Cars – Page 4

Everything we know about Ferrari’s first electric vehicle

Cars, ferrari, Ferrari Elettrica / Kelly Newman / October 9, 2025

Four motors, 800 V, more than 1,000 horsepower, and it’s all made in-house.

This is the chassis of the Ferrari Elettrica, a new EV due in 2026. Credit: Ferrari

MARANELLO, ITALY—The E-Building is one of the newest on Ferrari’s sprawling factory complex. One of the first LEED-certified buildings in Italy, the gleaming white interior is the latest in flexible factory design, capable of assembling any model in the automaker’s range. And from next year, that will include Ferrari’s first electric vehicle.

It’s a momentous occasion for Ferrari, and one it’s taking its time over—although it has now briefed us on some powertrain and chassis details, we’ll have to wait until next year before seeing the interior or exterior of a car that it’s calling the Ferrari Elettrica—for now at least.

Ferrari says it considered an all-electric two-seater or even something with occasional rear seats, but the performance benefit of an electric powertrain wasn’t enough to offset the added mass for either of those applications. Those calculations did work out in favor of a four-seater, though; the battery pack lowers the center of gravity by 3.1 inches (80 mm) compared to an internal combustion engine powertrain and reduces the polar moment of inertia by 20 percent.

However, the Elettrica won’t be massive. While we don’t know most of the exterior dimensions, the wheelbase is 116.5 inches (2,960 mm)—slightly less than a Hyundai Ioniq 5—and Ferrari says that the Elettrica features very short front and rear overhangs. Seventy-five percent of the aluminum used for the chassis (and the body panels) is recycled, helping save 6.7 tons of CO₂ per car.

F1 influence

Ferrari has been working with electric powertrains since the introduction of hybrid systems to Formula 1 in 2009. The motors here aren’t direct copies of the ones you’d find in Ferrari’s F1 racers, but the influence is there—like the Hallbach arrangement of the magnets in the rotor. Think of it like the Konami code for magnet orientation, except here it keeps the magnetic field concentrated on the stator. A thin carbon sleeve helps contain the magnets in the rotor, and the stator windings are embedded in a vacuum-impregnated resin that has much greater thermal conductivity than air.

There are four electric motors, one for each wheel. At the front, the two 140 hp (105 kW) motors share a single inverter, mounted atop the drive unit, which fits in the compact space between the front chassis rails, just behind the crash structures. Depending on the drive mode, the front axle can be disconnected entirely from the motors via clutches for greater efficiency. These motors can spin to 30,000 rpm and have an efficiency of 93 percent.

A cutaway of the rear drive unit. Ferrari

The rear drive unit features a pair of more powerful 415 hp (310 kW) motors, each with its own inverter but again packaged together for better volumetric and weight efficiency. The rear motors spin at up to 25,000 rpm and have the same 93 percent efficiency as the front motors. For those keeping score, the motors have a power density of 1.9 hp/lb (3.23 kW/kg) at the front and 2.9 hp/lb (4.8 kW/kg) at the rear.

Like the drive units, the battery pack is made in-house, although the NMC pouch cells are supplied by SK On. Robots assemble 14 cells into a module, with 15 modules making up the Elettrica pack—13 in a slab with another two at the rear underneath the back seat. Ferrari said it went for a modular approach to future-proof the Elettrica; more than 90 percent of the cars it has made are still on the road, and it wants that to be true of its EVs as well, so it should be possible to repair the battery of the EV in the future. (This reasoning is why Ferrari rejected using cylindrical cells for the Elettrica, or a cell-to-pack design for the battery.) Decades from now we may even see Ferrari design a new battery to keep classic Elettricas on the road.

The pack has a gross capacity of 122 kWh, with a pack power density of 195 Wh/kg. Specific energy density is 280 Wh/L, with a power density of 1.9 kW/L. Peak output for the pack, which operates at 800 V, is 1,113 hp (830 kW). That should translate to a 2.5–second 0–62 mph (0-100 km/h) time and a top speed of more than 192 mph (310 km/h), Ferrari told us. It will DC fast-charge at rates of up to 350 kW, which should add 70 kWh in 20 min, we’re told. Like the hardware, Ferrari designed the battery monitoring system and cell supervision software entirely in-house.

You can see the pack’s 13+2 module layout here. Ferrar

It has to feel like a Ferrari

Longitudinal acceleration. Lateral acceleration. Braking. Sound. Gear change. Those are the five elements that Ferrari considers necessary to imbue a car with “driving thrill,” and this EV will be no different. Longitudinal acceleration has mostly been addressed already. Controlling lateral acceleration, and the car’s ability to corner, is partly the job of a new third-generation active suspension system.

Where other OEMs might have gone for air springs or magnetorheological dampers, here you’ll find coilover spool valve dampers, which use a ball screw controlled by a 48 V electric motor to control ride height as well as bound and rebound. The setup is a refinement of that found in the Purosangue SUV and the F80 hypercar, but with a greater pitch on the ball screw that better controls vertical motions.

Additionally, the vehicle’s dynamic controller (operating at 100 Hz) and the inverters allow Ferrari to precisely control the amount of power and torque sent to each wheel as well as each corner’s suspension behavior. And there’s independent rear-wheel steering of up to 2.15 degrees; the system can counter-steer to the front wheels to increase agility, steer together with the front wheels at higher speed for directional stability, steer just a single wheel if needed, or increase the toe-in when driving in a straight line.

