The auto industry saw something historic happen this past week in Germany. In a rare act of unity, the leaders of the country’s big three Automakers; Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, and BMW CEO Harald Krüger, all agreed that the future of German auto is the electric car. Over the next decade, each CEO would be pushing their respective companies to shift and embrace the idea of an electrified fleet.
No (more) compromises
The deal did not come easy. The Volkswagen CEO caused waves among German automakers and suppliers after he called for the widespread adoption of electric cars and a mass investment in EV charging infrastructure. The VW CEO’s proposal was bold: he wanted the German auto industry to focus solely on EVs, and he warned that he would be “evaporating billions” to do so. The proposal was met with a lot of criticism, from both fellow automakers and suppliers. In response, Volkswagen threatened to leave the industry lobby group Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) because of its refusal to commit to an electric-first strategy.
BMW CEO Harald Krüger was particularly critical of Volkswagen’s proposal, which resulted in what industry insiders described as heated talks between the two executives. Krüger’s reservations are understandable, as Volkswagen’s demands do not favor BMW. One of Diess’ requests called for free charging benefits for electric car owners whose vehicles cost less than 20,000 euros. This benefits Volkswagen, which is aiming to produce an affordable electric car, but not companies like BMW and Daimler, who, on average, make more expensive vehicles.
Despite these headwinds, a short but meaningful call last Wednesday sealed the deal for Das Auto’s electric car initiatives. Insiders from news publication Handelsblatt noted that after ten minutes, the Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler CEOs were practically on the same page, and by the end of the 40-minute conference call, the three executives have found a middle ground. The representative of the VDA dubbed the meeting as “constructive,” and the lobby group has stated that it’s expecting the three manufacturers to work out a consensus paper in the near future.
Apart from advocating for electromobility, The companies also decided to forego commitments to other forms of alternative propulsion, such as hydrogen fuel cells. In a statement to media publication welt.de, BMW member of the board Klaus Fröhlich mentioned that a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cell cars is unlikely within the next decade, particularly as charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is growing at a rate where long-distance travel will soon be a non-issue. “The probability of a hydrogen infrastructure developing in parallel is very low,” Fröhlich said.
A LinkedIn post written by the Volkswagen CEO outlined his points as follows. “In order to stop global warming, there is no way around the Paris climate targets. To do this, the car must become cleaner as soon as possible and CO2-free by 2050 at the latest. E-mobility is the only technology that is feasible from today’s perspective. I am convinced that if we concentrate all our energies on the leading technology of electromobility, we will achieve both: the car will become cleaner in the short term and CO2-free in the long term. And the car country Germany will be the world leader in driving the future,” Diess wrote.
All According to the (Master) Plan
While Germany’s commitment to electromobility is undoubtedly impressive, it should be noted that the developments and milestones of the electric motor and electric car batteries over the past years are the catalysts that initiated this change. Electric mobility advocate Auke Hoekstra notes that electric motors are pretty much the only superior alternative to the internal combustion engine today, in the way that they are smaller, lighter, cheaper, practically maintenance-free, and around four times more efficient. It should also be noted that it took the efforts of a daring Silicon Valley electric car company to show the industry that electric mobility is feasible.
Elon Musk has always noted that Tesla exists to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Back in 2006, he posted his first Master Plan, which involved the creation of electric cars that are so compelling for car buyers; the behemoth that is traditional auto will start shifting its efforts to electric mobility. Tesla’s first car, the original Roadster, was mostly a proof-of-concept in this sense, as it is a vehicle that simply proved the idea that electric cars can be just as fast, sexy, and desirable as the next Porsche or Ferrari. The Model S and Model X took the company’s mission further, proving that electric cars are not only comparable to their fossil fuel-powered counterparts; they could be far better. Loaded to the teeth with tech, the sedan and crossover (hence the Model “S” and “X” moniker) were successful, but they still only catered to the higher end of the market.
Tesla shook the auto industry with the Model 3, a vehicle that practically took the company and its CEO inches away from ruin. Elon Musk described the Model 3 ramp as one of the most painful periods of his career, and objectively speaking, he was correct. Musk bet Tesla’s entire future in the Model 3, and if it wasn’t for his own willingness to sacrifice his own comfort (Musk returned to sleeping under a table in Tesla’s Fremont factory at the height of the Model 3’s “production hell”), clever, out-of-the-box solutions from remarkable executives like current President of Automotive Jerome Guillen (who came up with the idea of creating another Model 3 assembly line inside a sprung structure), and the insane efforts of Tesla’s workers across the board, the company would have fallen. Months later, the Model 3 would become the United States’ best-selling luxury vehicle of 2018, and within the first quarter of 2019, the electric sedan would begin to take over Europe and China. At this point, it is no exaggeration to state that the Model 3, with its track-capable motors and battery, is pretty much the gold standard of electric vehicles today.
