News
10,000 Toyota drivers sign petition urging company to commit to EVs: ‘Put our future before your profits’
Over 10,000 Toyota drivers have signed a petition with over 110,000 signatures urging the Japanese car maker to embrace electrification efforts and stop “lobbying to prevent electric vehicle mandates and clean air laws.”
10,500 of the 110,000 signatures come from current Toyota customers who are displeased with the company’s lack of commitment to developing sustainable powertrains. Toyota, which pushed against mandates for zero-emissions guidelines by 2035 in the past, committed to a 100 CO2 reduction in Europe by 2035. However, InfluenceMap analysts have stated Toyota is working harder than any other automotive company to stagnate progress on electric vehicles. It plans for only 14 percent of its total production to be electrified by the end of the decade. Toyota would miss its commitments to the Paris Agreement.
In November, InfluenceMap listed Toyota as the third-most negative and influential company against climate policies, following only ExxonMobil and Chevron. A month later, Toyota announced its plans to transition a minimum of 50 percent of its vehicles in Western Europe to zero-emissions by 2030:
“Moving beyond 2030, we expect to see further ZEV demand acceleration, and Toyota will be ready to achieve 100% CO2 reduction in all new vehicles by 2035 in Western Europe, assuming that sufficient electric charging and hydrogen refueling infrastructures are in place by then, together with the renewable energy capacity increases that will be required.” – Matt Harrison, President & CEO Toyota Motor Europe.
It is not up for much debate whether Toyota was committed to EVs a year ago because their plans simply did not include a dedicated lineup of sustainable vehicles. Instead, Toyota focused on hydrogen fuel cell powertrains.
Despite Toyota making changes to its EV plans and even unveiling the new bZ4X in mid-April, owners are still not wholly convinced of the company’s commitments and are urging the automaker to take a more serious tone when it comes to electrified options.
Toyota officially launches the bZ4X, its first full EV in nearly a decade
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On a petition titled “Toyota is Fueling the Climate Crisis,” 110,044 people have signed as a recognition of their discontent with the company’s EV commitments. InfluenceMap’s latest review still has Toyota as the top carmaker lobbying against ambitious climate and clean air laws.
“Laggard automakers, such as Toyota (D) and Nissan (D+), which are forecast to have the lowest percentage of zero-emissions fleet-wide vehicle production in 2029 (14% and 22% respectively), also have the most negative climate policy engagement,” the report said.
Amongst the signees, comments regarding the company’s relatively lackluster plans have catalyzed a number of owners to consider axing the company altogether if it doesn’t make a more solidified commitment to sustainability. “We own a Prius and a Corolla and are loyal Toyota customers, however, we are disappointed and upset that Toyota is not supporting a zero-emissions target in the EU,” one person who signed the petition said. “Please put our future before your profits and support the EU emissions goals. Otherwise, many loyal customers like us will stop buying Toyotas and move to other brands that are more environmentally responsible.”
“I drive a Prius, and I am telling you to stop lobbying against extending our use of fossil fuels…You must realize you are ruining the future of our children. I will sell your car if you persist in this idiocy,” another comment said.
Toyota continues to put out EV production projections, which are lofty and, as the world’s largest car manufacturer, seem to be considerable. However, Toyota still maintains the fastest way to reduce CO2 emissions is through hybrid vehicles and not rapid electrification. Toyota has massive plans to expand to around 70 electrified models by 2025, but only 15 of these will be fully electric.
Seven of the fifteen will feature the bZ brand moniker. “his diverse portfolio of electrified products will help propel Toyota toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050,” the company said in April. “Globally, Toyota has put more than 20 million electrified models on the road – with a CO2 emissions reduction effect equivalent to the CO2 emissions reduction of over 5.5 million BEVs. Over the next nine years, Toyota will invest $70+ billion in electrified vehicles as a whole with the target to launch 3.5 million BEVs globally in 2030.”
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News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.
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Elon Musk
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
Elon Musk shared a new Terafab video showing Optimus, Robovans, and a stunningly futuristic campus.
Elon Musk posted a new video of Terafab on X Thursday morning, and the most eye-catching details in it were not the building itself, but two products still awaiting production: Optimus and the Robovan.
The concept render, credited to SpaceX, shows Optimus robots working the grounds of the roughly 2.5-mile-long facility planned for the Gibbons Creek site in Grimes County, while a Robovan glides along an elevated roadway cutting through the building itself, sharing the frame with a Tesla Semi and a Cybercab.
Robovan is the boxy, driverless people and cargo mover Musk unveiled alongside Cybercab at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024. He pitched it as a way to move up to 20 passengers at once, or handle freight instead, at a target cost he claimed could fall under a dollar a mile, with no steering wheel or pedals, the same layout as Cybercab. Nearly two years later, Robovan still has no confirmed production timeline and has not shown up in any factory footage, which makes Thursday’s render one of the only recent looks at the vehicle in any form.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. pic.twitter.com/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Optimus has moved further along. Tesla began converting Fremont’s old Model S and Model X assembly line into a Gen 3 Optimus production line earlier this year, and Musk visited the site on July 1 to mark the changeover. A second, larger Optimus plant is under construction at Giga Texas, targeting volume production in summer 2027 and eventual capacity of 10 million units a year. Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this month the robot has “big shoes to fill” in replacing the S and X line, while Musk has repeatedly called Optimus the company’s biggest product of any kind, with a long-term price he has pegged between $20,000 and $30,000.
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Check out the “Robovan” from @Tesla
📸: @Teslarati pic.twitter.com/D4es2i9NUe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
“Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far,” Musk wrote alongside the clip. “And it will be stunningly beautiful.”
One quote post summed up the reaction: “Futuristic scene with RoboVan + Cybercab + Tesla Semi + Optimus.”
Beyond the vehicles, the architecture wrapped around them stands out too. The building’s facade is canted at sharp angles, with illuminated horizontal bands running through what appears to be a multi level interior visible from outside. Below the elevated roadway, pedestrians walk along a plaza next to a reflecting pool, and the skyline behind the campus is dotted with angular spires that read more like sculpture than infrastructure, a departure from the strictly utilitarian look of Gigafactory Texas or Starbase.
The timing tracks with what Terafab representative Riley Trennell told Grimes County residents on Wednesday, when he said renderings of the facility would be released “within days.” Musk’s post followed less than 24 hours later, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office sent out its own release Thursday confirming the project. As Teslarati reported this morning, Terafab’s tax abatement agreements with Grimes County are now signed and active, and SpaceX has sent the county its first $10 million payment under that deal. The dollar figure tied to this phase of construction, per Reuters, is $16.8 billion, one of the first hard capital expenditure numbers attached to Terafab since Musk unveiled the joint Tesla-SpaceX-xAI venture in March.Reaction on X ranged from enthusiastic to skeptical. “God Bless Texas! Everything is bigger and better in Texas!” one reply read. Another was more measured: “Terafab in a decade…..”
Whether the finished building matches the render is a separate question from whether Musk wanted people talking about the render itself. Less than a day after posting, the video had already crossed 5.5 million views.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
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The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
