Author: Business Insider

The US Commerce Department has agreed to Tesla‘s request to waive 10% tariffs on imported aluminum from Japan used in the manufacture of battery cells at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory, government documents show. Read more: Tesla is addressing one of its customers’ biggest complaints by starting to do collision repairs through its service centers and mobile… Continue reading Tesla received a tariff exemption for the Japanese aluminum it uses for batteries

Some employees at a Tesla factory that produces solar roof tiles in Buffalo, New York, say the company illegally fired them for attempting to unionize. The claims were made in a charge filed Wednesday by the Pittsburgh office of the United Steelworkers union with the National Labor Relations Board. A partially redacted copy of the… Continue reading Workers at Tesla’s Buffalo solar tile factory say the company sabotaged their efforts to find new jobs after trying to unionize (TSLA)

Autonomous vehicle technology company Velodyne Lidar has hired bankers for an IPO, according to sources familiar with the process. Velodyne Lidar, which makes a laser technology that helps self-driving cars detect the objects around them, is working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Canada, and William Blair for a potential public… Continue reading Autonomous vehicle tech company Velodyne Lidar has hired bankers for an IPO in a high-stakes moment for the emerging industry

On May 22, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in an email to the electric-car maker’s employees that they needed to consistently produce 1,000 Model 3 sedans per day for the rest of the second quarter to set a record for vehicle deliveries in one quarter. The current record, 90,700 vehicles, was set during the fourth… Continue reading Leaked documents suggest Tesla has not met a Model 3 production goal set by Elon Musk in recent weeks (TSLA)

Tesla has seen a lot of senior employees leave in the last year. As the automaker has faced production and delivery issues, investigations from the federal government, and questions about the decision-making of CEO Elon Musk, departures from senior employees have added yet another challenge. The outflow hasn’t stopped in 2019, either. Read more: Tesla’s… Continue reading Tesla’s head of human resources and diversity has left the company — here are all the key names who have departed in the past year (TSLA)

Will Uber’s self-driving robot cars eventually replace its nearly 3 million human drivers? The CEO of the self-driving unit, Eric Meyhofer, won’t say. But Meyhofer, head of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, did tell CNBC that Uber needs a fleet of robot cars because it has difficulty attracting enough drivers to meet its growth needs. He… Continue reading Uber’s self-driving CEO says the company needs robo-taxis because it can’t grow its fleet of human drivers fast enough (UBER)

Remember Taxify? This was the Estonian ride-hailing startup that built up market share by focusing markets where Uber didn’t have much of a presence, namely eastern Europe and Africa. It then expanded to London in a blaze of glory in 2017, vowing to break Uber’s monopoly. The startup immediately fell afoul of the UK capital’s… Continue reading Uber’s biggest rival in Europe says it has profitable quarters because it doesn’t set cash on fire

Audi and Jaguar are recalling their electric SUVs due to potential safety issues. The recall of Audi’s e-tron comes about a month after the automaker began delivering the vehicle to customers. An Audi representative said the recall is due to a potential problem with a seal that could allow water into the battery compartment, which… Continue reading Audi and Jaguar are recalling their Tesla rivals after realizing their batteries were at risk of catching fire

Elon Musk says being the boss of Tesla actually cost him money last year. Responding to a Twitter thread about Business Insider’s coverage of a New York Times report on US CEO compensation, Musk refuted that he made more money than the next 65 highest-paid bosses put together in 2018. The Times said Musk was… Continue reading Elon Musk says he lost money running Tesla last year

Uber and Lyft lose a lot of money. Combined, the ride-hailing firms lost some $3.8 billion in 2019 alone, according to the companies’ IPO filings. Most investors, and many Wall Street analysts, are pinning the premise of ever turning a profit on self-driving cars. After all, paying drivers is a massive expense that could be… Continue reading Uber and Lyft are betting on self-driving cars to become profitable. But that may not happen, new research from MIT suggests. (UBER, LYFT)