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Elon Musk once predicted that an end to America's federal electric-vehicle tax credit would be painful for Tesla at first, but ultimately beneficial to the automaker in the long run.

He was right, at least in a relative sense. Recent auto-sales data indicates that Tesla is once again gaining ground in the U.S. EV market as legacy automakers retreat from battery-powered cars.

Musk's company is back to comprising more than half of the U.S. EV market, with a 52% share in 2026 through August, up from 43% a year earlier, according to Motor Intelligence. The company hasn't escaped the wider EV downturn. Tesla's 325,351 U.S. sales so far this year represent a 16% decline from a year earlier. However, the overall EV market has contracted more, down 30%.

Once accounting for more than 80% of U.S. EV sales, Tesla's market share in recent years saw a multiyear slide as old-school carmakers like Hyundai, Ford and General Motors introduced their own electric models. Tesla's share eroded to a record low of 41% in 2025 as Musk's foray into politics and work downsizing the federal government with the Trump administration turned away some buyers and sparked protests outside its stores.

Now, the Austin, Texas, company is regaining ground, even as it has de-emphasized its core auto business. Musk canceled Tesla's luxury Models S and X without replacements as he focuses on fully autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.

Jon Ward, a Los Angeles marketing executive, bought a Model Y in April—his third Tesla. While intrigued by Rivian's new R2 SUV, Ward never seriously considered another brand mainly because of his reliance on Tesla's automated driver-assistance software, called Full Self-Driving (Supervised), he said. Trading in his 2018 Model 3 meant he and his wife no longer had to fight over FSD, which they had equipped only on their 2023 Tesla. "I use it basically all the time," Ward said. "It's almost like, why would I bother driving? This does it so well."

The driver-assistance software will be Tesla's main selling point for the foreseeable future, said independent consultant John Murphy, a former Bank of America autos analyst. While Tesla overhauled its two volume vehicles, Models 3 and Y, in recent years, neither are totally new from the ground up. The automaker has shown little interest in building out a wider lineup of new cars. "The perceived unique feature of FSD is the significant focal point now in their auto business," he said. "Refreshing products and running a traditional consumer retail play is completely off the table at this point."

Tesla's newest model, the Cybercab, doesn't have steering wheels or pedals and it's not yet available for sale to consumers. Tesla also plans to relaunch its Roadster luxury sports car, but hasn't said when that car will be available to customers.

Tesla's U.S. sales peaked at 654,888 in 2023 and are on track to decline for the third consecutive year, according to Cox Automotive data.

What is really driving Tesla's market share recovery, analysts said, is that there are many fewer alternatives. Legacy automakers, looking to stem their losses, have retreated en masse from EVs. "Tesla is shrinking too, but just more slowly," said Stephanie Valdez Streaty of Cox Automotive.

Some of the more popular alternatives—the Honda Prologue, Volkswagen ID.4, Ford F-150 Lightning—have either been discontinued or will be soon. Others, such as Chevrolet's Equinox and Blazer and Ford's Mustang Mach-E, are still around but the automakers have cut back their production significantly.

More affordable EVs once seen as Tesla challengers that could appeal to the masses are hardly registering in sales data. GM resurrected its beloved Chevrolet Bolt earlier this year but decided to curtail production to one shift instead of two, and will phase the vehicle out in 2027 to make way for gas-powered vehicles. Nissan introduced the third generation of its Leaf EV this year but has indefinitely delayed the import of the vehicle's most affordable variant from Japan.

With its luxury models gone, Tesla's grip on the U.S. market owes almost entirely to its stalwart Model Y SUV. The Model 3 sedan is down 34% this year, according to Motor Intelligence. After its initial hype wave subsided, Tesla's Cybertruck has proven to be a perennially slow seller, with only 9,769 sold in 2026. Yet, the Model Y has held its ground, down only 2%.

BRUSSELS, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney wants closer links with the European Union and is exploring whether his country could become an "associate member" of the bloc, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The EU, which has not been flexible about membership rules in the past, is open to the idea of granting Canada a yet to be created status of associate membership, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed officials both from the EU and Canada.

The Canadian embassy in Brussels and spokespeople at the European Commission did not respond to separate requests for comment.

Canada's escalating trade war with the United States has added urgency to its strategic pivot towards other trading partners. Canada's relations with Washington have deteriorated sharply since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in early 2025, with disagreements on trade and other issues. The trade spat has led to tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Canada and the EU are discussing ways to let Canada's goods, services and workers involved in strategic supply chains such as energy, AI, defence and critical minerals move freely, thus effectively shifting the EU border, The Wall Street Journal said.

Canada and the EU are also talking about laying underwater cables, jointly constructing data centres, cloud storage and new satellite networks and infrastructure to ship Canadian energy to the EU, the newspaper said.

Carney has spoken regularly with several EU leaders, most notably French President Emmanuel Macron, about the possibility of letting Canadians live and work visa-free in the EU, WSJ said, citing two unnamed officials familiar with the matter. Both leaders are set to meet later this month.