Regenerative braking can send up to 500 kW back to the battery pack, with a maximum regen deceleration of 0.68 G before the carbon-ceramic friction brakes take over.

A Ferrari elettrica rear subframe — Here’s the hollow aluminum rear subframe with the active suspension fitted. Credit: Ferrari

Since there’s no internal combustion engine to mask road noise and other NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness), Ferrari had to pay particular attention to minimizing their intrusion into the cabin. For the first time in a Ferrari, the rear suspension (and the drive unit) is fitted to a subframe, which in turn is mounted to the chassis via elastomeric bushings.

And it has spent a lot of time thinking about the car’s sound. There’s no faking the noise of cylinders and combustion; instead an accelerometer inside the rear drive unit acts like the pickup in an electric guitar, detecting certain frequencies that are then amplified. Like Porsche with the Taycan, Ferrari’s engineers were resolute that there is no fakery going on, just enhancing the natural sounds of the power electronics and transmission.

Finally, Ferrari has given the Elettrica a simulated paddleshift transmission, similar to the one you’ll find in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. Here it’s called Torque Shift Engagement, but the idea is the same: the paddles on the steering wheel toggle through five different maps of power and torque, as well as lift-off regenerative braking to recreate the experience of changing gears in a conventional powertrain.

More details, including the Elettrica’s price, should follow next year.

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

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Tesla’s standard-range Model 3, Model Y join the lineup

Cars, Tesla, tesla model 3, Tesla Model Y / Beth Washington / October 8, 2025

Today, Tesla announced a new variant of the Model Y crossover for North America. Tesla fans have long-awaited a cheaper entry-level model; this was supposed to be the $25,000 Model 2. But the development of that electric vehicle was shelved earlier last year as CEO Elon Musk began to lose interest with car-making in favor of humanoid robots.

However, car sales still make up the overwhelming majority of Tesla’s revenue, and the removal of the IRS clean vehicle tax credit at the end of September may have juiced US EV sales in Q3 2025, but sales are expected to dip significantly in the current quarter.

The new Standard Range Model Y starts at $39,990, with 321 miles (516 km) of range from its rear-wheel drive powertrain, compared to the now-Premium rear-wheel drive Model Y, which has an EPA range of 357 miles (574 km). In the past, Tesla has software-locked batteries to a smaller configuration; however, here we believe the Standard Range Model Y uses a 69 kWh pack.

The cheaper Model Y is decontented in other ways. There’s no AM or FM radio, and no touchscreen in the back for passengers to control their climate settings. The roof is metal, not panoramic glass, and there’s a simpler center console and manual adjustment for the steering wheel. Tesla has reduced the choice of interior trim materials, there’s a less-capable particulate filter (with no HEPA mode), and there’s no seat heating for the back seats or cooling for the front seats.

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F1 in Singapore: “Trophy for the hero of the race”

Cars, F1, Formula 1 / 9u50fv / October 6, 2025

The scandal became public the following year when Piquet was dropped halfway through the season, and he owned up. In the fallout, Briatore was issued a lifetime ban from the sport, with a five-year ban for the team’s engineering boss, Pat Symonds. Those were later overturned, and Symonds went on to serve as F1’s CTO before recently becoming an advisor to the nascent Cadillac Team.

Even without possible RF interference or race-fixing, past Singaporean races were often interrupted by the safety car. The streets might be wider than Monaco, but the walls are just as solid, and overtaking is almost as hard. And Monaco doesn’t take place with nighttime temperatures above 86°F (30°C) with heavy humidity. Those are the kinds of conditions that cause people to make mistakes.

The McLaren F1 Team celebrates their Constructors' World Champion title on the podium at the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix in Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore, on October 5, 2025. — This is the first time McLaren has won back-to-back WCC titles since the early 1990s. Credit: Robert Szaniszlo/NurPhoto via Getty Images

But in 2023, a change was made to the layout, the fourth since 2008. The removal of a chicane lengthened a straight but also removed a hotspot for crashes. Since the alteration, the Singapore Grand Prix has run caution-free.

What about the actual race?

Last time, I cautioned McLaren fans not to worry about a possibly resurgent Red Bull. Monza and Baku are outliers of tracks that require low downforce and low drag. Well, Singapore benefits from downforce, and the recent upgrades to the Red Bull have, in Max Verstappen’s hands at least, made it a competitor again.

The McLarens of Oscar Piastri (leading the driver’s championship) and Lando Norris (just behind Piastri in second place) are still fast, but they no longer have an advantage of several tenths of a second against the rest of the field. They started the race in third and fifth places, respectively. Ahead of Piastri on the grid, Verstappen would start the race on soft tires; everyone else around him was on the longer-lasting mediums.

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Rally Arcade Classics is a fun ’90s-throwback racing game

Cars, game review, gaming, Rally Arcade Classics / Mike M. / October 3, 2025

Over the years, racing sims have come a long way. Gaming PCs and consoles have become more powerful, physics and tire models have become more accurate, and after COVID, it seems like nearly everyone has a sim rig setup at home. Sim racing has even become an accepted route into the world of real-life motorsport (not to be confused with the Indy Racing League).

