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Like many autonomous driving systems, Ford’s BlueCruise (also called Lincoln ActiveGlide) has been a work in progress since we first used it on the 2021 Mustang Mach-E. Things have changed a lot in two years, however. For version 1.2, the following are the major new features that Ford is hyping and I am testing.

  • Lane Change Assist can help drivers move through traffic on the freeway with more confidence while using BlueCruise. The system will perform a hands-free lane change when requested by the driver tapping the turn signal, and it can even suggest if a lane change would be beneficial when following slow-moving traffic.
  • Predictive Speed Assist automatically and smoothly adjusts the speed as drivers approach a sharp curve and will help signal the driver ahead of time when a speed change is about to occur so they understand why the vehicle is slowing.
  • In-Lane Repositioning makes the hands-free highway driving experience feel more natural, keeping the vehicle in its lane while subtly shifting the vehicle’s position away from vehicles in adjacent lanes – especially helpful when next to bigger vehicles such as semis.

I took the Mustang Mach-E on Interstate 87 from Albany, New York, down toward New York City for about 120 miles. That route is blessed by Ford and available for hands-free BlueCruise. Ford is rapidly expanding on which roads are compatible but still hasn’t reached quite as wide as GM’s SuperCruise or Tesla’s AutoPilot. Tesla will let me attempt to autonomously traverse my driveway and anything bigger.

Ford’s BlueCruise is activated when you hit the far left button on the steering wheel. Immediately, you are in Autonomous mode. You will need to keep your hands on the wheel, but when the car registers that it is on an approved highway, it will signal that you can go hands-free.

Once you are hands-free, you need to keep your eyes on the road. Ford is watching you from a camera mounted to the windshield behind the rearview mirror and another set of eyes behind the steering wheel. If you look down for more than a few glances or cover your eyes, the car starts beeping, then proceeds to freak out with lights, sounds, and even braking events.

As I left Albany, I put the car into BlueCruise and wasn’t alerted until the first turnpike exit, where the car requested I put my hands on the wheel. This happened at every on-ramp/exit for the next 30 or so miles, when it eventually stopped.

Lane Change Assist

The easiest and most common new feature is lane change. If you come up to a car going much slower than yourself, BlueCruise will ask you if you want to do a lane change. You initiate it with the turn signal, and it works incredibly smoothly (especially compared to Tesla’s early efforts). The downside is that after you change lanes, you have to turn off the signal rather than it shutting itself off.

You can initiate this on your own as well, and in my testing, it worked reliably.

Predictive Speed Assist

This one kind of crept up on me, and I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. As I approached tighter turns, the car slowed down from its set speed. But it did so in a way that was almost unnoticeable and just a few miles per hour. This feature was much more notable on the curvier Taconic parkway we took to Albany, where the car would drop 5-10 miles per hour of speed.

In-Lane Repositioning

This is one of those features I’ve been hoping to see for a while on my Tesla Model Y. As we maneuver through tight spots, the car centers itself in the lane, whether or not there is a car in the lane next to me. But that’s not natural.

When you pull alongside another car, Ford subtly moves the BlueCruise vehicle to the other side of the lane if there isn’t a car on the other side of you. That way, it feels a lot safer, and it is something we often do naturally and subconsciously. I wouldn’t have noticed this at all if I hadn’t been looking for it. But it does make the car and the system feel safer.

Other things

It has been two years since I’ve been behind the wheel of the Mustang Mach-E, though I did try BlueCruise 1.2 on the Ford F-150 in October. The difference two years makes is night and day for BlueCruise. But there were some other things I wish could have moved as fast.

I wish Ford could improve charging speed a bit. At an Electrify America 350kW charger, I went from 39% to 66% charge in 26 minutes, which works out to just over a kWh per minute of charge. That’s quite slow, even though it was cold. Ford needs to work on battery conditioning and the charge curve to deliver higher rates of charge.