Macron's press office did not respond to a request for comment.

The project to closely tie-up Canada and the EU is not such an easy feat, though, as fierce opposition to a more modest trade deal showed. More than a decade after the deal was struck and nine years since it provisionally entered into force, several EU countries still have not ratified it.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation, and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.

Lyft reached a new milestone this week when Waymo robotaxis landed on its app in Nashville. Under the partnership, Lyft handles fleet services, such as vehicle readiness and maintenance, as well as infrastructure and depot operations through its wholly owned subsidiary Flexdrive.

In Nashville, customers can hail a Waymo robotaxi directly from the Waymo app, or try their luck on the Lyft app, which will match riders with a Waymo depending on availability.

Lyft has more than dabbled in autonomous vehicle technology over the years, including through partnerships with Aptiv (now Motional) in Las Vegas, May Mobility in Atlanta, Baidu in London, and Waymo in Phoenix. But this week is notable because it marks Lyft's first true entry into commercial robotaxi services using driverless vehicles without a human operator behind the wheel.

Lest you forget, the company spent four years and millions of dollars developing its own AV tech under its Level 5 business division. Lyft sold its autonomous vehicle unit to Toyota's Woven Planet Holdings subsidiary for $550 million in 2021 — one of many acquisitions during a period of widespread consolidation across the nascent industry.

Lyft then took a break from AVs as it focused on its core ride-hailing business. But it didn't dismiss the idea altogether.

I spoke to Jeremy Bird, Lyft's executive vice president of growth, about the milestone and thought I would share a few insights. In his role, Bird manages Lyft's international, luxury, and autonomous vehicle plans — and sometimes all three may converge.

When I asked Bird when we'll see more robotaxis on the Lyft app — and where — he didn't get too specific. But he did say the company went into 2026 focused on its partnership with Waymo in Nashville and Baidu in London (where commercial service has not yet launched).

"I think next year what you'll see is more diversification of that," he said, adding that ideally this would include expanding Lyft's partnership with both partners. "I think next year will be a big year for us."

And it seems international markets are a big part of that AV expansion plan. Bird called London a "fascinating market," and throughout our conversation he repeatedly talked about Lyft as a global company, a notable shift from just a few years ago when it was focused on the U.S. market.

So, where is Lyft headed next? When it comes to international markets, Lyft seems to be prioritizing locations where it can operate a hybrid network — meaning AVs and human-driven vehicles — from the get-go.

"We are a global company becoming more global, which is important for us," he said. "And AVs will be the way we think about the future. Like any market we go into, is there an AV component to that? Is it a market where AVs are already open regulatorily, or that would put that market up higher on our list of the places we want to go?"

A little bird noticed a couple of interesting hires over at Ford that sure look like the company is building up its defense tech muscles. Ford recently hired ex-Raytheon employee Tomaz Seignemartin as VP of continuous improvement and former General Dynamics staffer Shirish Srinivasan, who is now chief of staff to Ford's chief strategy officer. Ford also hired Nathan Rigoni, who was Lockheed Martin's generative AI team lead, as senior software engineer.

Now, of course, a handful of defense tech hires at a company that employs thousands is hardly a trend. But it does illustrate how having a background in defense tech has become more valuable.

The Boring Company, the startup founded by Elon Musk to "solve traffic" by creating a network of underground tunnels, raised $3 billion in a round led by the United Arab Emirates. The Boring Company is now valued at $23 billion, the company shared in its announcement. There is a reason for UAE's support. The Boring Company, which already worked with the UAE on the Dubai Loop, said it will dig another 150 kilometers of tunnels in the Middle Eastern country.

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Human Capital, Vy Capital, and Valor Equity Partners also participated.

In the U.S., the Boring Company's most visible work is in Las Vegas, where it has developed tunnels connecting hotel casinos such as Resorts World, Encore, and the Sahara, the convention center, and limited trips to the airport. Tesla vehicles, driven by a human, shuttle riders to and from these locations.

A low-profile venture capital firm with a four-person investment team has amassed a $40bn stake in Elon Musk's SpaceX, emerging as one of the rocket maker's largest shareholders.

Vy Capital, which has a single-page website, first invested in SpaceX in 2016 at a valuation of about $15bn. It has since built a roughly 3.4 per cent holding, according to a recent securities filing, outstripping the disclosed holdings of Silicon Valley mainstays such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

The firm's stake would be SpaceX's fifth-largest shareholder, according to Bloomberg data, and has cemented the secretive group as one of Musk's closest financial backers. Vy is also the largest outside investor in his tunnelling company BoringCo and brain implant group Neuralink, and committed $700mn to his 2022 acquisition of Twitter.

The group, led by John Hering and Alexander Tamas, has benefited from SpaceX's initial public offering this year at about a $1.75tn valuation. It also holds a nearly $500mn stake in chip group Cerebras, which floated this year. Its assets under management rose from $27bn at the end of last year to $50bn in June, according to an investor letter seen by the FT.