But what if you aren’t looking to become the next Max Verstappen? What if you miss the more carefree days of old, where the fidelity wasn’t quite so high, nor were the stakes? Rally Arcade Classics is worth a look.

Developed by NET2KGAMES, you might think of RAC as a spiritual successor to legendary titles like Sega Rally and Colin McRae Rally. Forget about the Nürburgring or even street circuits laid out in famous cities you might have visited; instead, this game is about point-to-point racing against the clock—mostly—across landscapes that long-time World Rally Championship fans will remember.

Not a Focus but a Sufoc WRC, getting air in Finland. Credit: NET2KGAMES

There’s Finland, with plenty of fast dirt roads, complete with crests that will launch your car into the air. Or the dusty, sinewy mountain roads of Greece. Catalyuna (in Spain) provides technical tarmac stages. And Monte Carlo combines tarmac, ice, snow, and challenging corners. But since this is rallying, each location is broken into a series of short stages. Oh, and some of them will be at night.

Then there are the cars. This is an indie game, not a AAA title, so there are no official OEM licenses here. But there are plenty of cars you’ll recognize from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. These comprise a mix of front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive machinery, some of them road cars and others heavily modified for rallying. You start off in the slowest of these, the Kopper, which is an off-brand Mini Cooper, a car that won a famous victory at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, despite being many, many horsepower down on the mostly RWD cars it beat.

The models of the cars, while not Gran Turismo 7-level, are close enough that you don’t really notice the Peugeot 205 is called the Paigot 5, or the Golf GTI now being the Wolf. The Betta is a Lancia Delta Integrale, the Fourtro is an Audi Quattro, and the Selicka is the Toyota Celica, but I must admit I’m not quite sure why the Subaru Imprezas are called the Imperial R and the MR Bang STI—answers in the comments if you know, please.

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Illinois utility tries using electric school buses for bidirectional charging

Cars, electric bus, EVs, syndication, V2G / DJ Henderson / October 3, 2025

Thank you driver for getting me here

School buses are usually parked when the grid is under its biggest strain.

The Thomas C2 Jouley is a popular electric school bus. Credit: Thomas Built Buses

The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.

The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.

The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.

“We’re not only working with these three school districts, we’re testing with them, but we’re also seeking input from other school districts to better understand their interest in V2G and how we could support their needs as we design new research and development efforts and potentially new programs,” said Cristina Botero, senior manager for beneficial electrification at ComEd.

According to the utility, bidirectional charging could result in a number of benefits, such as reducing grid demand during peak hours; lowering costs and energy usage for customers; and funding school districts that participate in the program. Botero said the goal is to eventually have a scalable model for the V2G program that other districts across Illinois could opt into “later down the line.”

The testing is beginning with four electric school buses across the three districts. ComEd began soft testing the pilot in June before publicly testing with the school districts in September, prioritizing research and development on the functionality of the chargers.

“School buses in general tend to be stationary during times where normally the grid is at its biggest strain,” Botero said. “[When] the grid is most loaded, that happens to be the time where many of these vehicles are not in use and happen to be connected and fully charged. This offers the possibility of using some of the energy in that battery to send back to the grid to support grid congestion,” she said.

Botero added that this can even be helpful during outages, because energy stored in electric school bus chargers can still be used. Participating school districts could also see their energy consumption and costs drop.

“It is helping potentially reduce the energy consumption of a school if it’s able to use its own battery for its own consumption. It can also reduce the cost of energy for the school, and really to all customers, because it’s reducing grid strain,” Botero said.

The pilot is part of ComEd’s $231 million beneficial electrification (BE) program, approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission. In 2021, Illinois passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which required all major utilities to establish a BE plan. ComEd’s first BE plan, spanning 2023 to 2025, consists of eight pilot programs in which the company has invested $11 million, including the V2G pilot.

The commission recently approved $168 million in funding for the next BE plan from 2026 to 2028, which includes an additional $11 million for research and development efforts that will include V2G.

ComEd partnered with software company Resource Innovations and charging vendor Nuvve for the pilot. The current testing phase, Botero said, is technology-based and focuses on determining how the technology works and how energy discharge impacts the grid.

Nuvve owns and operates the bidirectional charging technology and identified the customers to bring to the pilot.

“When you have an electric school bus, you have a fairly large battery inside that vehicle that is going to be doing nothing most of the time,” said Hamza Lemsaddek, chief operating officer at the Nuvve subsidiary Fermata Energy, which oversees the project. “The concept of V2G is, number one, the ability of not just charging the vehicle, but also discharging the vehicle [with] this bidirectional piece. The second step is to have a platform that is able to aggregate a large number of vehicles, and depending on where those vehicles are, provide a variety of grid services.”

Lemsaddek explained that the performance of the buses and chargers helps ComEd reduce their grid peak load. “By providing those grid services to help the grid be stable or more resilient, there is a value that you are providing, and therefore [Nuvve] can get compensated for that,” he said. “Then we share a lot of that value with the vehicle owner”—in this case, the school districts. “While the vehicle is parked doing nothing, it’s actually providing a service to the grid, and you get compensated for that.”

