Faraday Future has stopped construction on its billion-dollar electric vehicle factory in North Las Vegas. This is another blow against a company with intentionally foggy structuring, mysterious revenue sourcing, and an financially overburdened parent company.

There’s something about billions of dollars in investment and carefully planned long-term product strategies that make it hard for an automaker to turn on a dime in the face of a threat.

Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields says his company has no plans to reverse course on its goal of boosting production of cars and components in Mexico, even after President-elect Trump’s promise of a 35-percent tariff on vehicles crossing the Rio Grande.

It’s a game of chicken Ford intents to win.

The U.S. Transportation Department has finalized rules that will require electric vehicles and hybrids to emit “alert sounds” at speeds below 18.6 miles per hour, to warn cyclists, pedestrians, and the blind of the approaching danger.

By adding noise to silent-running vehicles, the NHTSA and DOT hope to reduce the number of people currently being run over by EVs. Is this a big problem, you ask? Apparently it is — the regulator claims EVs are 19 percent more likely to strike human flesh.

Jaguar has pulled the wraps off its I-Pace Concept SUV ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show, but this prototype isn’t just a one-off piece of vaporware, never to be seen again.

The automaker’s first electric vehicle is a go, and is expected to hit the road in 2018 to challenge Tesla’s Model X in the fledgling premium electric SUV segment.

BMW has announced to the world that it wants to increase electric vehicle sales to 100,000 units next year — choosing a figure that is hypothetically possible while remaining statistically unlikely.

Taking all bets.

The fully electric version of Hyundai’s Ioniq hasn’t even hit dealer lots yet and the automaker is already claiming its 124-mile range isn’t enough.

With lengthy repair times, parts shortages, and colossal distances between locations, Tesla is having real difficulties effectively servicing its current customer base as complaints begin to mount.

While certainly unfortunate news, this will be nothing compared to what it will face when the upcoming Model 3 starts needing the EV equivalent of an oil change.

Jia Yueting, head of China’s LeEco, is finally copping to claims that there was insufficient money to support the company’s wild expanse into new territories.

This is particularly bad news for the moderately sketchy American automotive startup Faraday Future, which is strategically partnered with LeEco and is quite possibly doomed if its parent doesn’t shape up.

Tesla’s free Supercharger network was one of the best parts of being a Tesla owner. Free electricity and the lofty social status that comes with EV ownership? What’s not to like? Well, the the company just announced it’s about to make a “change to the economics of Supercharging.”

After issuing emails urging customers to stop hogging the network last year, Tesla has decided only to allow certain early adopters to make use of the fast-juicing power grid free of charge. Meanwhile, all customers purchasing vehicles after January 2017 will have to pay up.

Tesla’s Model S 60 has come and gone only to show up again as the “bargain” Tesla, even though it’s actually just a cheaper Model S 75 with a stingy computer.

Now, inside information suggests it’ll be going up in price even if you decided not to add the company’s cool new transparent roof. With the automaker seemingly hoping to squeeze every last buck out of its lineup, the top-flight versions of both of its models have now been propelled into the pricing stratosphere.

A severe head-on crash in Indianapolis last night claimed the lives of two people — but because it’s a Tesla, the story made national news.

According to the Indianapolis Star, the Model S impacted a tree, throwing debris 150 yards and starting a fire that consumed the vehicle. This isn’t a story about whether the vehicle or its electronic systems may have caused the crash — police made it clear that speed was a factor.

Rather, the aftermath of this crash shows what firefighters face when the lithium-ion battery pack in an electric car catches fire.

Battery electric vehicles are supposedly the future, but you’ll need an EV with plenty of range if you want to visit some of the areas overlooked by the Obama administration’s new charging corridor plan.

Earlier today, the White House announced 48 electric vehicle charging corridors spanning 25,000 miles of highway in 35 states and the District of Columbia. The electrified routes, established a month before the government was required to do so under federal law, will place a recharging station within reach of even the wimpiest electric vehicles. That means 50 mile intervals at a minimum.

For some areas, nervous EV road trippers would be best served by a gas guzzler or low-cost airline.

Whenever you hear the words online reputation management, two underhanded marketing activities should immediately come to mind.

The first: fake reviews. There are agencies that exist solely to place fake reviews on sites like Yelp, DealerRater, and Google Reviews to increase a business’s overall rating. For a great example of this, see Bark M.’s piece on Orlando Kia West.

The second reputation management tactic is to, again, hire an agency to place comments from fake readers in article comments that cover topics related to a particular business.

It’s this second tactic we are going to discuss today.

