly plant has 4,746 employees, and the factory produces the Chevy Silverado truck. GM did not comment on the process of ratification.
While GM is scheduled to continue holding votes on the contracts with additional local chapters, the news highlights the fact that the contracts are not yet a done deal — even following the costly strikes and lengthy negotiation period.
Workers at major GM plants including its Arlington, Texas assembly plant and its Fort Wayne, Indiana truck factory will vote in the weeks ahead. According to one UAW vote tracker, roughly 58 percent of GM workers across facilities who have cast votes so far have voted in favor of ratifying the contract.
UAW’s efforts to unionize Tesla ‘absolutely’ supported by President Joe Biden
The proposed UAW agreement would cover around 46,000 GM workers, including 25 percent in base wage increases through the contract’s April 2028 deadline, along with the automaker gradually increasing the top wage by as much as 33 percent. In addition, the proposal includes cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) that boost total worker pay to more than $42 per hour.
Despite the rejection of the contract at the Flint facility, some say GM is unlikely to offer much more than what it has already offered. University of Michigan professor Erik Gordon thinks chances are low for GM to go much higher.
“The chances of GM putting more than another 15 cents on the table are low,” Gordon said.
GM’s tentative contract includes almost $2 billion in investments going toward electric vehicle (EV) development at plants in Michigan, Kansas and New York. Late last month, GM also announced the delay of a key EV plant in Tennessee, and the company has separately announced plans to slow some other EV investments.
A major sticking point during early rounds of negotiations with the Big Three included adding coverage to future EV battery and auto plants, though the automakers eventually gave in.
The news also follows a nightmarish month for GM, even beyond the strikes.
GM’s self-driving subsidiary Cruise had a driverless vehicle drag and pin a woman in San Francisco in early October, for which the company’s driverless permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was immediately revoked. It has since been reported that GM will halt production of Cruise’s self-driving Origin van, and the company is currently reviewing its response process following the accident.
Watch below to see UAW President Shawn Fain’s Wednesday ratification update.
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.
News
Tesla is coming to Estonia and Latvia in latest European expansion: report
Tesla seems to be accelerating its regional expansion following its recent launch in Lithuania.
Recent reports have indicated that Tesla has taken a step toward entering the Baltic states by registering new subsidiaries in Latvia and Estonia.
Filings suggest that Tesla is accelerating its regional expansion following its recent launch in Lithuania, with service centers likely coming before full sales operations.
Official entities in Latvia and Estonia
Tesla has established two new legal entities, Tesla Latvia SIA and Tesla Estonia OÜ, both owned by Tesla International B.V., as noted in an EV Wire report. Corporate records show the Estonian entity was formed on December 16, 2025, while the Latvian subsidiary was registered earlier, on November 7.
Both entities list senior Tesla executives on their boards, including regional and finance leadership responsible for new market expansion across Europe. Importantly, the entities are registered under “repair and maintenance of motor vehicles,” rather than strictly vehicle sales. This suggests that Tesla service centers will likely be launched in both countries.
The move mirrors Tesla’s recent Baltic rollout strategy. When Tesla entered Lithuania, it first established a local entity, followed by a pop-up store within weeks and a permanent service center a few months later. It would then not be surprising if Tesla follows a similar strategy in Estonia and Latvia, and service and retail operations arrive in the first half of 2026.
Tesla’s European push
Tesla saw a drop in sales in Europe in 2025, though the company is currently attempting to push more sales in the region by introducing its most affordable vehicles yet, the Model 3 Standard and the Model Y Standard. Both vehicles effectively lower the price of entry into the Tesla ecosystem, which may make them attractive to consumers.
Tesla is also hard at work in its efforts to get FSD approved for the region. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Tesla rolled out an FSD ride-along program in several European countries, allowing consumers to experience the capabilities of FSD firsthand. In early December, reports emerged indicating that the FSD ride-along program would be extended in several European territories until the end of March 2026.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
News
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
Tesla is coming to Estonia and Latvia in latest European expansion: report
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