While the three districts are getting stipends for participation in the pilot, they were chosen because they already had electric school bus technology. The Wauconda school district, for example, has two electric school buses funded through a Driving a Cleaner Illinois grant, a program of the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund.

Wauconda has had the two buses for three years, with two years of funding left. Rick Strauss, director of transportation for Wauconda, said that while he is hopeful for the success of the pilot, the electric buses have already posed significant challenges for the district, leading him to doubt whether the buses can effectively give back to the grid.

For example, Strauss said that the district will put an average of 10,000 miles on a diesel bus per year. “But after three years with our electric buses, with the amount of issues that we had, each one of them had less than 1,000 miles on them after two years of service,” he said, adding that the buses probably spent more time “on a tow truck” going to get fixed than on their actual routes.

Strauss also listed among the issues a lack of certified mechanics that can work on the buses when they break, frequent technological failures, and buses losing functionality in cold weather.

Although he said he recognizes the benefits of electric buses, such as quieter motors, better air quality for students, and less diesel fuel emissions, the lack of functionality of the buses overshadows potentially positive outcomes. After the five-year grant runs out, he’s not sure whether the district will continue to use them.

“It’ll be interesting to see the metrics and what we get back from ComEd versus what it costs to run these [buses],” he said, adding that the cost of two electric buses “would take my entire bus budget.”

ComEd is prioritizing testing the technology as well as anticipating challenges moving forward. Botero said the goal of the current testing is “making sure that the technology is well understood” and to answer any questions.

The companies are also determining the exact way to compensate school districts before further evaluations and eventual modeling to “see what a program would look like” at a larger scale.

Botero said that they will be getting results from the pilot testing at the end of the year and will design the next phase of the pilot based on those findings.

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

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Tesla reverses sales decline in Q3, sells 50k more cars than it built

Cars, Tesla deliveries / 9u50fv / October 2, 2025

This morning, Tesla published its production and delivery numbers for the third quarter of the year. We’ve heard the same story for a while, one of diminishing sales as customers tire of a stale product lineup and are repulsed by the politics of the company’s CEO. But Q3 2025 tells a different tale. It’s been a good three months for the beleaguered automaker, one that appears to have cleared out a lot of old inventory.

Tesla built a total of 447,450 electric vehicles between July and September this year. That’s actually a 4.8 percent decrease compared to the same three months last year.

The Models 3 and Y production lines saw less of a slowdown—Tesla built 435,826 of these EVs, a 1.8 percent decline on last year. But the Models S and X, grouped together with the US-only Cybertruck, saw the greatest cutbacks. Just 11,624 of these collected models were produced, a 55.1 percent decrease compared to Q3 2024.

By contrast, Tesla managed to sell 497,099 cars during Q3 2025, a 7.4 percent increase compared to Q3 2024. The Models 3 and Y did all the heavy lifting here, increasing sales by 9.4 percent year over year to 481,166. But the near-antique Models S and X, and the divisive Cybertruck kept playing the old tune: sales of these models dropped by 30.5 percent to just 15,933 units.

That’s well above most analysts’ estimates for Q3, which predicted that the automaker would sell fewer than 450,000. The end of the IRS clean vehicle tax credit in the US is believed to be a significant contributing factor to the sales growth, although registration data from Europe has shown sales growth in France, Spain, Denmark, and Norway.

It’s quite the clear-out of inventory—more than 45,000 Models 3 and Y and more than 4,000 of Tesla’s other EVs have been cleared from Tesla’s books.

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Hyundai gives the Ioniq 5 a huge price cut for model-year 2026

Cars, Hyundai Ioniq 5 / Beth Washington / October 2, 2025

Earlier today, we wrote about how Ford, General Motors, and Tesla have reacted to the end of the clean vehicle tax credits. Now we know what Hyundai is doing, and the answer is “giving the Ioniq 5 a huge price cut.”

The cheapest Ioniq 5 is still the SE RWD. A model-year 2025 SE RWD cost $42,600; for model-year 2026 it’s now $35,000. The price cuts for other versions are even greater—between $9,150 and $9,800. For example, the Ioniq 5 XRT that you see in the photo above had a starting price of $55,500 for MY25; now it starts at a very reasonable $46,275.

“Hyundai is taking bold steps to ensure our award-winning Ioniq 5 remains a top choice for EV buyers,” said Randy Parker, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. “This pricing realignment reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional technology and innovation without compromise.”

Unlike the tax credit, there’s no income cap applied to Hyundai’s price cut. But the cuts have only been applied to Ioniq 5s built in the US—the Ioniq 5 N, built in Korea, was absent from Hyundai’s press release, as was the Ioniq 6 sedan or the Ioniq 9 three-row SUV. However, Hyundai said that those MY25 cars are still eligible for a manufacturer’s incentive of $7,500.

Hyundai updated the Ioniq 5 last year, adding native NACS ports and other improvements to an already-excellent EV, like adding the missing rear windshield wiper.

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How automakers are reacting to the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit

Cars, EV adoption, Ford, General Motors, IRS clean vehicle tax credit, Tesla / 9u50fv / October 1, 2025

Just after midnight this morning, in addition to getting a federal government shutdown, we also lost all federal tax credits for new electric vehicles, used electric vehicles, and commercial electric vehicles.

