Austin is known for live music, Texas’ premier public university and being home to tech companies. It is also becoming a laboratory for autonomous vehicles. Driverless Waymo taxis, owned by Google’s parent company, regularly drop off diners at Austin’s famous barbecue joints. Box-shaped, four-wheeled robots operated by Avride, a start-up working with Uber Eats, deliver…
For more than 60 years, my family owned a small paint factory in Long Island City, Queens, in the shadow of the neon Pepsi-Cola sign just across the East River from Manhattan. That factory and the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant are long gone — two of the hundreds of industrial facilities that once existed throughout the…
Sales of electric vehicles have been rising in recent years, partly because of a $7,500 tax credit from the federal government that helps lower the cost of buying one. But a budget bill that House Republicans released on Monday would end that tax credit. Their proposal would also put new restrictions on other tax breaks…
In March, after a steep decline in Tesla’s share price, Elon Musk told employees, “Hang on to your stock.” The chair of Tesla’s board, Robyn Denholm, has not heeded his advice. Ms. Denholm has made $198 million in the past six months selling Tesla stock that she earned for serving on the board, according to…
Automakers are worried that President Trump’s tariffs on imported cars and auto parts will soon increase their costs and start eating into profits. But at least one business in the auto industry thinks the tariffs could give it a lift. That company is Carvana, an online retailer of used cars that has gained fame for…
When Slate Auto, a start-up, unveiled a roughly $25,000 electric pickup truck last month, social media lit up with comments. Many people saw the no-frills vehicle, with an easy-to-repair body and nostalgic hand crank windows, as a refreshing antidote to today’s overstuffed and increasingly unaffordable cars. How unaffordable? Average monthly payments on new cars have…
President Trump’s decision to negotiate a break for China on tariffs is galling for Japan, which is reeling from auto sector levies that the White House has shown no sign of willingness to lift. Japan, a top U.S. ally in Asia, was eager to advance trade negotiations with Washington, even as Mr. Trump imposed tariffs…
Follow live updates on the Trump administration here. President Trump had one big question on his mind as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney headed to Washington last week. “I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post, reiterating several of ways he…
An entrepreneur who revolutionized the automobile business decides he now needs to change how the world thinks, so he buys a media property to use as a megaphone. His rants validate many people’s worst impulses while also encouraging enemies of democracy around the world. This sounds like Elon Musk and his social media site X…
On a frigid day in early January, as she worked in her office in the Boston suburb of Billerica, Mass., Siyu Huang received a two-word text message. “Spinning wheels,” it said. Attached was a short video clip showing a car on rollers in an indoor testing center. To the untrained eye there was nothing remarkable…