The Brief

Tesla's profit dropped 46% year over year, the company revealed in its earnings update Wednesday evening.

That was not exactly a surprise — in fact, it was better than most analysts had expected. Tesla had already reported sales for the quarter, which showed the continuation of a slump that stretched through much of the year. More revenue from other parts of the company, like a growing energy storage business, haven't made up for the fact that Tesla's not selling as many cars as it used to.

Tesla, once the undisputed global leader in electric vehicle sales, has lost that crown as its brand reputation has soured and competition — particularly from China — has grown more intense.

But the company continues to maintain that it's in the process of transitioning from being a car company to a "physical AI company," with value based on its self-driving vehicle technology, its robotaxi service and, eventually, humanoid robots.

As part of that pivot, Tesla is discontinuing its higher-end Model S and Model X vehicles. The vehicles were already made in much smaller numbers than the more affordable Models 3 and Y, but had symbolic value. The Model S, in particular, was a major step forward for Tesla and electric vehicles; Tesla called it the "world's first mass-produced, highway-capable EV," and it was the first vehicle built at Tesla's Fremont factory.

Instead of more traditional vehicles, the company is focusing its attention on its "Cybercab," a vehicle designed without a steering wheel or pedals that's meant to replace existing Teslas in the company's nascent robotaxi business.

"We would expect over time to make far more Cybercabs than all of our other vehicles combined," CEO Elon Musk said on a quarterly earnings call with investors and analysts Wednesday night. "The vast majority of miles traveled will be autonomous in the future … I'm just guessing, but probably less than 5% of miles driven will be where somebody is actually driving the car themselves."

And as for robots, Tesla is taking the Model S and Model X production lines in the Fremont plant and dedicating that space to production of the "Optimus" humanoid robot, which Musk said would launch production this year. (Musk has a history, which he often jokingly refers to, of overpromising on timelines.)

Musk warned Wall Street that as part of these plans, the company would be shelling out a lot of cash in the year ahead — an eye-popping $20 billion, more than double what the company spent on capital expenditures in 2025.

"We're making big investments for an epic future," Musk said.

Tesla lost its spot as world's top EV seller 

A Chinese company, not Tesla, is now the world's top EV maker.

In 2025, the Chinese automaker BYD sold more than 2.25 million battery-powered vehicles, according to the company.

Tesla sold 1.65 million, fewer than it sold in 2024. It's the second straight year of sales declines.

In late 2023, Musk had warned investors that Tesla was in between "growth waves," setting expectations low for 2024 but promising a return to rapid expansion with the launch of a "next-generation" vehicle that was tentatively planned for 2025.

That second growth wave hasn't materialized. Tesla repeatedly teased a much cheaper Tesla, rumored to sell for about $25,000 thanks to revolutionary changes in manufacturing. Even after Reuters reported that the vehicle was dead, Musk publicly maintained it was coming.

But it wasn't. Musk eventually confirmed that the company would focus its major redesign efforts on the Cybercab. Instead of offering a significantly cheaper vehicle, the company rolled out slightly cheaper versions of the Model 3 and Model Y.

Meanwhile, the electric vehicle market in the U.S. has taken a substantial hit. Sales were already underperforming expectations, and then President Trump took office and his administration began to systematically roll back EV incentives and regulations. Sales of EVs rose sharply in the summer of 2025 as consumers tried to take advantage of a disappearing consumer tax credit, and then dropped when the tax credit expired at the end of September. Automakers say it's still not clear what demand for EVs will look like without those tax credits.

Trump's policy changes have affected Tesla even more directly, by taking away a key revenue stream. Under previous government policies, automakers who didn't meet requirements for making their vehicles cleaner could buy "credits" from competitors who overperformed on building EVs, in lieu of paying fines. This was a lucrative source of cash for Tesla, and one that is now dwindling away. Tesla typically does not respond to requests for comment, and did not reply to an inquiry for this story.

