#automobiles

The EV maker is increasingly emphasizing the potential of artificial intelligence, driverless technology and humanoid robots to drive future growth as its traditional business of selling automobiles struggles.

The EV maker is also halting production of its S and X model vehicles and will repurpose the production facilities in Fremont, California, for Optimus. The Model S, a luxury sedan that costs about $95,000 and the Model X, an SUV with a pricetag of nearly $100,000, are low volume vehicles compared to Tesla’s more affordable 3 and Y models.

Adjusted earnings per share were 50 cents in the quarter, Tesla said Wednesday, higher than the average of analyst estimates. The results snap a string of quarters in which profit was weaker than expected.

The profit beat helps offset disappointment stemming from a steady decline in vehicle sales: Tesla earlier this month reported a 9% decline in 2025 deliveries from the previous year. That slump sharpened in the fourth quarter, when deliveries dropped 16% from a year earlier.

Revenue from regulatory credits fell 22% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, showing how a lucrative revenue stream is drying up. The company receives the payments from competitors who exceed federal fuel economy standards. That income has dropped after the Trump administration eliminated penalties for automakers that failed to meet the standards. Due to the lower regulatory credit revenue and a drop in vehicle deliveries, Tesla’s 2025 revenue declined for the first time.

The company reported 1.1 million active subscribers for its Full Self Driving driver assistance software — up nearly 40% from a year earlier. The software, which currently is not considered autonomous and requires constant human supervision, is becoming subscription-only starting after Feb. 14.

Robotaxi launched in Austin in June. This month, Tesla started rolling out “a few” robotaxis without human driver supervision in Austin. It plans to scale this to its entire Austin fleet over time. The company also operates a rideshare service on the same app in the San Francisco Bay Area that is not considered autonomous and has drivers in the front seat. It also has permits to test the service in Nevada and Arizona.

Shortly after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took office in February, the DOT suspended the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, which was part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Biden signed into law in 2021.

The Trump administration has pursued a number of policies to boost the sale of gas-powered vehicles and cut EV incentives for automakers and consumers.

There are many OBD2 scanners, but does FORScan somehow differ? Yes, because it is designed especially for Ford, Mazda, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles. So supports specific features of the manufacturer protocols, making the FORScan more powerful in work with these models than any regular OBD2 scanner.

For example, FORScan can detect modules which are not visible for regular OBD2 scanners, it can show you and reset trouble codes which are never displayed by OBD2 scanners. FORScan can show you PIDs which are not supported by any OBD2 scanner, and also run specific tests and service procedures. Version of FORScan for Windows can also perform configuration and programming functions. In other words, FORScan can do things that regular OBD2 scanners can not do.

Main features

Detect vehicle on-board network configuration Read and reset Diagnostic Trouble Codes from all modules (see list of supported modules) Reading of modules' sensors' data Run test diagnostic procedures Run service procedures Configuration and programming functions (only in FORScan for Windows, require Extended License)

AUX18L Auxiliary and Start/Stop Battery, by East Penn

good 12v battery replacement vid

We used the Remy 12V Battery AUX18L

In the US it's important to know that you can use the: Energizer TX24HL AGM Motorcycle and ATV 12V Battery​ as a replacement for the 12 volt. It costs $105 at Amazon. Its been working flawlessly since November of 2023. It may be important to note that in my 2014 the entire car went dead and I had to watch a YouTube to find the emergency hood pull. I had bought the car from a dealer in 2017 so my original 12 volt was between 7 and 9 years old. Absolutely amazing.