Staying on charging, I would like to see an internal screen showing the charging specs, even when the car is off. As it stands, there is a little external circular six-spot light bar that shows the charging status, but it is hard to read. I need more info!

Electrek’s Take

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Hands-off autonomy is so much nicer to use on the open road than having to keep your hands on the wheel. That’s why I think SuperCruise and now Ford’s BlueCruise are better experiences on the road than Tesla’s Autopilot.

With your hands off the wheel, you feel like a passenger, and with the car keeping an eye on your eyes, you are free to look around a lot more, eat a sandwich, and adjust your seating position in ways you can’t with your hands on the wheel.

Ford, for its part, is moving the needle quite a bit in the right direction and already has a product that will lighten the mental and physical load of a driver on interstates.

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Solar executives warn that Trump attack on renewables will lead to power crunch that spikes electricity prices

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Solar executives warn that Trump attack on renewables will lead to power crunch that spikes electricity prices

Witthaya Prasongsin | Moment | Getty Images

President Donald Trump‘s attack on solar and wind projects threatens to raise energy prices for consumers and undermine a stretched electric grid that’s already straining to meet rapidly growing demand, renewable energy executives warn.

Trump has long said wind power turbines are unattractive and endanger birds, and that solar installations take up too much land. This week, he said his administration will not approve solar and wind projects, the latest salvo in a campaign the president has waged against the renewable energy industry since taking office.

“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”

Trump’s statement this week seemed to confirm industry fears that the Interior Department will block federal permits for solar and wind projects. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took control of all permit approvals last month in a move that the American Clean Power Association criticized as “obstruction,” calling it “unprecedented political review.”

The Interior Department blocking permits would slow the growth of the entire solar and wind industry, top executives at renewable developers Arevon, Avantus and Engie North America told CNBC.

Even solar and wind projects on private land may need approvals from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if, for example, a waterway or animal species is affected, the executives told CNBC. The three power companies are among the top 10 renewable developers in the U.S., according to energy research firm Enverus.

The Interior Department “will not give preferential treatment to massive, unreliable projects that make no sense for the American people or that risk harming communities or the environment,” a spokesperson told CNBC when asked if new permits would be issued for solar and wind construction.

Choking off renewables will worsen a looming power supply shortage, harm the electric grid and lead to higher electricity prices for consumers, said Kevin Smith, CEO of Arevon, a solar and battery storage developer headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, that’s active in 17 states. Arevon operates five gigawatts of power equivalent to $10 billion of capital investment.

“I don’t think everybody realizes how big the crunch is going to be,” Smith said. “We’re making that crunch more and more difficult with these policy changes.”

Uncertainty hits investment

The red tape at the Interior Department and rising costs from Trump’s copper and steel tariffs have created market instability that makes planning difficult, the renewable executives said.

“We don’t want to sign contracts until we know what the playing field is,” said Cliff Graham, CEO of Avantus, a solar and battery storage developer headquartered in San Diego. Avantus has built three gigawatts of solar and storage across the desert Southwest.

“I can do whatever you want me to do and have a viable business, I just need the rules set and in place,” Graham said.

Engie North America, the U.S. arm of a global energy company based in Paris, is slashing its planned investment in the U.S. by 50% due to tariffs and regulatory uncertainty, said David Carroll, the chief renewables officer who leads the American subsidiary. Engie could cut its plans even more, he said.

Engie’s North American subsidiary, headquartered in Houston, will operate about 11 gigawatts of solar, battery storage and wind power by year end.

Multinationals like Engie have long viewed the U.S. as one of the most stable business environments in the world, Carroll said. But that assessment is changing in Engie’s boardroom and across the industry, he said.

“The stability of the U.S. business market is no longer really the gold standard,” Carroll said.