Globally, meanwhile, EVs are still ascendant. In December, in the European Union, buyers registered more new pure EVs than traditional gasoline vehicles for the first time ever. Hybrids (like the original Prius) remain more popular than either, but that market isn't growing as fast as EVs. In Europe, EV sales increased by more than 50% year-over-year, while those popular hybrids rose only 6%. Traditional gasoline- and diesel-powered car sales dropped by around 20%.

In China, most new vehicles are already electric or plug-in hybrids. And Chinese exports of EVs are rising, taking off in places like Mexico and Brazil. Canada, too, just struck a deal to allow the import of some Chinese-made EVs without hefty tariffs.

In addition to BYD's conspicuous success, the major Chinese automaker Geely has boosted its battery-powered vehicle sales by 90% year over year, while competitor SAIC grew sales by 33%.

Those figures include the sales of plug-in hybrids, making them less of an apples-to-apples comparison to Tesla's pure electric sales — but compared to Tesla's sales decline, the trajectory is clear. Tesla once had the lead in the EV race, but the momentum is now with Chinese manufacturers.

Brand takes a beating

Meanwhile, Tesla has been grappling with an increasingly skeptical — or even hostile — consumer base in the U.S.

Musk's controversial political activities over the last few years have alienated many left-of-center Americans. While he won some fans on the right, so far, Republicans and conservatives remain less likely to buy EVs.

Evan Roth Smith is a pollster who has been tracking consumer sentiment about Tesla and EVs for the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report. According to his most recent survey of more than 3,000 U.S. consumers, nearly all car brands have an overall positive reputation. Toyota ranks at the top: Nearly half of Americans have a positive view of the Japanese brand, and only 7% have a negative view. For Tesla, in contrast, 27% have a positive view and 37% a negative view — the company has more haters than fans.

Tesla's degree of unpopularity among the general public is very unusual for an automaker, he says: "Most carmakers don't have any sort of political valence or mass controversy attached to them." 

And brand perceptions affect sales.

Even current Tesla owners, who have long been remarkably loyal to the brand, are showing a little more interest in shopping around. LexisNexis Risk Solutions tracks what brands current car owners purchase for their next vehicle; if they stick with the same brand, that's evidence of brand loyalty. In their data, Tesla — which has ranked first or second for industry loyalty in recent years — has slipped to third place in 2025.

The company still enjoys higher loyalty than the industry average. But it's clear that EV buyers have more options now, and even Tesla enthusiasts are more willing to consider them. In 2020, LexisNexis found that among existing Tesla owners who purchased another EV, a remarkable 98% got another Tesla. In 2025, that number dropped to 78%.

Musk's focus is on AI and robots, not cars 

Musk — who was recently granted an extraordinary pay package worth up to a trillion dollars, contingent on meeting lofty goals for Tesla's growth and valuation — has maintained for years that Tesla's future lies in autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and humanoid robots.

But he has frequently missed his own timelines for those achievements; the driver-assistance software in Tesla vehicles still requires human oversight, and the robotaxi service is only available in small pilot programs in Texas and California, despite Musk projecting service to 50% of America by the end of 2025.

Roth Smith's polling has found that this continued focus on autonomy and robotaxis is not helping Tesla win over public opinion. The "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" software that allows Tesla vehicles to steer themselves — with human oversight — is central to Musk's vision for the company. Roth Smith's survey found that only 14% of respondents said FSD made them more likely to buy a Tesla; 34% said it made them less likely.

And out of more than 20 different auto brands that Roth Smith polled consumers about, the only ones besides Tesla to have a net negative view from the public were Cruise, Waymo and Zoox — all autonomous vehicle companies.

"There's a lot of skepticism from consumers over whether this technology is safe for mass deployment yet, whether regulators are up to the task of creating rules of the road for autonomous vehicles," Roth Smith says.

By focusing so much on autonomy, Roth Smith argues, Musk has associated Teslas with these controversial robotaxis. "They now are perceived like a much more controversial, much more polarizing type of technology," he says.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles County has exotic wild animals roaming about, such as wild parrots and peacocks. But what about camels?

