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Louisiana Dealership caught posting misleading Ford F-150 EV listing on Facebook Louisiana Dealership caught posting misleading Ford F-150 EV listing on Facebook

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Louisiana Dealership caught posting misleading Ford F-150 EV listing on Facebook

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Update:

Aaron Ebenezer, the owner of the post, contacted Teslarati with a statement. He told us that his intention was not to deceive the audience but to inform them that with a minimum amount of $5,000 initial investment with approved credit, someone could own the F-150 EV.

“I was the Salesman that posted the All-Electric F-150 Truck on Facebook Marketplace, my intentions were not to deceive the audience but to inform them that with a minimum amount of $5,000 initial investment with approved credit, someone could own the F-150 EV.”

 

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A Louisiana dealership is playing tricks on potential customers by listing a used Ford F-150 Lightning EV for $5,000 on Facebook. In a tip emailed to Teslarati, our reader shared photos of a conversation with the dealer rep in a private Facebook group. I did some digging and easily found the listing.  

The listing is for a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum and says that the vehicle is $5,000 and has been driven for 400 miles. According to the listing, it has an automatic transmission but it is an electric vehicle.

The full listing reads as follows from the screenshot below. In the screenshot, I blotted out the rep’s name and phone number. 

“The new Electric F-150 is huge for Ford and, really, for the car industry at large. 

“The F-150 has been the bestselling vehicle in America for over 40 years now, which means an EV F-150 is a big step towards electrifying cars, period.” 

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“From a huge panoramic sunroof, heated/cooling seats, 360 cameras, Navigation System, Apple?,?Android play to Hands-free Cruise(Autopilot) mode. This truck goes from 0-60mph in 4.3 secs ?, the fastest EV truck available to drive currently, even faster than a Raptor!!!” 

“This beauty charges fast from 15% – 80% in 45mins. At 100% it goes 325 miles, + battery 8yrs warranty 100k miles.”

“On top of the bed space, it also has an empty hood space for luggage and extras.” 

“Annnnnd that thang’s screen is MASSIVE!!!” 

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At the very bottom of the description, it was noted that the $5,000 price was the “suggested deposit WAC.”

 

Screenshot taken by Teslarati

 

According to the emailed tip, the dealership is also posting to the North Bossier Online Yard Sale Facebook group, a private group that is no longer accepting new memberships. (I tried to join.) The screenshot below is from the group and shows group members asking why the dealership changed the price from $139,999 to $5,000.

Screenshot provided anonymously to Teslarati. Note, this was from a private group so we blacked out the names and profile photos of the members.

The dealership representative replied, “People have a problem with the price so, why not put the starting down payment?”

Someone else replied to the dealer rep, “It wouldn’t be so bad if the price wasn’t jacked up by $45K over MSRP.”

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Dealerships are well known for being highly misleading and money hungry. A simple Google search can tell you that. Tesla is suing the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association (LADA), the Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission (LMVC), and several of its dealer board members after uncovering communications between the LADA and LMVC members “evidencing a common purpose to exclude Tesla from operating in Louisiana.”

Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission. 

Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more.

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Elon Musk

Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.

Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.

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It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.

Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.

The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.

Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.

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The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.

SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.

There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.

The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

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It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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