A Mission Achieved
With the behemoth that is German Auto now awakened and committing itself fully towards electric mobility, will Tesla finally be trampled under the giants’ feet? Not necessarily. Tesla still functions like a Silicon Valley startup, moving fast, making mistakes, and fixing errors on the go. The result of this work culture, coupled with extensive experience with the electric motor and batteries, is a carmaker that moves incredibly fast. Thus, by the time the German automakers come up with vehicles that can challenge the Model 3 in its current iteration in terms of tech, features, and specs, Tesla would probably have improved its vehicles further. It’s incredible to see traditional automakers finally commit to electric cars, but in terms of beating Tesla, it would suffice to say that it would be very difficult to trample a company that stubbornly refuses to stay still.
When asked by 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl if he would be open to other carmakers beating Tesla at its own game, Elon Musk candidly stated that as long as the world’s shift to electric transportation is secured, he would be able to sleep well at night. “If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla and it’s so much better than ours that we can’t sell our cars, and we go bankrupt, I still think that’s a good thing for the world,” Musk said, to the surprise of the veteran host. This is one of the things that is fascinating about Tesla and Elon Musk. Both the company and its CEO are fighting tooth and nail every day to meet its next ridiculously difficult target; but beyond these struggles, Musk and Tesla are fully aware that the fight is much bigger than them. A future that is not dependent on fossil fuels is a far bigger cause.
It took a while before Germany’s biggest car conglomerates saw the writing on the wall. Now that they have, it would not be surprising at all if the auto industry does start a full embrace of electric mobility. China is already waist-deep in its EV initiatives, and with Germany doing the same, it would be difficult for the internal combustion engine to remain relevant in the decades to come. One could only hope that the United States’ big three, Ford, GM, and Fiat-Chrysler, will follow. Tesla is already based in the US, and its patents are open-sourced. At this point, the writing is now in big, bold letters, and it would be foolish to insist that electric mobility is “not yet ready” or “not feasible.” As for Tesla, one can only hope that the company had learned its lessons with the Model 3 as it attempts to produce the Model Y, an even more ambitious vehicle that will compete in one of the world’s most lucrative markets.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk rips ABC News over fatal NYC Tesla crash report
Musk pushed back on NYC Tesla crash coverage, pointing to a pattern of premature blame.
Elon Musk pushed back overnight against media framing of a fatal Tesla crash in Midtown Manhattan, telling a user on X that “it wasn’t the car” and that the vehicle’s Autopilot system had nothing to do with the wreck.
The crash happened just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, when a 2024 Tesla Model Y struck a sidewalk shed outside 315 Madison Ave., a bus stop pole and a mailbox on East 42nd Street, according to the NYPD. The car kept moving several more blocks before stopping near Second Avenue. Both women inside, each 27, were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where the passenger was pronounced dead. The driver was charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while ability impaired and leaving the scene of an accident.
Police have not attributed the crash to Autopilot or Full Self-Driving in any public statement. The charges point to impairment, not software. Musk’s response followed a since-deleted ABC News post that he said mischaracterized the incident. Replying to a user on X, Musk wrote that if Autopilot had been engaged, “they would not have crashed,” and added that “the legacy media will never forgive Tesla for failing to advertise with them,”
The legacy media will never forgive Tesla for failing to advertise with them
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2026
It’s a familiar cycle for Tesla. In June, headlines from several national outlets described a fatal crash in Katy, Texas, as happening while the car was “on autopilot,” based on the driver’s own account to police after his Model 3 struck a home and killed a 76-year-old woman. Tesla’s data told a different story when Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, said the driver had pressed the accelerator to 100% and reached 73 mph in a residential zone. Harris County prosecutors later confirmed the human override and the driver was charged with manslaughter.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to that same Katy crash last month to argue that outlets routinely name Tesla in crash headlines while leaving other automakers unnamed, even after a driver’s own actions are shown to be the cause. A similar pattern played out in 2024, when Musk had to clarify that FSD was never even downloaded onto the Model 3 involved in a fatal Colorado DUI crash, despite a passenger’s claim that an “auto drive feature” was in use.
Tesla has not issued a separate statement on the Manhattan crash beyond Musk’s posts on X. The NYPD’s investigation is ongoing, and no cause for the driver losing control has been released.
Tesla’s two recently-defunct flagship models, the Model S and Model X, are getting a big upgrade, according to the company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy.
Older Hardware 3 Model S and Model X vehicles have been the last major holdouts in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving v14 Lite rollout, and that wait now appears to be ending.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
At Tesla’s Cybercab launch, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy told Ryan McCaffrey that he thought the S and X build “was supposed to go out last week.” Evidently, Elluswamy expects the suite to be rolled out to those HW3 Model S and Model X very soon:
For my @Tesla friends – and specifically Model S & X owners with HW3 who are waiting on FSD v14 Lite – I spoke to @aelluswamy at the Cybercab launch, & when I asked for an ETA on v14 Lite for S/X owners, he said, “Oh, I thought it was supposed to go out last week.”
