In partnership with
New Podcast Episode: Malcolm Bricklin Interview
If you don’t know who Malcolm Bricklin is, you might want to Google him right now.
Wikipedia describes Malcolm as an “American businessman, widely known for an unorthodox career spanning more than six decades with numerous prominent failures and successes — primarily manufacturing or importing automobiles to the United States, ultimately starting over thirty companies throughout the course of his business career.”
Malcolm tells me about starting his construction empire, selling scooters to the NYPD, bringing Subaru to the US, how Bricklin Motors started and ended, his meeting with Elon Musk, and a whole lot more.
He’s got a lot of energy for a man in his mid 80s. And Malcolm is just getting started.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Uncomfortable Answer To The Uncomfortable Question
In a recent Automotive News Canada column, Greg Layson posed what he called an “uncomfortable question”: why are Chinese electric vehicles so affordable?
His answer rested on three pillars: weak labour standards, coal-fired power, and bottomless state subsidies.
Read my response here: The Uncomfortable Answer To The Uncomfortable Question
China’s Automotive Expansion
Hyundai Ioniq V
Hyundai’s China sales have collapsed. Now it’s betting a rebound on a new super-wedge Ioniq V EV. autonews.com
Chery woos Canadian car dealers with trip to Beijing auto show. autonews.com
The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association is warning its roughly 3,500 members to take extra care when striking contracts with Chinese or other overseas automakers working to establish sales networks in Canada. autonews.com
BYD plans to build 20,000 flash-charging stations in China and another 6,000 internationally over the next 12 months. reuters.com
BYD calls it the world’s first intelligent electric supercar. After its global debut at the Beijing Auto Show, the Denza Z is set to go head-to-head with Europe’s luxury automakers this summer. electrek.co
Chery plans to develop smaller cars for Europe. reuters.com
Great Wall Motor seeks European comeback with launch of 10 new cars. reuters.com
Changan aims to be among the world’s top-10 carmakers by 2030. reuters.com
Xpeng expects to start large-scale production of its “flying” cars next year and of its humanoid robots in the fourth quarter of 2026. reuters.com
NIO bets on in-house chips to cut reliance on Nvidia. reuters.com
Caocao, the ride-hailing arm of Geely, plans to deploy thousands of robotaxis globally next year. reuters.com
China’s auto industry races to embed AI in just about everything. reuters.com
Alibaba’s Qwen AI is coming to cars, allowing drivers to order food and book hotels by voice. cnbc.com
China’s automakers have a message for premium German brands Porsche, Mercedes and BMW: We’re coming for your customers. reuters.com
Automakers are shifting from "in China for China" to "in China for China and the world." autonews.com
Must-Know Musk News
Elon plans to use Intel’s next-generation 14A manufacturing process to make AI chips at Tesla’s Terafab in Texas. reuters.com
Elon admits that millions of Tesla vehicles won’t get unsupervised Full Self Driving. theverge.com
Elon adopts a more cautious tone regarding the timing of the robotaxi rollout, citing safety and technical issues. reuters.com
Tesla has revoked the “interim” pay package worth $29 billion that it gave Elon last year, after the Delaware Supreme Court recently restored his larger $56 billion compensation award from 2018. techcrunch.com
Tesla offers 1 year of free Supercharging for new Model 3 Premium and Performance orders in North America. electrek.co
Tesla’s Cybercab is now in production at the company’s Gigafactory Texas. mashable.com
Tesla boosts 2026 capital spending to over $25 billion, expects negative free cash flow. reuters.com
Tesla agreed to acquire an unnamed AI hardware company for up to $2 billion in stock and equity awards, according to a single sentence buried in its Q1 2026 10-Q filing. electrek.co
Tesla plans to create 1,000 new jobs in Germany in response to demand for the Model Y. reuters.com
Tesla’s energy storage division continues to pick up the slack as car margins drop and credits fade. reuters.com
Tesla settles wrongful death lawsuit over crash that killed Florida teenager. reuters.com
