Transpo

ReutersreportsDelta filed a lawsuit Friday overthe July 19th crash,blaming CrowdStrike for having “forced untested and faulty updates to its customers, causing more than 8.5 million Microsoft Windows-based computers around the world to crash.”

Delta’s CEO alreadycalled out Microsoft and CrowdStrikeduringa CNBC interview(included below), saying, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?,” while Microsoft said Deltaignored offersto help recover faster.

The Hyundai Casper (in Korea) / Inster (everywhere else) is a compact utility vehicle that’sjust too good to come to the United States... or is it?

Electrekpoints out spy photographerkindelauto’s picof one rolling around in California, which could still mean nothing for a potential US release. We shouldn’t get our hopes up about Hyundai’sgrand electrification plans,but we will anyway.

Think again, saysThe Autopian’s Jason Torchinsky, who has a highly detailed breakdown of the new Terra and Traveler EVs designs, as well as a thorough debunking of the sentiment that they’re just Rivian clones. I’ve personally read over a dozen comments onour own storyaccusing Scout of copying Rivian’s R1 designs. Like, you do know this company existed over 50 years before Rivian was even a glimmer in RJ Scaringe’s eye, right?

Tesla exceeded expectations by delivering a greatthird quarter earnings report,but selling more cars wasn’t the reason.As noticed bySherwood,the real winner was the company’s home energy and storage business, which spiked by nearly 50 percent year over year. And it was significantly more profitable too, with gross margins nearly double that for its automotive business. Maybe Tesla should double down onrenewable energy,andnot robots?

Scout’s Terra and Traveler EVswill come with the Tesla charging port, also known as NACS, right out of the factory. Unlike other EV makers, the company won’t have tobumble throughan CCS-to-NACS adapter phase with customers. Both Scout EVs will come with an 800-volt architecture, so charging should beveryfast. And as you can see, it will have plenty of 120-volt plugs too!

Volkswagen isreviving the defunct brandas an off-roading electric vehicle for distinctly American tastes. At the reveal event in Tennessee, Scout executives are really emphasizing themechanical, tactile controls,trying to draw a contrast to chilly, minimalist EVs with touchscreen controls. Our full write-up will go live in just a few minutes.

Earlier this year, I said that Tesla was inits flop era.Now, the company is crushing it, posting its biggest gains in almost 11 years,according toBloomberg.What a difference a few weeks make, when the stock tumbled after theglitzy-but-disappointing robotaxi event.Investors wanted to see signs of life, and they got it in the form of lower material costs, a surging energy business, and increased sales of regulatory credits to lagging automakers. They also saidcheaper EVs are coming next year.

The VW-backed companyis holding an event in Tennessee today to reveal its first EV concepts. You can tune in to the livestream throughthe brand’s website.And be sure to stick around and read our full rundown later in the evening.

SF’s transportation authorityhas approveda $212M contract for Hitachi toreplace its Muni Metro control systemand track its trains with Wi-Fi or cellular instead.

SF had forecast“catastrophic failure”if disks weren’t replaced. The SF Board of Supervisors still needs to approve the contract, SFMTA spokesperson Erica Kato confirms toThe Verge.

Apologies to the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which the polarizing truck pushed back to claim the No. 3 spot during this most recent quarter. We had an inkling that the Cybertruck was exceeding expectations when word got out thatregistrations were surpassing overall EV truck registrations.Tesla confirmed it in itsQ3 earnings report,announcing that the Cybertruck was third behind the Model Y and Model 3.

Jim Farley relayed his experience driving theXiaomi SU7 EVin the US for the last six months on theEverything Electricpodcast recently. Ford flew one out from China so he could live with it every day. “I don’t want to give it up,” Farley said. That said, he said he’s confident that Ford is taking the threat of Chinese EVs seriously, touting the company’s“skunkworks team” in Silicon Valleythat’s at work on the next-gen EV platform.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk haslong promisedoff-the-grid Superchargers powered by the sun. Now, the company has broken ground on “Oasis,” a new, 168-stall Supercharger station in Lost Hills, California, says Tesla’s North American director of charging, Max de Zegher:

Only 1.5 MW grid service, ahead of a future expansion

11 MW of ground mount solar & canopies, on 30 acres of land

10@Tesla_Megapackwith 39 MWh of storage

The site, he says, will open “by mid-2025.”

That’s one of the extremely upsetting details in thisBloombergstory about the many injuries and side effects experienced by workers at the buzzy EV company’s factory in Normal, Illinois. The worker requested a respirator while painting Rivian’s EVs, but was denied — leading her to vomit up blue bile. Other maladies include:

A cracked skull. A foot fracture. A back laceration so severe it required surgery. An amputated finger.

Rivian has racked up more “serious” safety violations than any other automaker since the start of this year. Healthy and safety are a “top priority,” the company told the outlet.

The press release announcing their partnership is so chockfull of buzz words and tech jargon that its difficult to suss out the concrete details. Basically the two companies will work together to “produce a standardized reference framework for development of generative AI-enabled digital cockpits andsoftware-defined vehicles.”Whose cockpits? Which cars? None are listed. But the likely output will be “intuitive voice assistants, immersive map experiences, and real-time updates to anticipate driver needs.”

Researchers with the US Geological Surveytrained a machine learning modelto predict lithium concentrations throughout the Smackover Formation in southern Arkansas, as reported byThe New York Times.

Companies likeExxonMobile are already planningto drill for lithium in the area as demand for lithium-ion batteries, which are used in EVs, grows.

Edmunds conducted one of its U-Drag down-and-back drag races between Lucid’smost expensive car,the 1,234 horsepower Air Sapphire, and a 1,020 horsepower Tesla Model S Plaid ($89,990 today) with the $20kTrack Pack upgradethat includes carbon ceramic brakes.

The Lucid won both races. Edmund’s Alistair Weaver concludes that the Lucid feels “faster” and “just feels nicer.”