Elon Musk, already the world's richest man, is now on the path to becoming its first trillionaire. Tesla's shareholders recently approved a massive pay package for the CEO, including some $1 trillion in stock options. But the payout will happen only if certain targets are met--including Musk's successful deployment of 1 million Optimus robots. Named after a character, because of course it is, Optimus is a humanoid machine that's supposed to be able to complete boring and dangerous work in place of humans. The robot was unveiled in 2021, when Tesla held an "AI Day" event detailing its future plans.

Donald Trump may be pleased enough with Elon Musk, but even as the Tesla CEO is exercising his newfound power to essentially undo whole functions of the federal government, he still has to reassure his investors. Lately, Musk has delivered for them in one way: The value of the company's shares has skyrocketed since Trump was reelected to the presidency of the United States. But Musk had much to answer for on his recent fourth-quarter earnings call--not least that in 2024, Tesla's car sales had sunk for the first time in a decade. Profits were down sharply too. Usually, when this happens at a car company, the CEO issues a mea culpa, vows to cut costs, and hypes vehicles coming to market soon.

Nissan and Honda are expected to formally begin merger talks on Monday, NHK reported. The possibility of the two combining has been one of the options discussed as the carmakers work to stay competitive in the face of overcapacity and the need for huge investments related to electric-vehicle and self-driving technologies. If the two companies unite along with Mitsubishi Motors, Japan's auto industry will essentially be reduced to two groups: Toyota and Honda-Nissan. Their merger could create the world's third-largest auto group, following Toyota, and related companies, and the Volkswagen Group. Competition in the auto industry is intensifying, with nontraditional players expanding into the business in response to the rise of new technologies, such as connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles, as well as the ongoing process of electrification.

Apple has long been a company shrouded in mystery--and perhaps its most mysterious recent project of all has been the Apple Car. For a decade, reports have continually emerged about the company building an electric, autonomous car as smart and beautiful as an iPhone. The company never confirmed the project's existence, even as it hired executives from Lamborghini and BMW. MotorTrend created a speculative Apple Car in 2016, treating it like an object of science fiction, then another in 2022. But as of this afternoon, that dream appears dead.

Yansong Chen, senior vice president of strategy and technology at Ricardo--an environmental, engineering, and strategic consulting company--says advanced technologies are changing the way the industry looks at its value proposition, at a fundamental level. "They're also changing the way that the industry perceives its role in interacting with the customer." The rise of electric vehicles (EVs) clearly shows how change has swept across the auto industry over the past decade. Global sales of passenger EVs in 2022 exceeded 10 million for the first time ever. One in every sevenpassenger cars bought globally in 2022 was an EV, compared with just one in every 70 cars sold in 2017.

Artificial intelligence and self-driving cars are often complementary topics in technology. Simply put, you cannot really discuss one without the other. Though AI is being implemented at rapid speed in a variety of sectors, the way it's being used in the automotive industry is a hot-button issue. With every car manufacturer and their mother racing to develop artificial intelligence and self-driving technologies, there are also a slew of tech companies and startups with the same purpose. Though many believe personal, autonomous vehicles are the future, there are multiple ways in which AI and machine learning are being implemented in how vehicles are built and how they operate on the road.

The automotive industry has experienced incredible developments in recent years. Electric cars, hybrid cars, and partially autonomous vehicles are now dominating the market, contributing to safer roads and a greener world. But while these advancements have been a big step forward for car manufacturers, they only represent a fraction of the auto industry's potential. A natural next step for the automotive industry is the heightened integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into vehicles and the processes behind their creation. After all, automation technologies are taking over the entire world, and many automakers are already making leaps and strides when it comes to research and development.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is used in a variety of ways. Although the degree of influence varies, it cannot be ignored. It's almost as though we live and breathe it. It has an impact on what we use, what we watch, how we shop, and, more recently, how we design, select, and drive automobiles. In the automobile business, self-driving cars are, without a doubt, the big play for AI.

On average, men and women speak roughly 15,000 words per day. We call our friends and family, log into Zoom for meetings with our colleagues, discuss our days with our loved ones, or if you're like me, you argue with the ref about a bad call they made in the playoffs. Hospitality, travel, IoT and the auto industry are all on the cusp of leveling-up voice assistant adoption and the monetization of voice. The global voice and speech recognition market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.2% from 2019 to reach $26.8 billion by 2025, according to Meticulous Research. Companies like Amazon and Apple will accelerate this growth as they leverage ambient computing capabilities, which will continue to push voice interfaces forward as a primary interface.

A century after automakers showed the world the value of assembly-line manufacturing, a shortage of semiconductors is teaching the industry a painful new lesson in what it takes to build a car. For most of its history, the industry has relied on a distinct approach to buying car parts, procuring components from suppliers right at the moment they're needed. It's referred to as just-in-time manufacturing and is designed to streamline production and eliminate the costs of keeping warehouses stocked with parts waiting to be used. But the shortcomings of that system were made starkly clear this year as the automakers confronted a dearth of the chips they need to build advanced functions into their vehicles, and found themselves near the bottom of chipmakers' customer lists because of their just-in-time approach. That shortage is threatening to cut $110 billion in sales from the industry, and forcing auto manufacturers to overhaul the way they get the electronic components that have become critical to contemporary car design.