Tesla's Door Handles Lead to Its Biggest Recall Yet A Chinese agency says the two recalls affecting some 3 million vehicles can mostly be fixed by over-the-air updates--but they will also require physical warning stickers and camera-related updates. Government regulators have spent the last year asking serious questions about Tesla's electronic, retractable door handles, a cool-looking automotive design flourish that has since been imitated by plenty of competitors. The handles have been blamed, in the US and in China, for making it difficult for passengers to quickly exit vehicles, and for impeding rescue efforts. A handful of crash victims' families have even filed lawsuits against Tesla, alleging the door handle designs played roles in their loved ones' deaths. Now the door handles have led to Tesla's largest recall ever--and China's.

Are You Sure You Want a Car With a Giant Touch Screen? The AI boom is making phones and laptops more expensive. New drivers may never have to learn how to parallel park. Many new cars--a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a BMW sedan, a Tesla Cybertruck--will just maneuver into a spot for you with a click of a button. Even a decade-old Toyota Corolla has a backup camera and pedestrian detection.

The automaker today is turning on vehicle-to-grid charging for its GM Energy customers. Will people actually use it? Some 250,000 electric vehicles manufactured by General Motors are driving around the US today--right now!--with an oft-secret capability: Their big, powerful batteries can charge other things. Potentially appliances, homes, and now, thanks to a software update pushed by the automaker this week, an electrical grid . Twelve of GM's EVs have this "bidirectional charging" capability, way more than US competitors' battery-electrics.

The measure is part of a European Union-led strategy to eliminate all drunk-driving-related deaths and injuries by 2050. As of July 1, all vehicles sold within the European Union must include a standard, preinstalled interface that allows a breathalyzer lock to be added to the ignition system. This measure is part of a larger strategy promoted by the EU to reduce drunk-driving-related deaths and injuries by at least 50 percent by 2030. The requirement falls under the Vision Zero program, launched by European authorities more than five years ago, which aims to eliminate alcohol-related traffic fatalities entirely--or get as close to zero as possible--by 2050. The measure also aligns with the timetable established in the EU's General Safety Regulation, which sets specific deadlines for manufacturers to incorporate various safety features into vehicle designs, starting at the factory.

Ford and GM are backing away from electric vehicles and moving into the battery storage business. And it all comes back to AI. Automakers make cars--it's in the name. But lately, politics, current events, and Wall Street's latest preoccupation, artificial intelligence, have them looking a lot more like energy companies. The pivot, analysts say, could give US auto manufacturers struggling through a transition to electric vehicles an easier path over the next few years. Whether it works will come down to the same technology that automakers once promised would power the majority of their lineups: batteries .

The Chinese automaker is racing ahead of global competitors--but don't expect to see those gains in the US anytime soon. Somehow, the whole thing got even faster. Earlier this month, Chinese automaker BYD announced that its Flash Chargers, first rolled out a year ago, can now charge some electric vehicle batteries from around 10 to 70 percent in five minutes, and from 10 to full in about nine. That's more than 600 miles of range in the time it takes to order a cappuccino and leave a nice tip. The new BYD chargers can add miles super quickly because they deliver up to 1,500 kilowatts (kW) per charge.

A new report shows that only 7 percent of new-car buyers in the US completed their purchase online, despite a major push by automakers, Amazon, and others to move past the dealership. In the US, cars follow only housing as the most expensive purchase consumers make. So it makes a lot of sense that, according to recent buyer surveys, very few of them want an Amazon-style, one-click approach to getting a new set of wheels. "People want to see, feel, and touch the car," says Erin Lomax, the vice president of consumer marketing at Cox Automotive, a research firm that also makes digital auto sales products that allow dealers to initiate transactions online. Not to mention test-driving the expensive thing they'll probably use every day.

As vehicles grow more software-dependent, repairing them has become harder than ever. A bill in the US House called the Repair Act would ease those restrictions, but it comes with caveats. Every time you get behind the wheel, your car is collecting data about you. Where you go, how fast you're driving, how hard you brake, and even how much you weigh. All of that data is not typically available to the vehicle owner.

The billionaire's involvement with the Trump administration and DOGE had deep impacts on Tesla's bottom line. But Elon Musk was still able to turn his attention to SpaceX. What a weird time to be Elon Musk. This year opened with the businessman turned political operator throwing what appeared, to Nazis at least, to be a . This spring, activists frequently congregated outside the showrooms of his automaker, Tesla, to protest his foray into the US federal government and cozy relationship with President Trump.

Hamstrung by lawsuits, the state can't officially keep its goal to ban new gas-powered car sales by 2035. But it's going to keep trying. It's been a weird and confusing few weeks for the auto industry--especially for those who hoped to see more batteries on the road in the coming decade. Just this month: Ford announced a retrenchment in its EV business, canceling some battery-powered vehicle plans and delaying others; the European Commission proposed to backtrack its goal to transition fully to zero-emission cars by 2035; the US government said it would loosen rules that would have required automakers to ratchet up the fuel economy of their fleets. BloombergNEF projects 14 million fewer EVs will be sold in the US by 2030 than it did last year--a 20 percent drop.