Sadly, this was not a surprise. During last year’s election, the Trump campaign made no secret of its disgust toward clean vehicles (and clean energy in general), and it promised to end subsidies meant to encourage Americans to switch from internal combustion engines to EVs. Once in power, the Republicans moved quickly to make this happen.

Federal clean vehicle incentives had only recently been revamped in then-US President Joe Biden’s massive investment in clean technologies as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. To qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, a new EV had to have its final assembly in North America, and certain percentages of its battery content needed to be domestically sourced.

A separate $7,500 commercial tax credit for new EVs was created, which did not require domestic assembly or content and which applied to leased EVs. And Congress finally added a $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of a used EV.

Visiting the relevant IRS page today, though, you’ll see an update declaring that the “New Clean Vehicle Credit, Previously-Owned Clean Vehicle Credit, and Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit are not available for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025.”

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Behind the scenes with the most beautiful car in racing: The Ferrari 499P

Cars, Ferrari 499P, racing / Mike M. / September 30, 2025

Form doesn’t always quite follow function in racing. LMP1 died because it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to compete, so the Hypercar rules are designed to keep costs relatively sane. Once your car is designed, it gets homologated, and from then on, hardware changes are mostly limited to things that improve reliability but don’t affect lap times.

Ferrari made a few small changes between the 2023 and 2024 seasons. “After Le Mans 24, now the rest of the car is exactly the same, but we involve many, many parts of the car where we can make a difference because the car is homolgated… But we work at a lot in terms of engine control, for example, in terms of setup, because we discover a lot of new [things] in our car,” Coletta told me, then pointed to his competitors’ hardware changes as evidence that Ferrari got it right from the start.

Does the P stand for pretty?

The rules also hold back the worst impulses of the aerodynamicists. The ratio of lift to drag must be 4:1, with limits on absolute values. And that has freed up the stylists to create a visual link between their brand’s sports prototype and the cars they make for road use.

A Ferrari 499P seen from behind, on track at COTA — The rear wing looks like it came from a superhero cartoon. (This is a compliment.) Credit: Ferrari

I’m not sure anyone has capitalized on that styling freedom better than Ferrari. Other Hypercars have a bad angle or two—even the Aston Martin Valkyrie looks a little strange head- or tail-on. Not the 499P, which dazzles, whether it’s painted Ferrari red or AF Corsa yellow. At the front, the nose calls out current road cars like the hybrid SF90 or 296. The rear is pure drama, with three vertical wing elements framing a thin strip of brake light that runs the width of the car. Behind that? Curves up top, shadowy venturis underneath.

It looks best when you see it on track and moving. As it does, it shows you different aspects of its shape, revealing curves you hadn’t quite noticed before. Later, stationary in the garage with the bodywork off for servicing, the complex jumble of electronics and machinery looks like a steampunk nightmare. To me, at least—to the mechanics and engineers in red fire suits, it’s just another day at work, with almost as many team members capturing content with cameras and sound recorders.

Behind the scenes with the most beautiful car in racing: The Ferrari 499P Read More »

Burnout and Elon Musk’s politics spark exodus from senior xAI, Tesla staff

AI, Cars, elon musk, syndication, Tesla, xAI / Shannon Garcia / September 30, 2025

Not a fun place to work, apparently

Disillusionment with Musk’s activism, strategic pivots, and mass layoffs cause churn.

Elon Musk’s business empire has been hit by a wave of senior departures over the past year, as the billionaire’s relentless demands and political activism accelerate turnover among his top ranks.

Key members of Tesla’s US sales team, battery and power-train operations, public affairs arm, and its chief information officer have all recently departed, as well as core members of the Optimus robot and AI teams on which Musk has bet the future of the company.

Churn has been even more rapid at xAI, Musk’s two-year-old artificial intelligence start-up, which he merged with his social network X in March. Its chief financial officer and general counsel recently departed after short stints, within a week of each other.

The moves are part of an exodus from the conglomerate of the world’s richest man, as he juggles five companies from SpaceX to Tesla with more than 140,000 employees. The Financial Times spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees to gain an insight into the tumult.

While many left happily after long service to found start-ups or take career breaks, there has also been an uptick in those quitting from burnout, or disillusionment with Musk’s strategic pivots, mass lay-offs and his politics, the people said.

“The one constant in Elon’s world is how quickly he burns through deputies,” said one of the billionaire’s advisers. “Even the board jokes, there’s time and then there’s ‘Tesla time.’ It’s a 24/7 campaign-style work ethos. Not everyone is cut out for that.”

Robert Keele, xAI’s general counsel, ended his 16-month tenure in early August by posting an AI-generated video of a suited lawyer screaming while shoveling molten coal. “I love my two toddlers and I don’t get to see them enough,” he commented.

Mike Liberatore lasted three months as xAI chief financial officer before defecting to Musk’s arch-rival Sam Altman at OpenAI. “102 days—7 days per week in the office; 120+ hours per week; I love working hard,” he said on LinkedIn.

Top lieutenants said Musk’s intensity has been sharpened by the launch of ChatGPT in late-2022, which shook up the established Silicon Valley order.

Employees also perceive Musk’s rivalry with Altman—with whom he co-founded OpenAI, before they fell out—to be behind the pressure being put on staff.

“Elon’s got a chip on his shoulder from ChatGPT and is spending every waking moment trying to put Sam out of business,” said one recent top departee.

Last week, xAI accused its rival of poaching engineers with the aim of “plundering and misappropriating” its code and data center secrets. OpenAI called the lawsuit “the latest chapter in Musk’s ongoing harassment.”

Other insiders pointed to unease about Musk’s support of Donald Trump and advocacy for far-right provocateurs in the US and Europe.

They said some staff dreaded difficult conversations with their families about Musk’s polarizing views on everything from the rights of transgender people to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Musk, Tesla, and xAI declined to comment.

Tesla has traditionally been the most stable part of Musk’s conglomerate. But many of the top team left after it culled 14,000 jobs in April 2024. Some departures were triggered as Musk moved investment away from new EV and battery projects that many employees saw as key to its mission of reducing global emissions—and prioritized robotics, AI, and self-driving robotaxis.

Musk cancelled a program to build a low-cost $25,000 EV that could be sold across emerging markets—dubbed NV-91 internally and Model 2 by fans online, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Daniel Ho, who helped oversee the project as director of vehicle programs and reported directly to Musk, left in September 2024 and joined Google’s self-driving taxi arm, Waymo.

Public policy executives Rohan Patel and Hasan Nazar and the head of the power-train and energy units Drew Baglino also stepped down after the pivot. Rebecca Tinucci, leader of the supercharger division, went to Uber after Musk fired the entire team and slowed construction on high-speed charging stations.

In late summer, David Zhang, who was in charge of the Model Y and Cybertruck rollouts, departed. Chief information officer Nagesh Saldi left in November.

Vineet Mehta, a company veteran of 18 years, described as “critical to all things battery” by a colleague, resigned in April. Milan Kovac, in charge of Optimus humanoid robotics program, departed in June.

He was followed this month by Ashish Kumar, the Optimus AI team lead, who moved to Meta. “Financial upside at Tesla was significantly larger,” wrote Kumar on X in response to criticism he left for money. “Tesla is known to compensate pretty well, way before Zuck made it cool.”

Amid a sharp fall in sales—which many blame on Musk alienating liberal customers—Omead Ashfar, a close confidant known as the billionaire’s “firefighter” and “executioner,” was dismissed as head of sales and operations in North America in June. Ashfar’s deputy Troy Jones followed shortly after, ending 15 years of service.

“Elon’s behavior is affecting morale, retention, and recruitment,” said one long-standing lieutenant. He “went from a position from where people of all stripes liked him, to only a certain section.”

Few who depart criticize Musk for fear of retribution. But Giorgio Balestrieri, who had worked for Tesla for eight years in Spain, is among a handful to go public, saying this month he quit believing that Musk had done “huge damage to Tesla’s mission and to the health of democratic institutions.”

“I love Tesla and my time there,” said another recent leaver. “But nobody that I know there isn’t thinking about politics. Who the hell wants to put up with it? I get calls at least once a week. My advice is, if your moral compass is saying you need to leave, that isn’t going to go away.”

But Tesla chair Robyn Denholm said: “There are always headlines about people leaving, but I don’t see the headlines about people joining.

“Our bench strength is outstanding… we actually develop people really well at Tesla and we are still a magnet for talent.”

At xAI, some staff have balked at Musk’s free-speech absolutism and perceived lax approach to user safety as he rushes out new AI features to compete with OpenAI and Google. Over the summer, the Grok chatbot integrated into X praised Adolf Hitler, after Musk ordered changes to make it less “woke.”

Ex-CFO Liberatore was among the executives that clashed with some of Musk’s inner circle over corporate structure and tough financial targets, people with knowledge of the matter said.

“Elon loyalists who exhibit his traits are laying off people and making decisions on safety that I think are very concerning for people internally,” one of the people added. “Mike is a business guy, a capitalist. But he’s also someone who does stuff the right way.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported some of the details of the internal disputes.

Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, resigned in July after the social media platform was subsumed by xAI. She had grown frustrated with Musk’s unilateral decision-making and his criticism over advertising revenue.

xAI’s co-founder and chief engineer, Igor Babuschkin, stepped down a month later to found his own AI safety research project.

Communications executives Dave Heinzinger and John Stoll, spent three and nine months at X respectively, before returning to their former employers, according to people familiar with the matter.

X also lost a rash of senior engineers and product staff who reported directly to Musk and were helping to navigate the integration with xAI.

This includes head of product engineering Haofei Wang and consumer product and payments boss Patrick Traughber. Uday Ruddarraju, who oversaw X and xAI’s infrastructure engineering, and infrastructure engineer Michael Dalton were poached by OpenAI.

Musk shows no sign of relenting. xAI’s flirtatious “Ani bot” has caused controversy over sexually explicit interactions with teenage Grok app users. But the company’s owner has installed a hologram of Ani in the lobby of xAI to greet staff.

“He’s the boss, the alpha and anyone who doesn’t treat him that way, he finds a way to delete,” one former top Tesla executive said.

“He does not have shades of grey, is highly calculated, and focused… that makes him hard to work with. But if you’re aligned with the end goal, and you can grin and bear it, it’s fine. A lot of people do.”