"We remain steadfast in our belief that Elon Musk is the greatest engineer and entrepreneur in history and that SpaceX will be the most valuable company on earth," Hering and Tamas wrote in their investor letter. "If our underwriting plays out, SpaceX will achieve a valuation well in excess of $10tn in the next five to seven years."

The letter said Vy had generated a 41 per cent gross internal rate of return since it was founded in 2014 and had distributed $4.6bn to investors, a figure it expected would rise "drastically" over the coming year. Vy declined to comment.

"They don't write a lot of blog posts, not a lot of podcasts," said Muthu Muthiah, chief investment officer of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, which is an investor in Vy's funds. "They don't focus on a lot of other things, other than finding great companies and getting invested."

Hering has, in particular, built a close relationship with Musk. Vy invested consistently to build its SpaceX position, including a more than $100mn investment shortly after the failed launch of its Falcon 9 rocket in 2016. From 2019 Hering also devoted significant effort to Musk's early Starlink satellite internet business, including hiring recruiters and building financial models. He has held a SpaceX employee badge and is now a board member at The Boring Company, with Vy investing in a $3bn fundraise announced on Wednesday at a $23bn valuation.

"John just never stopped," said Shaun Maguire, a partner at Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia Capital, who is close to Hering and Musk. "He spent seven years working 75 per cent capacity, being on an airplane multiple times a week, to be wherever Elon needed him to be."

The ties extended across Musk's companies. Former Vy investor Pablo Mendoza and Hering both held employee badges at Musk's xAI, with Mendoza subsequently taking a senior role there. The son of Jared Birchall, a top Musk aide, was a summer analyst at Vy in recent years.

"They became close to Elon early," said one longtime Silicon Valley investor. "They are great investors . . . conviction is half the battle and then getting it right is the other half. They did both."

Other venture firms have also benefited from alliances with Musk. Valor Equity Partners, whose founder Antonio Gracias is close to the billionaire, has a stake in SpaceX. Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is also a major shareholder after investing over the past two decades, according to filings.

Donald Trump has rejected calls for an AI slowdown as traders brace for a sell-off in tech stocks on Monday.

The US president downplayed concerns about the technology after Dario Amodei, Anthropic's chief executive, called for tech companies to put the brakes on development to prevent swarms of bots taking over the internet. Mr Trump said "very negative forces" were overstating AI's risks and "bringing up things that won't happen".

Stock markets are expected to be rattled on Monday by Mr Amodei's demands for an industry-wide rethink of AI, which, if followed through on, could lead to a slump in the data centre spending that has sent tech valuations to historic highs.

When asked about a potential slowdown on Sunday, Mr Trump said: "We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.

"And we can put guardrails. We can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up. They're bringing up things that won't happen."

It came after Mr Amodei published a lengthy letter on Saturday that called for a joint slowdown and for more work to be done on AI safety. His comments were immediately endorsed by Sam Altman, the OpenAI boss, Sir Demis Hassabis, the chairman of Google DeepMind and Elon Musk.

Mr Amodei's letter said the US government should approve the slowdown by ruling that the companies were not prosecuted for collusion. It also called on the White House to encourage China to follow suit, or impose strict controls on exports of US AI chips.

Holding back AI development could potentially limit the substantial spending that has characterised the boom to date. Weekend trading indicated a sell-off on Monday. Spread-betting company IG's Tech 100 index was down around 1pc on Sunday. Trading in perpetual futures markets put shares in chip companies Micron, Marvell and SK Hynix down between 3pc and 5pc.

"I would expect continued volatility," said Paul Meeks, the head of technology research at New York-based Freedom Capital Markets. "If it was to slow down, it would be really impactful because the American economy is growing great guns and the AI infrastructure building is probably the biggest reason by far."

Volatility is also heightened by Mr Altman confirming that OpenAI's New York initial public offering had been pushed back to next year, in part because of safety concerns. "Given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public," he told Fortune. Anthropic is preparing to go public in the next few weeks.

Gary Tan, of Allspring Global Investments in Singapore, told Bloomberg: "It may cause some short-term pressure, but it's unlikely to derail the longer-term AI trade. AI development is still at a relatively early stage, and I'm not sure the rest of the ecosystem is willing to accept the current pecking order and slow down while the technology continues to evolve so rapidly."

Jason Calacanis, a tech investor, wrote on X on Saturday: "AI stocks will drop 10pc plus on Monday morning. Brace for impact folks. [Mr Amodei] just unwound the AI trade with a blog post."

In his letter, Mr Amodei warned that swarms of rogue AI agents could take over parts of the internet within six months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars of damage. Kevin Hassett, the director of Mr Trump's National Economic Council, said on Sunday that AI safety was a "solvable problem". The King is expected to host leaders this week from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and Nvidia at Dumfries House in Scotland to discuss AI safety. It is expected to be attended by Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief, Sir Demis, and Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer. Mr Trump and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, are due to meet later this month to discuss AI.