Tesla | The Verge

Tesla’s car door defect could lead to tougher rules for everyone

2026-07-24T11:14:04-04:00

A door handle on a Tesla Model Y at a charging station in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025. | David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tesla's electronic door handles that have been linked to several deaths could lead to tougher safety rules for the entire auto industry.

In a notice published today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that complaints about Tesla's mechanical door release don't warrant a defect investigation. Instead, the issue is better addressed through a broader rulemaking that would "mandate a robust and obvious door egress system in all motor vehicles," the safety regulator said. If finalized, all new vehicles would be subject to the new requirements.

Tesla's door handles, which operate electronically and sit flush against the ve …

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Tesla’s robotaxi promises are clashing with reality

2026-07-24T04:42:15-04:00

In an earnings call yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk did his best to paint a positive portrait of the company's robotaxi program. New cities are being added, more miles are being driven, and more people are experiencing Tesla's unsupervised vehicles.

But Musk's typical bullishness seemed to be absent from the call, as the occasional trillionaire sought to temper expectations about the program's future.

"We're going as fast as humanly possible in scaling Robotaxi," Musk said, "while trying to ensure that we do not harm anyone at all and ideally do not even run over a pet."

Musk's insistence that Tesla's robotaxi service was growing is clas …

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Tesla’s revenues are bouncing back, but profits are still weak

2026-07-23T05:23:57-04:00

A Tesla Model 3 electric car is seen during the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing on July 16, 2025. | Jade GAO/AFP via Getty Images

After a dismal two years of weakening demand, falling sales, and damage to its brand by Elon Musk's political activities, Tesla's road to recovery continues apace. On the heels of an impressive delivery report, the company released its earnings for the second quarter of 2026 - giving us the latest glimpse at the EV company that Musk has said he wants to transform into a leader of AI and robotics.

Despite that mission, Tesla remains a car company. And in the second quarter, it sold an impressive 480,126 vehicles, about a 25 percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2025. (For a direct-to-consumer company like Tesla, deliveries are …

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Tesla Robotaxis go to Florida

2026-07-21T12:11:41-04:00

It must be earnings day, because Tesla is making a Robotaxi announcement.

The company said in a post on X that it was launching its Robotaxi service in Orlando and Tampa, attaching a pair of maps that show each city's service area. No word on fleet size or whether interested customers would be able to hail a vehicle right away.

The timing of the post is noteworthy, considering later today Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected to provide an update on the progress of the company's Robotaxi service during its second quarter earnings call. Adding two new cities to the docket probably sounds like progress to some investors.

Robotaxi now in Tampa …

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Tesla driver in fatal Texas crash overrode FSD by pressing accelerator ‘100 percent,’ investigators confirm

2026-07-16T11:41:09-04:00

The Tesla driver who fatally struck a woman after crashing into her home "manually overrode" the vehicle's Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology by pressing the gas pedal to 100 percent, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed in a preliminary report on Wednesday. After examining the car's electronic data, investigators found that the Tesla Model 3 reached speeds greater than 70mph during the crash.

In June, 44-year-old Michael Butler's vehicle plowed into a Katy, Texas home, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila inside. The home is located on a two-lane road with a 30mph speed limit, the NTSB's report says, adding that "the weath …

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The EV market is on the road to recovery thanks to high gas prices

2026-07-13T14:03:20-04:00

As the US war on Iran sent gas prices soaring, American car buyers flocked to electric vehicles - and in particular hybrids.

After a sluggish winter and fall, EV sales rebounded in the second quarter of 2026, with automakers posting some of their best numbers since the elimination of the federal EV tax credit last year, according to a Q2 analysis from Cox Automotive. I wouldn't go so far as to say EVs are back to their pandemic-era numbers, but there are some promising signs that we may be through the worst of it.

Drivers snapped up about 247,000 EVs in the second quarter of 2026, a nice 14.7 percent jump from the start of the year, acco …

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The robotaxi law that could ban Tesla

2026-07-09T15:21:56-04:00

For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build autonomous vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do truly driverless cars need additional, overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to navigate the world reliably? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are sufficient. Nearly every other major autonomous vehicle developer has gone the opposite direction.

Until now, that argument has largely been left to executives and engineers. New Jersey lawmakers are trying to settle it in state law.

A bill expected to come up for a vote later this year would requir …

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Tesla driver faces manslaughter charges over Texas crash that killed a woman inside her home

2026-07-02T18:09:33-04:00

The man whose Tesla struck and killed a woman inside her Texas home last month is now facing manslaughter charges, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal and local news outlet KHOU 11. 44-year-old Michael Butler was arrested on Wednesday and claimed to have been driving his Model 3 using Tesla's Full-Self Driving (FSD) system at the time of the crash, according to an arrest affidavit.

The court document includes the officer saying that data extraction from Butler's phone found several FSD-related Google searches from May 2026: "Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026 model," "tesla fsdnot [sic] aggressive enough 2026," "tesla fsdnot [s …

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Tesla’s Q2 sales jump 25 percent

2026-07-02T10:14:48-04:00

Tesla just released its second-quarter delivery and production report, showing that the automaker is starting to recover after a particularly brutal sales year in 2025.

The company said that it produced a total of 451,758 vehicles between April and June of this year, including 442,936 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, as well as 8,822 "other vehicles" like the Cybertruck and the Tesla Semi. (The company discontinued the Model S and X earlier this year.) That represents about a 10 percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2025, when the company produced 410,244 vehicles.

Tesla also said that it delivered a total of 480,126 vehicles, i …

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Tesla claims driver ‘manually overrode self-driving’ in deadly Texas crash

2026-06-23T15:11:04-04:00

Tesla is pushing back on claims that its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system caused a fatal Texas crash, where a speeding Model 3 barreled into a home, killing a 76-year-old woman inside. In a reply on X, Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy says the driver "manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%."

The crash occurred in a residential neighborhood in Katy, Texas, last Friday, with the Harris County Sheriff's Office telling ABC News that the Model 3 driver was using the vehicle "with an automated driving assistance system." However, Elluswamy writes on X that the driver, who has been identified as Michael Butler, " …

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