Additional reporting by George Hammond.

Burnout and Elon Musk’s politics spark exodus from senior xAI, Tesla staff Read More »

The most efficient Crosstrek ever? Subaru’s hybrid gets a bit rugged.

car review, Cars, First drive, Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid / Beth Washington / September 30, 2025

MG2 then sits at the rear of the CVT, linked via a planetary gearset, and working in concert with the gasoline engine to power the wheels. Alone, MG2 can also manage a minimal mile or so of EV-only range at a max of 19 mph (30.5 km/h)—but more importantly, boosts total low-end torque and high-end horsepower, as well as handling regenerative braking. (We’re still waiting on the exact horsepower contribution and will update this when we hear back from Subaru.)

It might be a boxer, but it’s no heavyweight

The Atkinson 2.5 L puts out just 162 hp (119 kW) and 154 lb-ft (209 Nm) of torque on its own, but MG2 contributes enough juice for combined system rating peaks of 194 hp (143 kW). That’s an improvement of 14 hp versus the ICE-only (non-Atkinson) 2.5 L Boxer’s 180 hp (and 178 lb-ft). Those numbers might still seem paltry compared to so many other automakers in the modern era, which responded to governmental regulations by hybridizing ever bigger and heavier cars to make them more powerful rather than necessarily more efficient—BMW’s gargantuan M5 stands out as a recent offender. Not so for Crosstrek, which still tips the scales at a relatively svelte 3,662 pounds (1,661 kg), further contributing to efficiency while accelerating.

There’s a horizontally opposed boxer engine under there. And the orange HV cables are a clue there’s a hybrid system, too. Michael Teo Van Runkle

The new Crosstrek Hybrid only manages insignificant weight savings compared to 3,717 lbs (1,686 kg) for the previous plug-in, which boasted 17 miles (27 km) of all-electric range. But that generation therefore sacrificed trunk space to house a much larger 8.8-kWh lithium-ion battery. Dual motors and the smaller battery pack do contribute to a 400-pound (181-kg) gain versus the equivalent non-hybrid variant of the current generation, though. Yet in addition to the power improvements, fuel economy jumps up to EPA ratings of 36 mpg (6.5.L//100 km) city, 36 highway, and (therefore) 36 combined—38 percent better than the ICE Crosstrek, according to Subaru.

In back-to-back drives through the forested hills of northern Oregon and southern Washington, punching the go pedal in a Crosstrek Hybrid brings on a much more potent rush of throttle response and acceleration, far outpacing the naturally aspirated engine. The constant-velocity transmission simulates shifts despite effectively holding the hybrid system in its happy place, and the sound of MG2 working produces a fun little whine, almost like a turbocharger. All while the Symmetrical AWD system smoothly and predictably meters traction out to each wheel in quintessential Subaru fashion.

The most efficient Crosstrek ever? Subaru’s hybrid gets a bit rugged. Read More »

The SUV that saved Porsche goes electric, and the tech is interesting

Cars, Features, new porsche cayenne, porsche, Porsche Cayenne, Porsche Cayenne Electric / DJ Henderson / September 30, 2025

It will be most powerful production Porsche ever, but that’s not the cool bit.

The next time we see the Cayenne Electric, it probably won’t be wearing fake body panels like the cars you see here. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

LEIPZIG, Germany—Porsche is synonymous with sports cars in which the engine lives behind the driver. From the company’s first open-top 356/1—which it let us drive a couple of years ago—to the latest stupendously clever 911 variants, these are the machines most of us associate with the Stuttgart-based brand. And indeed, the company has sold more than a million 911s since the model’s introduction in 1963. But here’s the bald truth: It’s the SUVs that keep the lights on. Without their profit, there would be no money to develop the next T-Hybrid or GT3. The first Cayenne was introduced just 23 years ago; since then, Porsche has sold more than 1.5 million of them. And the next one will be electric.

Of course, this won’t be Porsche’s first electric SUV. That honor goes to the electric Macan, which is probably becoming a more common sight on the streets in more well-heeled neighborhoods. Like the Macan, the Cayenne Electric is based on Volkswagen Group’s Premium Platform Electric, but this is no mere scaled-up Macan.

“It’s not just a product update; it’s a complete new chapter in the story,” said Sajjad Khan, a member of Porsche’s management board in charge of car IT.

Compared to the Macan, there’s an all-new battery pack design, not to mention more efficient and powerful electric motors. Inside, the cockpit is also new, with OLED screens for the main instrument panel and a curved infotainment display that will probably dominate the discussion.

We were given a passenger ride in the most powerful version of the Cayenne Electric, which is capable of brutal performance. Porsche

In fact, Ars already got behind the wheel of the next Cayenne during a development drive in the US earlier this summer. But we can now tell you about the tech behind the camouflaged body panels.

OLED me tell you about my screens

Although the 14.25-inch digital main instrument display looks pretty similar to the one you’ll find in most modern Porsches, all of the hardware for the Cayenne Electric is new and now uses an OLED panel. The curved central 12.25-inch infotainment screen is also an OLED panel, which keeps customizable widgets on its lower third and allows for a variety of content on the upper portion, including Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. The UI has taken cues from iOS, but it retains a look and feel that’s consistent with other Porsches.

