Homeland Security Now Combating Street Takeovers

Homeland Security was reportedly involved in stopping a street takeover in Conroe, Texas, after a prior event became violent when the police arrived. The takeover occurred in the wake of the Lone Star Throwdown, a truck-focused automotive meetup, with organizers complaining about the trend in the aftermath.

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Lone Star Special: 2024 Jeep Gladiator Texas Trail

Car companies have been building vehicle trims specifically for the Texan market for some spell, pandering to celebrating the Lone Star State with these special editions.

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Toyota Assembly Plant in Texas Turns Twenty

Whilst we don’t generally run news of this sort, it is worth noting that this month represents a full two decades since Toyota put shovels in the ground to build what would become their San Antonio truck plant, a spot which currently cranks out Tundra and Sequoia machines.

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San Antonio Hyundai Dealer Removes Landmark

Over the weekend, your author happened upon a rural Ford dealership seemingly frozen in time, still using signage from past decades and proudly eschewing whatever cold corporate design is currently being foisted upon dealer principals by The Suits in Dearborn. It was neat to see a store embrace its heritage.


Not all are so lucky, such as a San Antonio Hyundai dealer who is currently removing what many are describing as a local landmark. Why? According to the dealer group’s head of marketing, it’s not part of the “Hyundai experience.”

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Texas Seeks to Bin Annual Inspections

Earlier this week, politicians in the Lone Star State approved a bill in which the provision exists to eliminate yearly inspections for non-commercial vehicles. If signed into law by the governor, Texans won’t have to run their personal cars through the inspection wringer once the calendar flips into the year 2025.

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Texas Will Tax EV Registrations to Make Up for Lost Gas Taxes

Many states and municipalities are all-in on EVs, but the shift has some wondering how they’ll make up for the tax shortfall from falling gasoline sales. A popular solution that gets tossed around is to add a tax to EV registrations to help recoup the lost revenues, and Texas recently passed a new law to remedy the problem.

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Used Car of the Day: This Ramcharger Owner Will Take Gun in Trade

If you like old-school large SUVs, this Ramcharger might catch your eye.

And if you have a gun, that might be all you need to make it yours.

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Lucid Sues Texas Claiming Dealer Rules Are Too Restrictive

Electric-vehicle startup Lucid has sued the state of Texas, saying that the rules around selling cars in the Lone Star state are so restrictive they amount to "economic protectionism."

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Tesla CEO Says Cybertruck, Semis, & Robots Coming in 2023

Last night, Tesla held a “ Cyber Rodeo” to celebrate the Gigafactory that’s opening in Austin, TX. The invitation-only event saw thousands of attendees, fireworks, a drone light show, Elon Musk in a cowboy hat, and a list of manufacturing promises so long that you almost have to believe that one of them will actually come true.

Among these were claims that Cybertruck would undoubtedly enter into production in 2023, along with the similarly delayed electric semi and Roadster. The CEO also touted Tesla’s often-criticized Full Self Driving (FSD) as poised to revolutionize the world after its public beta test is expanded later this year. Robotaxis are also said to be in the works and a humanoid robot, named Optimus, will help usher in “an age of abundance.”

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Elon Musk Continues Selling Tesla Shares

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold another 934,091 shares of the company, worth a hefty $1.01 billion, as a way to meet tax obligations related to the exercise of options to buy 2.1 million shares. But it’s just a drop in the bucket, as Mr. Musk’s offloading of Tesla stock has surpassed $10 billion overall. That’s roughly 10.1 million shares since the CEO asked Twitter users at the start of November whether or not he should dump 10 percent of his existing stake in the company following its big move to Texas.

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Tesla Officially Moving to Texas, Elon Musk Confirms Austin HQ

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has officially announced that his company would be moving house this week. Currently nestled upon the bosom of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, CA, the automaker has expressed its intent to establish a new base of operations in Austin, TX. While this situation has been a long time coming, it’s not quite the prompt walkout that everyone was predicting 17 months ago.

At the start of the pandemic, Musk found himself at odds with local officials pushing strict COVID lockdowns. The CEO had wanted to keep the all-important Fremont facility up and running at the start of 2020, suggesting workers could simply choose to stay home without there being any negative repercussions (or pay). Told again to shut down, Tesla sued Alameda County on the grounds that its orders were unconstitutional and violated a return-to-work mandate recently issued by Governor Gavin Newson. Before long, Elon Musk was openly confessing he was fed up with the state of California and would be relocating the business.

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Texas Considers Taxing Electric Vehicles

Texas lawmakers have presented Senate Bill 1728 as a way to nail electric vehicles for circumventing fuel taxes, sending everyone into a tizzy. Electrification has become about more than simply developing new powertrains under the auspices of environmentalism and it’s observable in this week’s headlines. But let’s discuss what SB 1728 hopes to achieve so that you might make up your own mind without this author’s forthcoming influence.

If passed, the bill would raise fees on EVs as a way to make up for the gas tax they’re not paying. The proposed legislation stipulates an annual fee of between $190 and $240, an additional fee of at least $150 for anyone who drives their car more than 9,000 miles a year, and then 10 bucks per year for the local charging advisory council. The rules would come into effect this September and raise an estimated $37.8 million for the State Highway Fund in 2022. While we cannot say whether that money will be used responsibly, the pretense is that the funds will be used to “[equalize funding for] road use consumption for alternatively fueled vehicles.”

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Texas Tempts Tesla With Tax Breaks

If you happen to find yourself running a section of this country and would like an automaker to build a factory there, we’ve got a couple of tips to help improve your odds. It might be unfair to call them tips, however, as they’re common knowledge and realistically the only way to get a business to settle on your land. Step One involves promising as much money and as little regulation as possible. Step Two involves waiting for their response.

Hoping to beat out Oklahoma as the home of Tesla’s Cybertruck, Texas is attempting to dazzle the electric automaker with the tax breaks it knew the company wanted. All the automaker has to do is spend over a billion dollars to build its facility in Travis County.

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SUV Plant to Remain Open After GM Rebuffs UAW Request

If you’ve visited an airport recently, you probably heard on CNN that cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in jurisdictions that largely escaped the earlier wave. Against this backdrop, General Motors came under pressure this week to cease operations at its Arlington, Texas assembly plant.

Home to four full-size SUV models currently undergoing a generational metamorphosis, the plant lies in a state experiencing an upswing in infections. It’s also a key player in GM’s post-lockdown recovery. The automaker says it’ll stay open.

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Tesla to Texas County: How Does 5,000 Jobs Sound?

To Travis County, Texas, wherein lies the city of Austin, it probably sounds great.

Tesla, which has been on the hunt for a second U.S. production site for months, plans to pitch just such an offer to county officials on Tuesday, Bloomberg reports. In it, the automaker calls the jobs “middle-skill,” which has assembly plant worker written all over it.

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  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.