Tesla and Elon Musk are reportedly under a federal probe over perks and transactions between the company, the CEO, and other companies under Musk’s control.
Last month, it was reported that a federal investigation by the DOJ was launched around reports that Elon Musk might have misused funds from Tesla for a personal project.
More specifically, reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal suggested that Tesla had launched an internal investigation into Musk’s top lieutenant ordering glass through Tesla for a special project called “Project 42” that might have been a house for the CEO.
Musk partly denied the report, but only by claiming that there’s “no house” or anything planned for construction.
However, in his recent biography by Walter Isaacson, it was confirmed that Musk was looking to build a house in Austin in 2022 and even met with an architect.
Now a new report from the Wall Street Journal claims that the DOJ is expanding its probe into more transactions between Tesla and other companies controlled by Musk:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also has sought information about transactions between Tesla and other entities connected to the billionaire, people familiar with the investigation said. Prosecutors have referenced the involvement of a grand jury.
While none of the previous reports could directly link Project 42 to Musk, the new report claims that a corporation called Peninsula LLC has agreed to reimburse Tesla over expenses for the project and that this corporation is controlled by Jared Birchall, who is known to be Musk’s personal money manager.
Electrek’s Take
Honestly, this might be some much needed oversight to keep Musk in check about his dealings between Tesla, a public company, and his many other projects and companies.
I wished this would have been a concern for Tesla’s board rather than the federal government, but I’m not sure shareholders should trust them when it comes to reining in Musk.
I’ve been growing increasingly concerned about how Musk moves talent between companies over the years, and it has become quite clear that it could a problem with the release of the new biography.
The biography describes Musk poaching critical Tesla engineers for Twitter and discussing using Tesla data for his new AI startup.
Tesla is a public company, and it can be problematic if Musk feels like he can use or move resources from the company to other entities as he wants just because he is the CEO.
Also, I think it’s important to take Musk’s denial with a grain of salt. I’ve been covering him for almost a decade now, and if there’s one thing that I’ve come to realize it’s that while he might be committed to the truth, he is not above playing with semantics.
Like with his attempt to dismiss the latest WSJ story by asking, “Where is the house?” and saying that he “doesn’t plan to build a house” – that’s not a direct denial of the Project 42 report. He is just saying that the house was never built and he doesn’t plan to build it.
That very well might be true, but it doesn’t mean that there was no wrongdoing around the project either.
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Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) v14, its first major update in a year, disappoints as data points to a lower increase in miles between disengagements than expected.
The system also features new hallucinations, brake stabbing, and excessive speeding.
The update has been highly anticipated for several reasons.
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First off, it has been a year since Tesla released any significant FSD update to customers, as it focused on its internal robotaxi fleet in Austin. The update is believed to feature improvements developed through Tesla’s robotaxi fleet, which requires supervising like its consumer FSD.
Secondly, CEO Elon Musk has claimed that Tesla still plans for “Supervised Full Self-Driving” to become unsupervised by the end of the year in consumer vehicles. For that to happen, we needed to see a massive improvement from v13 to v14.
As I previously reported, I anticipated an improvement in miles between critical disengagements from ~400 miles in v13 to ~800 to 1,200 miles in v14. It would be a significant improvement, but still way short of what’s needed to make FSD unsupervised.
Tesla notoriously doesn’t release any data about its FSD program. Musk has literally told people to rely on anecdotal experiences posted on social media to gauge progress.
Fortunately, there’s a crowdsourced dataset that gives us some data to track progress with miles between critical disengagement. It’s far from perfect, but it is literally the best data available, and Musk himself has shared the dataset in the past – albeit while misrepresenting it.
In the last week, Tesla started pushing the FSD v14 update (now v14.1.4) to more owners – resulting in more crowdsourced data and anecdotal evidence.
With now over 4,000 miles of FSD v14 data, miles between critical disengagement sits about 732 miles – below the lower end of our expectations:
Tesla would need to be closer to 10,000 miles between critical disengagements to allow unsupervised operation, and even then, it would likely be in geo-fenced areas with speed limitations.
This is unlikely to happen by the end of the year, as Musk predicted, as FSD v14 appears to have some significant issues still.
First off, many FSD v14 drivers are reporting that the update is having problems with hallucinations where the car decides to stop on the side of the road seemingly randomly:
I had a great first day with FSD v14.1.4! Multiple hands-free, point-to-point rides with no disengagements. A few “brake stabbing” events were slightly annoying but not dangerous.
It does seem like FSD v14 sometimes misinterprets other vehicles’ turn signals as emergency vehicle lights and pulls over.
In some cases, FSD v14 has been known to completely disable FSD features inside vehicles:
V14 is getting really annoying. Summon continued to fail with an error condition. Now in the car and FSD just isn’t functional. I don’t get it. Come on, Tesla. My brother got the same issue yesterday where his facia camera was nonfunctional and went black, obviously disabling FSD… pic.twitter.com/D8H8DY83sC
Many FSD v14 drivers have also reported an increase in “brake stabbing”, where the vehicle seems to hesitate and frantically applies the brakes and releases them – resulting in a stabbing motion.
Now, I don’t want to hear anything about my use of anecdotal evidence and crowdsourced data. That’s literally the best data available for FSD.
Unlike virtually all other companies developing self-driving technology, Tesla refuses to release any.
If it were to release some data, I’d be happy to use it.
