25 Aug 2026, Tue

News

  • Image via Volkswagen
    Volkswagen’s CEO Called It a ‘Mega-Crisis.’ His Own Numbers Say the Real Enemy Is the Org Chart

    Oliver Blume did not have to reach for the words “mega-crisis.” Volkswagen already had perfectly serviceable corporate language sitting on the shelf this year alone: a future plan, a strategic realignment, a next phase of transformation. Instead, addressing employees at Wolfsburg and other German plants in August, Volkswagen’s CEO chose the most dramatic phrase available…

  • a sidewalk with a bear painted on it
    California Just Bragged About Its Hydrogen Fueling Network. The Feds’ Own Numbers Say Otherwise

    Read the California Energy Commission’s press release from August 18 about California hydrogen fueling stations and the state sounds like it just solved hydrogen. Read the U.S. Department of Energy’s own station database, updated the same week, and you’ll find that a lot of the hydrogen infrastructure California is bragging about isn’t actually there anymore.…

  • A solar panel powers a security camera.
    Flock Safety Claims an 11% Drop in Car Theft. Here’s What It Left Out

    Flock Safety, the license-plate-reader company, published a blog post on August 24, 2026 headlined “Independent Study: Vehicle Thefts Fell 11% After Flock Cameras Went Live.” The post summarizes a real academic working paper, and most of its headline numbers are accurate as far as they go. But comparing the company’s summary against the underlying paper…

  • Honda Civic Type R – Wikimedia Commons
    Honda’s Entire Safety Suite Runs Through One Camera. Guess What Keeps Failing.

    Beverly Mason didn’t get a recall notice. She got a $2,933 repair bill. That gap — between what should trigger a fix and what actually does — is the real story hiding inside her new lawsuit against Honda, not the lawsuit itself. Mason, a Virginia resident, bought her 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid new in…

  • black mercedes benz car interior
    Quebec Spent 64 Pages Proving Your Car Doesn’t Respect You. Detroit Already Ran the Experiment.

    A government ethics panel in Quebec just spent the better part of a year producing a 64-page indictment of your dashboard, and the case it built about consent, insurance, and cloud storage reads almost like a legal brief the FTC already filed against General Motors. Only this time, the target isn’t one automaker’s fine print.…

  • A police light bar flashing red and blue against a dark night background
    Her Nissan Rogue Passed a Clean Carfax Check. It Still Had Three VINs, and It Belonged to Enterprise the Whole Time

    Amber Wolnomiejski did the things a careful car buyer is told to do. She pulled a vehicle history report before she signed anything. She bought from a licensed dealership instead of a stranger on Facebook Marketplace. She financed the SUV through a legitimate lender and paid on time, every month, for two years. None of…

  • A black Infiniti recovered by the California Highway Patrol after officers identified it as a VIN-switched stolen vehicle
    This Stolen Infiniti Had A VIN That Checked Out. That Was The Problem

    CHP recovered a stolen Infiniti wearing a switched VIN. The case exposes why a clean history report can still lead an honest buyer straight into a cloned-car scam.

  • front of a car
    Watch: A La Puente Body Shop Lost an $80K Impala to a Tow Dolly — and the Keys Were Never the Point

    Somebody wanted this 1965 Chevrolet Impala badly enough to case a body shop, cut a lock, and roll an $80,000 car down the street without ever starting the engine. That’s the detail worth sitting with. The getaway wasn’t a burnout. It was a tow dolly. The theft happened August 12 at R&E Collision Center in…

  • Rows of parked cars in a lot
    Santander Says a Ventura Jeep Dealer Sold It Fraudulent Loans. Its Own Contract Made Sure the Fight Happens in Texas

    Crown Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram sits on Auto Center Drive in Ventura, California. Whatever happens to it next will be decided nearly 1,400 miles away, in a federal courtroom in Dallas, in front of a judge nobody at the dealership chose. That detail matters more than the fraud allegations that got this case filed in the first place.…

  • Image via Tesla
    Nevada Just Cleared Tesla for 5,000 Robotaxis in Vegas — More Than Tesla Has Ever Run Anywhere, Combined

    Nevada’s transportation regulators just gave Tesla permission to run 5,000 driverless robotaxis around Las Vegas. Read that number again. Five thousand. That’s more autonomous vehicles than Tesla has ever operated in any state, in any year, combined. The same company currently running a Robotaxi service so small it barely shows up on a state DMV…

  • Gener curtain wall building during daytime
    GM 6.2L V8 Engine Failures: What the Federal Investigation Documents Actually Show

    There’s a specific kind of trouble an automaker gets into when federal regulators stop asking whether a defect exists and start asking whether the fix works. General Motors is in it. The Office of Defects Investigation opened Recall Query RQ26001 on January 16, and the language in the opening resume is unusually blunt for a…

  • Geely’s Solid-State Battery Promise: The Numbers Behind the 500 Wh/kg Headline

    Geely Holding says it will begin pilot deployment of solid-state batteries across its brand portfolio in 2027, with real-world validation already running this year. The company’s stated target is up to 500 Wh/kg, a range figure comparable to diesel-powered cars, and packs that could stretch across Geely, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, Smart,…