Ahead of SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion IPO expected this summer, the company has warned prospective investors of its big spending plans to develop AI and other technologies. reuters.com
Energy
A Florida convention center doubles its solar with no added panels
SolarEdge Technologies has completed a 2.2-megawatt (MW) rooftop solar system at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) in Orlando, Florida. The new system more than doubles the facility’s solar generation while using the same footprint as the previous installation. electrek.co
The Donald is extending a waiver of the Jones Act (a law that requires that goods shipped between US ports be carried on vessels that are US-built, -flagged, and -crewed) for another 90 days in a bid to lower fuel prices as the war in Iran stretches into its second month. cbsnews.com
Oil prices ended a volatile session mixed but up sharply for the week on supply worries. reuters.com
CATL’s new LFP battery can charge from 10% to 98% in less than 7 minutes. arstechnica.com
Redwood Materials loses COO amid layoffs, restructuring. techcrunch.com
Samsung SDI signs first EV battery supply deal with Mercedes-Benz. reuters.com
But Wait, There’s More
BMW iX3 Flow Edition With E Ink Hood
BMW is one step closer to selling you a colour-changing car. theverge.com, youtube.com
BMW’s flagship 7 Series gets its “Neue Klasse” upgrade with six different powertrains: there’s the EVs, the i7 50 xDrive and i7 60 xDrive; the internal combustion models, the 740 and 740 xDrive; the plug-in hybrid, 750e xDrive; and in 2027, a V8 M performance model. theverge.com
Ford and Geely held talks as recently as this year exploring whether the European tie-up they are negotiating could extend into the US, allowing Ford to bring Chinese EV tech stateside. wsj.com
Meanwhile, Ford CEO Jim Farley says allowing Chinese automakers to sell their cars in the United States would be “devastating” to American manufacturing. “We should not let them into our country.” bloomberg.com
GM is indefinitely delaying its next-generation full-size electric truck program, including the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado. reuters.com
Stellantis will focus the majority of its investment on its core Jeep, Ram, Peugeot, and Fiat brands under CEO Antonio Filosa’s strategic plan due to be announced in May. reuters.com
Volvo says demand for new EX60 EV exceeds expectations. reuters.com
Mercedes’ first all-electric C-Class is its sportiest one yet. theverge.com
Porsche’s Cayenne EV gets a coupe. techcrunch.com
Porsche plans to sell its stakes in Bugatti and Rimac to a consortium led by a US fund linked to Egypt’s billionaire Sawiris family. reuters.com
VW plans to cut its production capacity by another one million cars. reuters.com
Genesis Canada plans to add hybrid variants to its lineup. autonews.com
Nissan fast-tracks new vehicles for Canada in product push. autonews.com
Hyundai faces the challenge of replacing lost sales in the Middle East. reuters.com
Lamborghini sales and deliveries in the Middle East are at a standstill as regional conflict forces dealership closures and halts shipments. reuters.com
Rivian starts production of R2 SUVs, deliveries expected later this spring. reuters.com
A tornado hit Rivian’s factory in Illinois. No one was injured, and in an email to staff, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said the building will be back up and running within a week. theverge.com
Amazon enlists Sweden’s Einride to supply 75 of its electric heavy-duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network. techcrunch.com
Early signs of a shift toward EVs have emerged among US car rental companies as customers become wary of paying more for gas amid the conflict in the Middle East. reuters.com
Uber loses another driver sex assault trial. reuters.com
Stay in flow state. Dictate everything else.
Context switching kills your focus. Every time you stop coding to type a Slack reply, write a ticket, or draft a PR description, it takes 23 minutes to get back in the zone.
Wispr Flow lets you dictate all of it without leaving your editor. Speak your response, your ticket, your commit message — Flow formats it and you're back to coding. Works system-wide inside Cursor, VS Code, Warp, Slack, Linear, and every app.
4x faster than typing. 89% of messages sent with zero edits. Used by engineering teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay.