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The Drive 🤝 your inbox. Every weekday The Daily Brief wraps up the biggest stories and our exclusive reporting on the auto industry and car culture. Would you let your kid get behind the wheel of a 1,025-horsepower vehicle? What about a 656-hp mainstream crossover? I sure wouldn’t let 16-year-old Joel get behind the wheel of those vehicles. I’m lucky to be alive after my teenage years, if we are honest about it. In an exclusive interview, Rivian Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid told The Drive the automaker is developing a Teen Mode and Valet Mode for its vehicles. Bensaid noted parents…

An Xpeng Mona M03 electric sedan on display at the Beijing Auto Show in April 2026. Credit: CnEVPost. Xpeng has consolidated its 4 product lines into 2 to focus R&D resources and reduce costs. The restructuring comes as Xpeng’s deliveries fell 10.49% in the first 8 months of the year, while rising R&D spending continued to weigh on earnings. Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) has reportedly consolidated its product lines from 4 to 2, seeking to cut research and development spending while expanding its vehicle lineup. The Chinese EV maker recently merged its I and F product lines into the G line,…

BYD said the flagship sedan will feature “unprecedented disruptive technology” and will reportedly be the first EV to use its solid-state batteries. BYD takes on ultra-luxe brands with Yangwang EV sedan Yangwang is BYD’s highest-end brand with ultra-luxury models ranging from electric hypercars to extreme off-road SUVs. BYD also uses Yangwang to showcase its breakthrough technologies. In the past, Yangwang vehicles have debuted with disruptive new tech, including BYD’s quad-motor e4 platform, second-generation Blade Batteries and Flash Charging, and its Disus Intelligent Body Control System. A new Yangwang model was recently spotted testing in China that, according to local reports,…

“The chance of human extinction is about a coin flip, in my view,” Geoffrey Irving, a former OpenAI and Google DeepMind employee, said in a new interview. It’s one of a dozen interviews with AI researchers, including current and former employees at OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Palisade Research, which says it’s a nonprofit studying AIs’ capabilities and motivations, collected and launched the interviews on frominside.ai.Several of the researchers joined Irving in warning about the possibility AI could drive humans extinct. Neel Nanda, a Google DeepMind research scientist, said there’s “at least a 10 percent chance that it causes human extinction,…

Legendary Mustang tuner Saleen Automotive is teasing something new. It’s a much wider Mustang that looks like it will offer loads of extra grip and probably a few more horses than standard. But the company is also looking for cash, seeking out investors, and the figures it touts aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring. Saleen Shows Secretive SR Widebody Saleen SR WidebodySaleen The new car is called the Saleen SR Widebody. It’s an S650 Mustang, the latest generation, which launched in May 2023, but it’s hard to see much more than that under the curtain of this digital rendering. We can tell there…

Do you know a repair shop that is raising the bar for customer service, training and innovation? Now is your chance to recognize them. Nominations are officially open for the 2026 CARS Shop of the Year award, sponsored by Milwaukee Tool. The annual award recognizes automotive repair facilities that distinguish themselves through excellence in customer service, investment in training, industry leadership and a commitment to advancing the image of the automotive service profession. Industry members, including fellow shop owners, employees, customers, suppliers and jobbers, are encouraged to nominate a deserving shop. Judges will look for shops that stand out through…

The company is also rolling out new features across several of its Creator Studio apps. Apple Apple touted the capabilities of the iPhone 18 Pro’s variable aperture when it announced the phone earlier this month, so it’s only natural it would eventually update all its apps to support it. The company has announced a new update to Final Cut Camera to take advantage of its adjustable aperture and the phone’s new camera settings, and it’s bringing a collection of new features to Creator Studio apps for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Alongside supporting the phone’s new hardware,…

The Drive 🤝 your inbox. Every weekday The Daily Brief wraps up the biggest stories and our exclusive reporting on the auto industry and car culture. Texas is taking drastic measures to ease pain at the pump for its commercial trucking industry. On Monday, Governor Abbott issued a statewide disaster proclamation and announced that the state would temporarily waive restrictions on using dyed diesel fuel on the highway, giving agricultural operators a little extra headroom against high diesel prices. According to AAA’s gas price tracker, the average price of diesel in Texas is hovering around $6.43 per gallon. That’s actually…

Automotive Remember when pickup trucks weren’t afraid to wear more than one color? Ford certainly does, and the 2027 F-150 is dipping into the company’s deep well of truck nostalgia with a new Two-Tone package available through Ford Custom Garage. The treatment adds a contrasting accent that wraps around the truck between the floorline and waistline, giving today’s F-150 a visual connection to the classic Ford pickups of the 1970s and 1980s. Those older trucks often wore their contrasting paint proudly, and the look became almost as recognizable as the boxy bodies and chrome bumpers of the era.…

A Sunwoda solid-state battery cell on display at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2025. Credit: CnEVPost. China has prioritized breakthroughs in all-solid-state technologies to accelerate the roll-out of next-generation batteries. The plan also calls for improving sodium battery performance and supporting corporate mergers and restructuring. China aims to achieve initial large-scale use of all-solid-state batteries by 2030, accelerating the transition of next-generation battery technology from research to commercialization. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Monday released its new battery industry development plan for the fifteenth five-year period, setting a roadmap for 2026 through 2030. The document,…