So: soon! 🙌
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) September 7, 2026
Those cars are not the current Model S and Model X, which already ship with Hardware 4. They are the pre-refresh flagships built around Tesla’s older Autopilot computer, often called HW3 or AI3.
Tesla stopped putting that computer in new vehicles years ago, which is why owners treat these S and X cars as a closed generation. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles on the same computer began receiving v14 Lite in late June 2026 and saw a wider North American expansion in July. South Korea followed as an early international market. The S and X versions of the same software never joined that wave.
v14 Lite is Tesla’s way of squeezing the current v14 driving stack onto hardware that cannot run the full AI 4 model. The company describes the process as distillation: behaviors learned on the newer computer, including reinforcement learning and offline models, are compressed so the older chip and cameras can use them as a guide.
Early descriptions put the distilled network at roughly 15 percent of the original size. The result is still supervised Level 2 driving. Tesla has been clear that HW3 cannot support unsupervised Full Self-Driving or robotaxi operation because of memory and bandwidth limits.
The feature list is what made the wait so frustrating for S and X owners, as plenty of new features are to be shipped with it.
Official notes for the first Lite build, firmware 2026.20.5.1, added parking, unparking, and reversing; arrival options for a parking lot, street, driveway, or curbside; speed profiles that stay available at all times; and start-from-park engagement. Tesla also claimed better handling of merges, forks, pedestrians, traffic lights, and cut-ins, plus fewer false slowdowns and smoother lane centering.
A mid-July follow-on build, 2026.20.6.10, added more of the Hardware 4 interface, including a standalone Self-Driving app and the ability to start a trip from Park without a brake-pedal confirmation.
Elluswamy called that version the one “likely going to wide release.”
That wide release already reached most other HW3 cars in the United States and Canada. International timing still depends on regional validation and regulatory approval. For S and X owners, the remaining work appears to be model-specific validation rather than a new software stack.
There is no official Tesla changelog or build number for those two models yet, only Elluswamy’s offhand timeline. Some HW3 drivers who already have Lite report large gains over v12.6; others have described new indecision or phantom braking. The next test will be whether the same software lands cleanly on the older flagships that have waited the longest.
Yesterday, we reported on Tesla Cybertruck getting some major adjustments from a manufacturing standpoint in an effort to make the all-electric pickup more cost-effective, more reliable, more serviceable, and more easily produced.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
One of those changes was the addition of a self-reinforcing polypropylene aero shield that sits underneath the truck. Previously, Tesla utilized aluminum for this, but the self-reinforcing polypropylene was more durable while also being cheaper and lighter.
Tesla has revealed another small change it made to the Cybertruck, and it has to do with the side repeater cameras.
Tesla does not wait for a new model year to improve its vehicles. On September 8, Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill posted side-by-side photos of an updated side repeater camera housing now rolling off the line at Gigafactory Texas.
The triangular camera pod mounted on the front fender looks almost identical at first glance. A closer look reveals a revised contour that uses the air already flowing around the truck to keep the lens clearer in rain and road spray.
The side repeater camera was updated – the version on the left is the newer part which uses passive geometry to create airflow disturbance that better keep water off the lens while driving. No cost penalty, just pure vision improvement. pic.twitter.com/wAbXtcL1Jf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 8, 2026
The side repeater cameras sit in an exposed position on the Cybertruck’s angular stainless-steel body.
In wet weather, they readily collect water droplets that can degrade the image Autopilot and Full Self-Driving use for lane changes and blind-spot monitoring. Early production trucks sometimes left owners wiping lenses by hand or accepting temporary restrictions on driver-assistance features.
Tesla has added washers to cameras on certain other models and on Cybercab prototypes, but those active systems add cost, complexity, and extra potential leak points.
The new housing solves the problem with passive geometry. Subtle changes in the surround create localized airflow disturbances as the vehicle moves. Those eddies physically push water droplets away from the optical surface. Morrill called the result “pure vision improvement” achieved at “no cost penalty.” Once the production mold is updated, every subsequent part costs the same as the original.
The advantages compound quickly. Clearer cameras in rain improve the reliability of driver-assistance features precisely when they are needed most. The design consumes no extra energy and introduces no new failure modes.
New Cybertrucks built after the tooling changeover receive the updated part automatically. Some owners of trucks delivered as late as June 2026 have already confirmed they received the revised housing. Retrofit questions have appeared in replies, and the cameras appear electrically compatible, though Tesla has not announced an official service program.
A few millimeters of reshaped housing will not make headlines the way a new battery pack does, but these changes are incremental and increase the Cybertruck’s effectiveness as a vehicle over time.
This improvement illustrates how Tesla continues to refine the Cybertruck after volume production began. Better wet-weather vision, zero added cost, and no extra hardware add up to a meaningful gain in everyday usability and safety.
Elon Musk rips ABC News over fatal NYC Tesla crash report
Tesla’s two defunct flagship models are getting a big upgrade
