GM is laying off a total of 3,300 workers at three separate manufacturing sites in Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, and it directly cites government actions as the reason.

The republican party has claimed that one of its primary goals in the current political environment is to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. However, as is the case with many of its claimed goals, the policy it implements acts directly against those goals.

In this case, republicans have been in the process of an all-out assault on American manufacturing – working to reduce investment in America, slow development of new manufacturing projects, make enemies out of countries and companies that had been our former allies, and directly stop efforts to boost America’s manufacturing base and prepare the country for the future.

And today, the effects of the republican party’s recent $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites are being felt by one of America’s largest historical manufacturing employers: General Motors.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

GM cites “evolving regulatory environment” as it fires thousands

GM announced that it would lay off 1,200 workers in in “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit and 550 in Ohio at its Ultium battery plant, along with 850 additional temporary layoffs in Ohio and another 700 temporary layoffs at its Ultium plant in Tennessee. That’s a total of 3,300 jobs lost in today’s announcement.

Both Ultium plants will be temporarily idled at the start of 2026, resuming sometime in the middle of the year, with upgrades occurring during the pause.

GM made a statement directly tying the layoffs to “an evolving regulatory environment” which has caused “slower near-term EV adoption.”

Companies have falsely claimed for around two years now that EV demand is down, despite that it has increased for that entire time. However, there was a spike in EV demand last month as the US EV tax credit ended, causing a pull-forward of demand that is likely to result in a period of lower EV sales in the US in the coming months, even as EV sales will continue to rise globally.

While GM is one of the better-selling EV brands in the US, and has quite an extensive stable of options, it has also recently unwisely pulled back on its EV ambitions, offering an opening for its domestic and foreign rivals to fill the gap created by its intransigence. And these are not the only policy-related layoffs GM has announced – it already fired thousands of workers last month.

GM recently said it will lose $1.6 billion this quarter alone as a result of these changes in policy, including rollbacks in clean air regulation from the EPA and DoT, which GM lobbied for through its membership in the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. That’s a lot of money to lose (especially after literally asking for it), so firings were basically inevitable.

Biden brought auto jobs to the US; republicans send them to China instead

The EV tax credit was implemented in 2022 by President Biden and Congressional Democrats, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, a collection of manufacturing and climate-related reforms intended to boost America’s domestic manufacturing competitiveness. Part of the bill included domestic sourcing provisions for EVs and battery materials, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The bill also led to trade deals that would help to wrest control of raw materials from China, the country that currently has most of the world’s supply and refining capacity, such as a US-Japan free-trade deal for battery minerals.

But as soon as this unquestionably good thing happened for America, republicans had to stop it. Their huge giveaway to the rich also included provisions to reverse most of the positive reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act, with the goal of stopping the boom in American manufacturing that happened under President Biden (because, of course, it threatens their oil masters).

In total, the republicans’ efforts to harm US manufacturing and make your air dirtier will likely result in 2 million job losses for America. GM’s 3,300 today are just one small story among many others – a wider retreat in American auto and clean energy manufacturing that is a direct result of the republican party’s actions.

Already, $24 billion in clean energy investments have been lost. These investments would have driven manufacturing growth and created not just those manufacturing jobs, but associated supply and service jobs to fund American communities.

Many of these lost investments are simply a result of making the US less attractive, but some are due to direct government intervention in a specific project. Take, for example, the high-profile ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in construction in Georgia, which saw South Korean businessmen with visas detained and resulted in delayed construction on the plant and a swift popular pushback against US products in Korea.

And the imposition of unwise tariffs is reversing the potential positive impacts of President Biden’s battery trade deals, making the US an island and pushing other countries into the arms of China. Mr. Trump’s tariffs led to immediate job losses in the US and Canada and resulted in Canada, our closest ally with which we share the longest border on Earth, considering a deeper relationship with China (nevermind that the US president can’t impose tariffs on his own… or that Trump himself is barred from holding any office in the US).

And finally, the country that is most likely to benefit from this retreat in US manufacturing is China. China is currently experiencing a boom in EV manufacturing, and recently became the largest auto exporting country in the world due to Western refusal to take high-tech manufacturing seriously. The more the US retreats from manufacturing the vehicles that the whole world wants, the more China will be happy to pick up the slack. And if we stick to this unwise direction, today’s firings will only be a fraction of the misery brought upon America by republican actions.

The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

The Super-ONE may be Honda’s smallest and most affordable EV, but with new features like Boost Mode, this electric hot hatch punches well above its weight.

Meet Honda’s new electric hot hatch, the Super-ONE

Honda revealed the Super-ONE prototype at the Japan Mobility Show on Wednesday, claiming it will offer a new type of driving experience.

I know, I know. We’ve heard it so many times from different brands that their latest concept will be a game-changer, but this one is real. And it will begin rolling out next year.

Honda said the electric hot hatch has already undergone “extensive testing” under various conditions in Japan, the UK, and other parts of Asia.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

We actually caught a glimpse of it in July at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The Super EV Concept, as it was called at the time, took part in the hill climb event, debuting a funky new look.

The EV hot hatch is based on the N-One, Honda’s retro-looking electric kei car. Honda gave the compact EV a bold new look, adding a body kit that makes it look much bigger than it actually is. The Super-ONE offers much more than that the company promises.

Honda said the name Super-ONE represents its aspirations to create an EV that “transcends conventional norms and standards (“super”) and delivers customer value unique only to Honda (“one and only”).

One of the coolest features is the new Boost Mode, which Honda exclusively designed for the electric hot hatch. When activated, it simulates the jerking and sounds of a gas engine with a simulated 7-speed transmission and an added Active Sound Control system.

Similar to Hyundai’s N Grin Boost on the IONIQ 5 N, Honda said the Boost Mode feature unlocks the vehicle’s full power output. To top it off, Honda included dedicated features, such as a triple-gauge cluster and unique lighting, that activate during Boost Mode.

Inside, the Super-ONE features sports seats exclusively designed for the model and a new horizontal instrument panel.

Starting in 2026, Honda will launch the production model in Japan, followed by other regions where demand for compact EVs is on the rise, such as the UK and Asia.

Honda has yet to reveal specific details, but given the N-One is 3,395 mm (133.7″) long, you can expect the new model to arrive roughly the same size.

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.

Earlier this month, Tesla began rolling out its Full Self-Driving (FSD) v14 software update to some customers.

The update has been highly anticipated for several reasons.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

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:

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:

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.

As previously reported, Tesla also brought back its ‘Mad Max’ mode in FSD v14, which allows for driving exceedingly over the speed limit.

Electrek’s Take

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.