Rising costs

Arevon is seeing costs for solar and battery storage projects increase by as much as 30% due to the metal tariffs, said Smith, the CEO. Many renewable developers are renegotiating power prices with utilities to cover the sudden spike in costs because projects no longer pencil out financially, he said.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act ends two key tax credits for solar and wind projects in late 2027, making conditions even more challenging. The investment tax credit supported new renewable construction and the production credit boosted clean electricity generation.

Those tax credits were just passed on to consumers, Smith said. Their termination and the rising costs from tariffs will mean higher utility bills for families and businesses, he said.

The price that Avantus charges for solar power has roughly doubled to $60 per megawatt-hour as interest rates and tariffs have increased over the years, said CEO Graham. Prices will surge again to around $100 per megawatt-hour when the tax credits are gone, he said.

“The small manufacturers, small companies and mom and pops will see their electric bills go up, and it’ll start pushing the small entrepreneurs out of the industry or out of the marketplace,” Graham said.

Renewable projects that start construction by next July, a year after the One Big Beautiful Act became law, will still qualify for the tax credits. Arevon, Avantus and Engie are moving forward with projects currently under construction, but the outlook is less certain for projects later in the decade.

The U.S. will see a big downturn in new renewable power generation starting in the second half of 2026 through 2028 as new projects no longer qualify for tax credits, said Smith, the head of Arevon.

“The small- and medium-sized players that can’t take the financial risk, some of them will disappear,” Smith said. “You’re going to see less projects built in the sector.”

Artificial intelligence power crunch

Fewer renewable power plants could increase the risk of brownouts or blackouts, Smith said. Electricity demand is surging from the data centers that technology companies are building to train artificial intelligence systems. PJM Interconnection, the largest electrical grid in the U.S. that coordinates wholesale electricity in 13 states and the District of Columbia, has warned of tight power supplies because too little new generation is coming online.

Renewables are the power source that can most quickly meet demand, Smith at Arevon said. More than 90% of the power waiting to connect to the grid is solar, battery storage or wind, according to data from Enverus.

“The power requirement is largely going to be coming from the new energy sector or not at all,” so without it, “the grid becomes substantially hampered,” Smith said.

Trump is prioritizing oil, gas and nuclear power as “the most effective and reliable tools to power our country,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

“President Trump serves the American people who voted to implement his America First energy agenda – not solar and wind executives who are sad that Biden’s Green New Scam subsidies are ending,” Kelly said.

But new natural gas plants won’t come online for another five years due to supply issues, new nuclear power is a decade away and no new coal plants are on the drawing board.

Utilities may have to turn away data centers at some point because there isn’t enough surplus power to run them, and no one wants to risk blackouts at hospitals, schools and homes, Arevon’s Smith said. This would pressure the U.S. in its race against China to master AI, a Trump administration priority.

“The panic in the data center, AI world is probably not going to set in for another 12 months or so, when they start realizing that they can’t get the power they need in some of these areas where they’re planning to build data centers,” Smith said.

“Then we’ll see what happens,” said the University of Chicago MBA, who’s worked in the energy industry for 35 years. “There may be a reversal in policy to try and build whatever we can and get power onto the grid.”

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Tesla offered many Cybertruck trade-ins above purchase price in apparent glitch

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Tesla offered many Cybertruck trade-ins above purchase price in apparent glitch

Over the weekend, Tesla began offering many Cybertruck trade-in estimated values above the original purchase price, apparently due to a glitch in its system.

Tesla offers online trade-in estimates for individuals considering purchasing a vehicle from them.

Over the last few days, Cybertruck owners who submitted their vehicles through the system were surprised to see Tesla offering extremely high valuations on the vehicle, often above what they originally paid for the electric truck.

Here are a few examples:

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  • $79,200 for a 2025 Cybertruck AWD with 18,000 miles. Since this is a 2025 model year, it was eligible for the tax credit and Tesla is offering the same price as new without incentive.
  • Here Tesla offered $118,800 for a 2024 Cybertruck ‘Cyberbeast’ tri-motor with 21,000 miles.
  • In this example, Tesla offers $11,000 more than the owner originally paid for a 2024 Cybertruck.