I’d caution slightly. This battery seems to be a different physical size than the OEM, and the terminals look different as well. I like this one, because it is a one for one replacement: https://remybattery.com/start-stop-aux18l-auxiliary-battery.html

I worked with Ohmmu to ensure that its LFP battery would work well with an i3. The i3 DC-DC converter's output voltage is ideal for an LFP battery. The 0.5V higher resting voltage of Ohmmu's LFP isn't a problem with an i3's 12V electronics because 12V components are designed work well with the 14.0+ output voltage of the DC-DC converter. The higher resting voltage and the much more flat voltage vs. charge level curve of a LFP battery means that the risk of all of the spurious DTC's being stored when the OEM battery's voltage drops too low when it fails isn't as great with a LFP battery. My Ohmmu LFP battery has been in our former 2019 and current 2021 i3's for about a year without any problems.

If your car still has its original 12 volt battery, your problems may be caused by a 12 volt battery failure. They tend to fail within 4 or 5 years, and, when they do, the car becomes completely inoperable.

Vendors have taken a variety of approaches to the self-driving problem. Tesla's approach is to allow their "full self-driving" (FSD) system to be used in all ODDs as a Level 2 (hands/on, eyes/on) ADAS.[3] Waymo picked specific ODDs (city streets in Phoenix and San Francisco) for their Level 5 robotaxi service.[4] Mercedes Benz offers Level 3 service in Las Vegas in highway traffic jams at speeds up to 40 miles per hour (64 km/h).[5] Mobileye's SuperVision system offers hands-off/eyes-on driving on all road types at speeds up to 130 km/h (81 mph).[6] GM's hands-free Super Cruise operates on specific roads in specific conditions, stopping or returning control to the driver when ODD changes. In 2024 the company announced plans to expand road coverage from 400,000 miles to 750,000 miles (1,210,000 km).[7] Ford's BlueCruise hands-off system operates on 130,000 miles (210,000 km) of US divided highways.[8]

Disengagement

In 2017, Waymo reported 63 disengagements over 352,545 mi (567,366 km) of testing, an average distance of 5,596 mi (9,006 km) between disengagements, the highest (best) among companies reporting such figures. Waymo also logged more autonomous miles than other companies. Their 2017 rate of 0.18 disengagements per 1,000 mi (1,600 km) was an improvement over the 0.2 disengagements per 1,000 mi (1,600 km) in 2016, and 0.8 in 2015. In March 2017, Uber reported an average of 0.67 mi (1.08 km) per disengagement. In the final three months of 2017, Cruise (owned by GM) averaged 5,224 mi (8,407 km) per disengagement over 62,689 mi (100,888 km).[155]

BYD, a company Elon Musk once dismissed by laughing at their products during a 2011 Bloomberg interview, has overtaken Tesla to be the world’s top EV seller. BYD said on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units in 2025. Vehicle deliveries at Tesla dropped 8% year on year to 1.64 million vehicles delivered in 2025.

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let’s explore the bad world of Cars!

You should either put chains on the Rear, or on BOTH front and rear. This is something I learned when first driving a front-wheel drive car. If you put chains only on the front and then you put on the brakes your rear wheels will have little control and can easily cause you to spin around. Having chains on the rear wheels provides a safe stop, slowing the rear of your vehicle and allowing the front to stay pointing forward.

HENRY GRABAR: Parking is the largest single land use in many American cities. If we were designing society from scratch, would we have placed car storage on the pedestal that it now occupies?

You know, one of the things that immediately jumped off the page for me when I was reading your book is the fact that, by square footage, there is more housing for each car in this country than there is housing for each person. And on its face, I have to say that statement feels incredibly problematic, but is it?

GRABAR: I don't think it's that surprising when you start to think about it. I mean, there are more - we build more three-car garages in this country than we build one-bedroom apartments. Almost every jurisdiction in this country requires parking as a part of every single building type, whether you're building a school, an apartment building or an office or a restaurant, the law requires a certain number of parking spaces. So we have parking minimums in every jurisdiction in this country, whereas for housing, we often have maximums. We say, on this plot, you can only put one unit of housing. You can only put two units of housing. So the fact that we've ended up with a surplus of parking and a shortage of housing is no surprise. In fact, it's by design.