One thing is clear from v14 so far: unsupervised FSD in consumer vehicles is not happening in any meaningful way this year.
I expect significant improvements in upcoming FSD v14 point updates. Maybe enough to get it to my previous expectations of ~800 to 1,200 miles between disengagements, but that’s about it.
Finally, while I generally don’t count on NHTSA to enforce any rule in any significant way when it comes to Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” effort, I think they might actually do something about “Mad Max.”
This video on Instagram has 4.5 million views, and it shows extremely dangerous driving behavior at up to 90 mph (145 km/h)
I think the authorities will have to intervene here, because it makes no sense for an unproven autonomous driving system to be able to operate under those parameters.
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Toyota’s best-selling car is finally going electric. The Corolla EV looks more like a Porsche or BMW than the Toyota vehicles on the road today, but that’s just the start.
The Toyota Corolla is evolving into a rad-looking EV
After revealing the Corolla Concept for the first time at the Japan Mobility Show on Tuesday, Toyota’s CEO, Koji Sato, said the compact car has always been “a car for everyone.”
Since it hit the market over 50 years ago, Toyota has sold well over 50 million Corollas. The Corolla even surpassed the VW Beetle in the 90s to become the world’s best-selling vehicle. Like the Prius, Toyota’s compact car lured in buyers with an affordable price and a reputation as a reliable daily driver.
Although it’s still a top-seller, the Corolla has lost some of its charm as more advanced, stylish, and efficient electric cars hit the market.
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Toyota looks to change that with a drastic overhaul that takes the Corolla to the next level. To stay relevant, Sato asked the crowd at the event, “How should the Corolla evolve?”
Toyota CEO Koji Sato reveals the Corolla Concept at the Japan Mobility Show (Source: Toyota)
We all want to drive a car that looks cool, but there’s much more to it nowadays. Buyers are increasingly seeking more efficient vehicles with the latest software, connectivity technology, and other features.
“Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said, adding the car is “packed with inventions aimed at making that a reality.”
Although Toyota didn’t confirm the concept was headed for production, the next-gen Corolla is expected to arrive with a similar style.
The concept still features Toyota’s newest design elements, like the “hammerhead” front end, but with a bit more of a futuristic feel.
You can barely tell the concept is a Corolla, aside from the massive COROLLA badging on the rear. Toyota didn’t reveal any powertrain details, but the charge port and closed-off grille suggest it’s an EV.
The next-gen Toyota Corolla is expected to be offered as an EV, a plug-in hybrid, a hybrid, and, likely, still an ICE variant.
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Three months after Uber, Lucid Motors, and Nuro announced a partnership that would enable Gravity SUV robotaxis, the rideshare network has shared where the public will first be able to hail one. Spoiler alert, it’s easy to guess if you give it half a thought.
As we reported in July, Uber Technologies committed to a $300 million investment in Lucid Group (parent company of American EV automaker Lucid Motors), to deploy at least 20,000 Lucid vehicles as robotaxis over the next six years.
Those Lucid vehicles, which will consist of the automaker’s flagship Gravity SUV to begin, will hit public roads equipped with a Level 4 autonomous system called Nuro Driver. Nuro, the third partner in this equation, is a robotics company specializing in zero-occupant delivery vehicles, which garnered an existing partnership with Uber Eats as well as a “hefty” (yet undisclosed) investment from Uber Technologies.
Last month, Lucid delivered its first Gravity SUV to Nuro to begin the retrofitting process of the Nuro Driver system to support Uber’s hopes for a luxe robotaxi fleet. While the partners continue to work toward building an exciting new fleet of Lucid Gravity Robotaxis, Uber has shared the location where they will first go into service… Casper, Wyoming.
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Just kidding!
It’s the San Francisco Bay Area, of course.
Lucid Gravity SUV fitted with Nuro’s self-driving tech (Source: Lucid)
Uber to deploy Lucid Gravity EVs in Bay Area in 2026
Today’s update from Uber expands upon the ongoing partnership with Lucid Group and Nuro. According to the companies, the San Francisco Bay Area will be the first market where riders will see this next-generation autonomous robotaxi program in operation. That milestone is expected sometime in 2026.
Uber has shared that it has been updating policymakers and regulators at every level on the progress of its exclusive Lucid Robotaxis and continues to meet the operational requirements. Notably, Uber has shared that on-road development with the Lucid Gravity robotaxi engineering fleet is already underway in the Bay Area.
Furthermore, Nuro and Lucid intend to be operating over 100 Gravity robotaxis as part of the test fleet “in the coming months.” Lucid interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, spoke about today’s announcement:
Lucid has always celebrated its California roots, and we’re thrilled to make the San Francisco Bay Area the first market for our new robotaxi on the Uber platform, powered by the Nuro Driver. Beginning next year, riders will experience a level of convenience, safety, and comfort unlike anything else on the road. We can’t wait to bring this service to life and expand it to communities across the country.
To build this fleet of Uber-exclusive robotaxis, the required hardware will be integrated into Lucid Gravity SUVS while they are still on Lucid’s assembly line in Arizona. Those builds will then be integrated with Nuro’s proprietary software when Uber officially commissions them.
All eyes on 2026 as we now know that residents around the Bay Area will be able to hail a driverless Lucid Gravity through the Uber platform. I’m very much looking forward to seeing this fleet in action.
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