Autos

• Automakers like Ford and GM are jumping into a whole new business where Tesla is a serious player - Automakers Ford and GM are trying to figure out what to do with battery factories now that EV sales are falling way short of forecasts
• Elon Musk's xAI probed by California DOJ over Grok's deepfake explicit images - Musk's Grok AI chatbot faces investigations from India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ireland, Australia, the UK and France as well.
• Stellantis CEO: 2026 is the ‘year of execution’ as Wall Street awaits turnaround strategy - Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa views 2026 as an execution year for the embattled automaker following years of sales declines in the U.S.
• Musk says Tesla is moving Full Self-Driving to a monthly subscription - Tesla is lagging Waymo in autonomous mobility as the Alphabet-owned driverless car service topped 450,000 paid weekly rides in December.
• Ford enters race to offer eyes-off driving tech, starting with $30,000 EV in 2028 - The target brings Ford into a race against competitors such as Tesla, General Motors and Rivian Automotive to develop and broadly launch such systems.
• Elon Musk's xAI raises $20 billion from investors including Nvidia, Cisco, Fidelity - Elon Musk's AI said it raised $20 billion in new funding after CNBC reported in November that a financing round would value the company at about $230 billion.
• Ford reports best annual U.S. vehicle sales since 2019 - Ford reported sales of 2.2 million vehicles in 2025, including a 2.7% uptick to more than 545,200 units during the fourth quarter.
• Elon Musk's X faces probes in Europe, India, Malaysia after Grok generated explicit images of women and children - Regulators in Europe, India and Malaysia are scrutinizing X after exploitative images created with the Grok chatbot went viral on Elon Musk's social network.
• Tesla reports 418,227 deliveries for the fourth quarter, down 16% - Tesla's fourth-quarter deliveries report follows a steep rally in the company's stock in the last few months of 2025.
• China’s BYD poised to overtake Tesla as world’s top EV seller for the first time - The milestone would cap an extraordinary rise for BYD, a company Tesla's Elon Musk once dismissed by laughing at their products.