The trade-in estimates made no sense. Tesla has been known to offer more attractive estimates online and then come lower with the official final offer, but this is on a whole different level.

Some speculated that Tesla’s trade-in estimate system was malfunctioning, while others thought Tesla was indirectly recalling early Cybertrucks.

It appears to be the former.

Some Tesla Cybertruck owners who tried to go through a new order with their Cybertruck as a trade-in were told by Tesla advisors that the system was “glitching” and they would not be honoring those prices.

Tesla told buyers that it would be refunding its usually “non-refundable” order fee.

Electrek’s Take

That’s a weird glitch. I assume that it was trying to change how the trade-in value would be estimated and the new math didn’t work for the Cybertruck for whatever reason.

It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

The Cybertruck’s value is already quite weird due to the fact that Tesla still has new vehicles made in 2024, which are not eligible for the tax credit incentive, while the new ones made in 2025 are eligible.

There’s also the Foundation Series, which bundles many features for a $20,000 higher price.

All these things affect the value and can make it hard to compare with new Cybertrucks offered with 0% interest.

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At $28,000 off, is the Jeep Wagoneer S the best EV deal going? [update]

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At $28,000 off, is the Jeep Wagoneer S the best EV deal going? [update]

Like a 90s “gifted” kid that was supposed to be a lot of things, the electric Jeep Wagoneer S never really found its place — but when dealers started discounting the Jeep brands forward-looking flagship by nearly $25,000 back in June, I wrote that it might be time to give the go-fast Wagoneer S a second look.

This month, the discounts are even better.

UPDATE 23AUG25: I found you some even better EV deals!


Whether we’re talking about Mercedes-Benz, Cerberus, Fiat, or even Enzo Ferrari, outsiders have labeled Jeep as a potentially premium brand that could, “if managed properly,” command luxury-level prices all over the globe. That hasn’t happened, and Stellantis is just the latest in a long line of companies to sink massive capital into the brand only to realize that people will not, in fact, spend Mercedes money on a Jeep.

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That said, the Jeep Wagoneer S is not a bad car (and neither is its totally different, hideously massive, ICE-powered Wagoneer sibling, frankly). Built on the same Stellantis STLA Large vehicle platform that underpins the sporty Charger Daytona EVs, the confusingly-named Wagoneer S packs dual electric motors putting out almost 600 hp. That’s good enough to scoot the ‘ute 0 to 60 mph in a stomach-turning 3.5 seconds and enough, on paper, to convince Stellantis executives that they had developed a real, market-ready alternative to the Tesla Model Y.

With the wrong name and a sky-high starting price of $66,995 (not including the $1,795 destination fee), however, that demand didn’t materialize, leaving the Wagoneer S languishing on dealer lots across the country.

That could be about to change, however, thanks to big discounts on Wagoneer S being reported at CDJR dealers in several states:

  • Jeff Belzer’s in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $39,758 ($28,032 off)
  • Troncalli CDJR in Georgia has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,590 MSRP for $42,697 ($24,893 off)
  • Whitewater CDJR in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $43,846 ($23,944 off)
  • Antioch CDJR in Illinois has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $44,540 ($23,250 off)

“Stellantis bet big on electric versions of iconic American brands like Jeep and Dodge, but consumers aren’t buying the premise,” writes CDG’s Marcus Amick. “(Stellantis’ dealer body) is now stuck with expensive EVs that need huge discounts to move, eating into already thin margins while competitors focus on [more] profitable gas-powered vehicles.”

All of which is to say: if you’ve found yourself drawn to the Jeep Wagoneer S, but couldn’t quite stomach the $70,000+ window stickers, you might want to check in with your local Jeep dealer and see how you feel about it at a JCPenneys-like 30% off!


Original content from Electrek; images via Stellantis.


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