News
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Tesla’s Steering-Wheel-Free Cybercab Skipped a Step Every Other Robotaxi Took First
Tesla’s Cybercab is now picking up paying riders in Austin with no steering wheel, no pedals, and no way for a passenger to grab the controls if something goes wrong. That’s not actually the interesting part. Tesla has been building toward a car with no driver’s seat since Musk unveiled the concept back in 2024.…
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State Farm Mailed You a Record Dividend Check. Weeks Later, It Quietly Gutted the Agents Who’ll Handle Your Next Claim
Somewhere between February and May of this year, State Farm told two very different stories to two very different audiences. To roughly 49 million insured vehicles, it announced the largest policyholder dividend in company history: $5 billion in cash back, checks averaging about $100 per vehicle, on top of auto rate cuts averaging 10 percent…
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Hyundai Recalled 11,461 Tucsons Whose Speedometers Might Just Vanish Mid-Drive
Somewhere in Australia this month, an owner of a Hyundai Tucson is going to discover that their speedometer isn’t really a speedometer. It’s a number that software chooses to draw on a screen, and sometimes, apparently, it chooses not to. On September 3, Hyundai Motor Company Australia filed a recall affecting 11,461 current-generation Tucsons, internally…
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Honda Hit 1 Million Sales a Month Early. Acura’s Sedan Lineup Shrank to One Car Getting There.
American Honda says it crossed 1 million U.S. sales this year in just eight months, a month faster than last year’s pace, after moving 133,996 vehicles in August. That’s the number every outlet will repeat this week. It’s also the least interesting one in the release. Buried three tables down is the number that actually…
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California Killed Its License Plate Camera Bill for a Fifth Straight Year. This Time, Nobody Even Had to Vote No
On the last day California lawmakers met this year, Senate Bill 1013 sat in a stack of legislation that had already cleared the state Senate by a vote of 28 to 9 and worked its way through four Assembly committees. Nobody had to vote it down. Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry simply never called it…
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Ford’s Best-Selling Truck Just Had Its Worst Month in Four Years — Because Ford Wouldn’t Sell It
Ford Ranger was Australia’s best-selling new vehicle for three straight years, and this year opened right on schedule: on top in January, February, and March. Then August happened. The Ranger fell to fifth. Not because buyers walked away. Because Ford wouldn’t let them. That distinction matters more than the sales chart itself. The Ranger’s August…
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Tesla Keeps Settling Fatal Autopilot Lawsuits Right Before Trial — And That’s Not an Accident
Tesla settled another fatal Autopilot lawsuit right before trial. The real story isn’t the crash. It’s the word Tesla keeps paying to keep away from a jury.
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A Stolen Corvette Did Donuts For 100 People, Then Got Dumped on I-80. That’s Not a Bug, It’s the Business Model.
Nobody risks their own car spinning donuts in front of a hundred strangers with their phones out. That’s the detail that got buried this week under a much more clickable word: Corvette. According to police, the sports car that spun circles through a downtown intersection in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Saturday night wasn’t owned by anyone standing…
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Vehicle Data Access In Congress: What The REPAIR Act Fight Means For Repair Bills
The Fight Over Your Car’s Data Is Really A Fight Over One Word: Telematics Ask a room full of drivers whether they own the data their car generates and you will get unanimous agreement in about four seconds. Ask Congress the same question and you get a five-year legislative knife fight that is currently down…
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VinFast’s India Localisation Reset: What It Means For The Thoothukudi Plant And Buyers
VinFast Spent The Week Explaining Its India Plans, And The Explanation Is The Story Automakers do not issue clarifications about factories that are humming along fine. VinFast put out a statement this week confirming that assembly of the VF 6 and VF 7 at its Thoothukudi plant in Tamil Nadu has not been changed or…
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Why Volkswagen Is Investigating Its Chinese Headlight Supplier Over 107 Fired Graduates
Volkswagen Group China confirmed on September 1 that it has opened a special investigation into one of its Chinese suppliers. Not over a warranty spike, not over a quality escape, and not over anything you’d find on a PPAP sheet. The subject is how the supplier handled 107 university graduates it hired in July and…
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eBay Airbag Ban Starts September 24: What Owners And Buyers Need To Know
Come September 24, the world’s largest parts swap meet stops trading in the one component nobody should ever buy blind. eBay has told sellers that airbags, airbag inflators and steering wheel airbag covers are off the platform entirely, for every seller, worldwide. The company’s seller notice frames it as the result of a “comprehensive review…