The bottom of the infotainment screen has some persistent icons for things like seat heaters, but there are at least dedicated physical controls for the climate temperature and fan speed, the demisters, and the volume control.

The interior is dominated by new OLED screens. Porsche

New battery

At the heart of the new Cayenne Electric is an all-new 113 kWh battery pack (108 kWh net) that Porsche describes as “functionally integrated” into the car. Unlike previous PPE-based EVs (like the Macan or the Audi Q6) there’s no frame around the pack. Instead, it’s composed of six modules, each housed in its own protective case and bolted to the chassis.

The module cases provide the same kind of added stiffness as a battery frame might, but without devoting so much interior volume (and also mass) to the structure as opposed to the cells. Consequently, energy density is increased by around seven percent compared to the battery in the Taycan sedan.

Inside each module are four small packs, each comprising eight pouch cells connected in series. A new cooling system uses 15 percent less energy, and a new predictive thermal management system uses cloud data to condition the battery during driving and charging. (Porsche says the battery will still condition itself during a loss of connectivity but with less accuracy from the model.)

This all translates into greater efficiency. The pack is able to DC fast charge at up to 400 kW, going from 10 to 80 percent in as little as 16 minutes. Impressively, the curve actually slopes upward a little, only beginning to ramp down once the state of charge passes 55 percent. Even so, it will still accept 270 kW until hitting 70 percent SoC. For those looking for a quick plug-and-go option, Porsche told us you can expect to add 30 kWh in the first five minutes.

An illustration of the Porsche Cayenne Electric battery pack. Porsche

You’ll find a NACS port for DC charging on one side and a J1772 port for AC on the other. Porsche thinks many Cayenne Electric customers will opt for the 11 kW inductive charging pad at home instead of bothering with a plug. This uses Wi-Fi to detect the car’s proximity and will guide you onto the pad, with charging occurring seamlessly. (Unlike your consumer electronic experience, inductive charging for EVs is only a few percent less efficient than using a cable.)

The most powerful production Porsche yet

Less-powerful Cayenne Electrics are in the works, but the one Porsche was ready to talk about was the mighty Turbo, which will boast more torque and power output than any other regular-series production Porsche. The automaker is a little coy on the exact output, but expect nominal power to be more than 804 hp (600 kW). Not enough? The push-to-pass button on the steering wheel ups that to more than 938 hp (700 kW) for bursts of up to 10 seconds.

Still not enough? Engage launch control, which raises power to more than 1,072 hp (800 kW). Let me tell you, that feels brutal when you’re sitting in the passenger seat as the car hits 62 mph (100 km/h) in less than three seconds and carries on to 124 mph (200 km/h) in under eight seconds. This is a seriously quick SUV, despite a curb weight in excess of 5,500 lbs (2.5 tonnes).

A new rear drive unit helps make that happen. (Up front is a second drive unit we’ve seen in the Macan.) Based on lessons learned from the GT4 ePerformance (a technology test bed for a potential customer racing EV), the unit directly cools the stator with a non-conductive oil and benefits from some Formula E-derived tech (like silicon carbide inverters) that pushes the motor efficiency to 98 percent.

A very low center of gravity helps bank angles. Jonathan Gitlin

Regenerative braking performance is even more impressive than fast charging—this SUV will regen up to 600 kW, and the friction brakes won’t take over until well past 0.5 Gs of deceleration. Only around three percent of braking events will require the friction brakes to do their thing—in this case, they’re standard carbon ceramics that save weight compared to conventional iron rotors, which again translates to improved efficiency.

Sadly, you need to push the brake pedal to get all that regen. Deep in the heart of the company, key decision makers remain philosophically opposed to the concept of one-pedal driving, so the most lift-off regen you’ll experience will be around 0.15 Gs. I remain unconvinced that this is the correct decision; as a software-defined vehicle, it’s perfectly possible to have a one-pedal driving setting, and Porsche could offer this as an option for drivers to engage, like many other EVs out there.

While we might have had to test the 911 GTS’s rough-road ability this summer, the Cayenne is positively made for that kind of thing. There are drive modes for gravel/sand, ice, and rocks, and plenty of wheel articulation thanks to the absence of traditional antiroll bars. It’s capable of fording depths of at least a foot (0.35 m), and as you can see from some of the photos, it will happily drive along sloped banks at angles that make passengers look for the grab handles.

A new traction management system helps here, and its 5 ms response time makes it five times faster than the previous iteration.

The big SUV’s agility on the handling track was perhaps even more remarkable. It was actually nauseating at times, given the brutality with which it can accelerate, brake, and change direction. There’s up to 5 degrees of rear axle steering, with a higher speed threshold for turning opposite the front wheels, up to 62 mph (reducing the turning circle); above that speed, the rear wheels turn with the fronts to improve high-speed lane change stability.

The suspension combines air springs and hydraulic adaptive dampers, and like the Panamera we recently tested, comfort mode can enable an active ride comfort mode that counteracts weight transfer during cornering, accelerating, and braking to give passengers the smoothest ride possible.

More detailed specs will follow in time. As for pricing, expect it to be similar or slightly more than the current Cayenne pricing.

The SUV that saved Porsche goes electric, and the tech is interesting Read More »