Fisker is no stranger to controversy and bad press. However, much of the automotive press is more than willing — more than happy, even — to give Henrik and his new company a “get out of jail free” card as it covers the new Fisker Inc. Yet, a small subset of the media exists to find the real story behind the press release and we’re more than willing to offer up the bad news with the good.

Fisker or another actor (who we’ll get to in a moment) is trying to make those professional opinions irrelevant by any means necessary. And they’re using — wait for it — an Indian online reputation management company to lift its own corporate profile and wage a proxy war against Karma Automotive, the same company Henrik founded as Fisker Automotive in 2007.

Henrik Fisker, chairman and CEO Fisker, Inc., surprised many earlier this month when he revealed his fledgling company plans to produce a new car bearing his name. Some critics who remembered the ill-fated Fisker Karma scoffed.

Well, the Danish businessman is attempting to close the doors on murmurings of overblown hype by showing off a different set of doors. Naturally, he did so in a befitting venue for shadowy electric car executives — Twitter.

The Los Angeles Police Department loves the idea of Tesla patrol cars so much, it’s rekindling a dream it put on ice earlier this year.

The city’s coffers haven’t suddenly become flush with cash, and a previous testing cycle saw the LAPD cross the automaker off its list of potential electric vehicle suppliers. Still, it looks like the idea of a black-and-white Tesla Model S with Ludicrous Mode is just too great to pass up.

Mini has revealed what form its new hybrid will take.

That, the e-tron name lives on in Audi’s first dedicated electric SUV, Unifor squares off with Ford, and hype man Elon Musk reschedules his alleged big announcement … after the break!

Maybe buyers weren’t ready for an electric supercar. Maybe there wasn’t enough hype and star power. Hell, maybe no one knew about it.

Whatever the reason for the Audi R8 e-tron’s lack of sales and visibility, we do know one sure thing about this environmentally friendly phantom — it is stone cold dead.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk vigorously defended his Autopilot system when accident reports rolled in earlier this year. Even when a fatal Florida crash was blamed on a temporarily blinded Autopilot, Musk assured citizens, Tesla owners, regulators and everyone else that the semi-autonomous driving system made his vehicles the safest things on the road.

Just do the math, Musk told the skeptics. Well, someone finally has.

Last year, Storm Sondors, a Malibu-based entrepreneur, used an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to launch a very basic $499 electric bicycle. He’s since sold 15,000 of his Asian-made electric bikes.

Buoyed by that success, Mr. Sondors has announced the creation of the Sondors Electric Car Company, which he says will sell an electric-powered, aluminum-bodied, three-passenger, enclosed reverse trike with a variety of battery pack options that offer 50 to 200 miles of range.

The Sondors electric trike is supposed to have a starting price of $10,000 and will be called the Model Sondors, more likely a nod to Tesla than to Henry Ford.

The folks over at Gas2.org think the Model Sondors is everything the proposed Elio is not. I agree with that statement, though not in the same way as Gas2go’s Steve Hanley.

Suppose an automaker improved a terrible-selling vehicle but didn’t bother to tell anyone about it. Chances are they didn’t just forget, so there has to be some fundamental reasoning behind that choice. This is the mystery Nissan has left us with after silently and suddenly replacing the battery in their base model Leaf with a larger one.

We only know about this change due to an eagle-eyed staff member at Green Car Reports, who noticed that Nissan increased the size of the Leaf S battery in a September order guide.

The German government has passed a resolution to ban the sale of internal combustion engines in the European Union by 2030.

Receiving bipartisan support in the German Bundesrat, the resolution calls on the EU Commission in Brussels to ensure only zero-emission passenger vehicles be approved for sale within the next fourteen years.

While the act has no direct legislative implications for Europe as a whole, German regulations could still undoubtedly influence and shape future automotive policies in the EU.

Since General Motors showed the Chevrolet Bolt EV Concept at the 2015 North American International Auto Show, the company has been adamant the car would compete with Tesla’s upcoming Model 3 in terms of pricing, range and certainly in terms of consumer adoption.

The Teslarati, on the other hand, don’t seem to agree.

Tesla’s stated modus operandi since inception is “to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.” But for fans of the Silicon Valley brand the M.O has been twisted into Tesla or bust, leading to straw man arguments and arbitrary analysis.

Electrek’s latest Tesla versus Chevy op-ed by Fred Lambert is a perfect example.

Guess who’s back?

Henrik Fisker, the designer-turned-entrepreneur behind the ill-fated Fisker Karma, wants to try his hand at building a green luxury vehicle again.

