The United Auto Workers union, sixteen states, and four environmental groups recently filed lawsuits against the United States Postal Service (USPS). The groups aim to stop the Postal Service’s plan to purchase and produce gas-powered delivery vehicles to update its fleet.
Background
The USPS announced it would spend up to $11.3 billion on up to 165,000 gas-powered NGDVs. The Biden Administration urged the Postal Service to reconsider its plans. President Biden had ordered federal agencies to phase out the purchase of gas-powered vehicles, and the USPS makes up a third of the U.S. government fleet.
In March, the USPS received criticism from U.S. lawmakers in the House Oversight Committee for its gas-powered Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV). The Committee sent a letter to the USPS Inspector General requesting an investigation into the agency’s NGDV order. According to the Committee’s letter, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the White House Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ), and numerous environmental stakeholders were concerned that the USPA did not meet NEPA obligations with its gas-powered NGDV fleet.
The USPS responded to EPA feedback with a record of decision (ROD), which outlined the Postal Service’s decision to purchase and deploy 50,000 to 165,000 NGDVs over the next ten years. The agency stated that the NGDV fleet would be a mix of ICE and battery electric delivery vans. Electric vehicles would make up at least 10% of the agency’s fleet. However, the Postal Service also determined that ICE NGDVs were the “most achievable” replacements for its existing fleet.
USPS Lawsuits by States
As per Reuters, sixteen states, led by New York and California, filed a lawsuit against the USPS for its flawed and unlawful environmental analysis of the NGDV program. The lawsuit also accuses the Postal Service of signing the contracts to purchase the gas-powered NGDV before completing a draft environmental review.
According to the CEQ, the Postal Service’s final review for the NGDV program was “flawed in some ways that cannot be so easily remedied.” For example, USPS estimated that the gas-powered NGDVs would get 29.9 miles per gallon, but the EPA discovered that the vehicles would only get 14.7 miles per gallon or less.
UAW and NRDC Lawsuit
Besides the states lawsuit, the UAW filed a joint lawsuit with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), claiming the USPS “failed on multiple levels” when it evaluated and finalized the contract for the NGDVs. The two parties demand that the agency stop producing the next-generation delivery vehicles. As per the complaint, the UAW and NRDC stated that the NGDV contract is “based on an unlawfully deficient environmental analysis issued after the Postal Service had already decided on a course of action.”
The two parties also criticized the agency’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The UAW and NRDC claim that the Postal Service did not consider the impact NGDV production — opposed to the operation — would have on the local environment. The EIS did not disclose that the vehicles would be produced in South Carolina by Oshkosh Defense, a Wisconsin-based contractor.
“With this contract, USPS and Oshkosh Defense abandoned the Wisconsin workers that built the company and failed taxpayers with a sham process to evaluate the environmental and community impacts of these vehicles. The USPS’s Next Generation Delivery Vehicle is an opportunity for the Biden administration to reverse-court and make real investments in both a cleaner future and good union jobs The contract as it currently stands fails on both accounts. It’s time to halt production and start the procurement process over,” said Ray Curry, president of the United Auto Workers.
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Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
News
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