The Dane wants to erase the cloud of failure that hangs over his name by building a new electric car with a Tesla-beating range, Bloomberg reports. Naturally, his name is all over the new company. In fact, it is the company.

General Motors claims Chevrolet dealers will see some Bolts arrive before the end of the year, but it’s now clear who gets the 238-mile electric vehicle first.

The first Bolts to roll out of the Orion Assembly plant will go to drivers working for Lyft, the Detroit Free Press reports.

After a second quarter that was anything but hot, Tesla Motors surprised analysts by delivering 24,500 vehicles in the third quarter — a 10,000-unit jump over the previous tally.

The healthy delivery numbers allow CEO Elon Musk to stick to his promise of 50,000 deliveries in the second half of this year, reports Bloomberg. Still, the production boost failed to buoy the company’s stock, meaning Musk’s fundraising plans won’t be easy.

An electric Mini? There’s a weak Austin Powers joke in there somewhere, maybe, but that movie (alarmingly) came out 19 years ago.

After teasing the possibility earlier this year, BMW CEO Harald Krüger confirmed an all-electric Mini will arrive in 2019, Bloomberg reports. Krüger claims a Mini EV, as well as an electric version of the compact X3 crossover, is needed to keep up with the company’s German rivals.

A day before the Paris Auto show opens to the public, Amnesty International has accused manufacturers of clean, green electric cars of having dirty hands.

The human rights organization threw a wet blanket over the large crop of EVs exhibited in Paris, issuing a release targeting certain automakers for indirectly employing child labor in the construction of its vehicles.

After the awkward auto show apologies of the past year, Volkswagen executives are looking forward to a rosy time in the near future after the brand stabilizes itself.

Those “good times” will return, according to global brand chief Herbert Diess, but not before three to four years of rough slogging. In a Bloomberg TV interview from the Paris Auto Show, Diess mulled adding new models to its U.S. lineup.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled an all-electric SUV concept at the Paris Auto Show, strongly hinting at what we can expect from its recently announced EQ sub-brand.

The Generation EQ concept offers impressive range and up to 400 horsepower, which the automaker needs to compete with the likes of Tesla and rival BMW’s “i” sub-brand.

Looking something like an unborn child peering with sightless eyes from inside an amniotic sack, the Volkswagen I.D. concept vehicle has been revealed ahead of the Paris Auto Show.

The description is apt, as Volkswagen sees the I.D. as an embryo, heralding a long-range electric vehicle slated for production within four years.

Harkening back to its early days as a purveyor of horseless carriages, Ford Motor Company has patented a no-frills folding vehicle for those who want something more than a bicycle.

Intended for developing countries with poor infrastructure, the patent filing uncovered by Autoblog details a lightweight, endlessly configurable vehicle with a collapsible frame.

Smart, the plucky and perplexing subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz, has the unique distinction of offering an EV variant of its sole U.S. model that’s generally accepted as being an improvement over the gas-powered model.

Certainly, a vastly reduced range doesn’t boost the tiny package’s appeal, but the two-seat city car really isn’t meant for those long-legged highway trips. That’s what the Ford F-150 and Fiat 500 are for. No, the Smart Fortwo Electric Drive has two aces up its sleeve — instant thrust, and a transmission that mercifully stays in the same gear.

For 2017, Smart has sized up its Electric Drive, accepted its limitations (no, we can’t add a backseat ... ), and made it a bit better in any way it can.

After its two-year-long bid to gain a sales foothold in Michigan hit a brick wall, Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the state.

The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Michigan, targets governor Rick Snyder and other top officials, Reuters reports.

Electric-vehicle buyers in Norway enjoy hefty perks, from tax exemptions to free parking, but not everything is rosy in the world’s EV-friendliest country.

A group of 125 Norwegians has sued American automaker Tesla, alleging that the company’s Model S P85D with “Insane Mode” is simply not fast enough, Bloomberg reports.

After revealing the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt’s surprising EPA-estimated range (238 miles), General Motors has now rolled out the price for its long-awaited electric car.

What will it take to get into Chevy’s EV? $37,495, which includes destination. A federal tax credit lowers that to $29,995, or five bucks below the “affordable car threshold” so sought after by EV builders.

Tesla’s dream of establishing a sales footprint in America’s auto manufacturing heartland is dead, at least for now, after Michigan lawmakers slammed the door on its direct sales bid.

The electric automaker’s application for a dealership license was denied after state representatives claimed it violated a law specifically designed to keep companies like Tesla out, The Detroit News reports.