No, we’re not talking about that ancient camel found in the La Brea Tar Pits — these animals were brought over for a U.S. Army experiment.

How camels got into our military

We’re going back to the mid-1800s, before gas-powered automobiles changed the way we travel. The U.S. was on the brink of civil war and in the middle of westward expansion.

Typically, the army relied on mules and horses as beasts of burden, but in the new states and territories, they had a hard time hauling supplies over long distances. That was especially true for the Southwest’s dry deserts and mountains.

Meanwhile, camel brigades (also known as Camel Corps) were already in use in armies around the world. These were made up of camel drivers who ferried supplies, transported troops and conducted military cavalry operations.

Great Britain and India used the animals in the 19th century, according to London’s National Army Museum. The Imperial Camel Corps was also established during World War I, with British, Australian and New Zealand forces in the Middle East.

The Camel Corps caught on in America around the 1850s, according to the Army Historical Foundation. The idea bubbled up to Maj. Henry C. Wayne — a camel fan himself — who recommended their use to a skeptical War Department and Congress.

After some years of political finagling, they gave the experiment $30,000 in funding in 1855 (about $1 million today). The money was used to buy 74 camels from the Mediterranean and put them into military service.

The Los Angeles arrival

They were brought over on the Navy store ship USS Supply and went to Texas first, to Camp Verde. As the camels got used to their new home, the time came for one of their first test missions. The federal government planned to build a wagon road to connect the eastern U.S. to the California/Arizona border.

The Secretary of War at the time required the land surveyor to take 25 of the camels on the expedition in 1857, according to the foundation. These “ships of the desert” ended up thriving where horses and mules couldn’t.

The camels could carry a 700-pound load with ease, traveling up to 40 miles a day. They ate off the land and could go over a week without water. After the camels completed the job, the army sent them to L.A. in 1860.

This was for another test to see if camels could be used for mail delivery. They were essentially racing against mules to see who could get from Camp Fitzgerald (a short-lived Civil War camp in L.A. County) to the Colorado River fastest. What the army didn’t realize was that speed wasn’t the camels’ strong suit — several died from exhaustion.

A historic marker on the L.A. Times' old building in downtown Los Angeles on September 30, 1967. The plaque mentions that the area was used as a "corral for camels from Fort Tejon", which is one of the places the animals were sent to in California.

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Mildred L. Harris

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Los Angeles Public Library/L. Mildred Harris Slide Collection/Los Angeles Photographers Collection

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As the Civil War continued, the camels’ future became uncertain. The army was tired of the experiment and the money it cost. The camels were never officially designated as the U.S.’s “Camel Corps” and thus given no real purpose. In California, they essentially floated around L.A.-area outposts, such as the Los Angeles Quartermaster Depot in downtown, Culver City’s Camp Latham and the Drum Barracks in Wilmington.

The U.S. Army eventually sold the camels in California for about $50 each ($1,000 today) in 1864, according to the foundation. These noble animals, roped into what many called a failed military experiment, ended up as circus attractions and on ranches as pack animals. Some were even let loose.

The last of California’s “Camel Corps” is believed to be Topsy. After the experiment shut down, she was used in the Ringling Brothers Circus and movies.

Topsy was eventually sold off to what’s now the Old Zoo in Griffith Park, according to the Natural History Museum, which found her bones. She died there in 1934 at approximately 80 years old.

A new space celebrating the art of autistic and neurodiverse youths has opened on Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice, amid the trendy coffee shops and boutiques.

Called “Limitless,” the space is a project of Help Group, a nonprofit that has served people in Los Angeles with autism and mental health challenges for 85 years.

“What art does is it allows people to have a voice who can’t communicate typically. It gives you an insight into who they are as a being,” Susan Berman, CEO of Help Group, told LAist.

Berman said the prime Abbott Kinney real estate was a gift from a board member. Help Group is using the square footage for a community space and gallery to feature neurodivergent artists.

Among the artists included is Noah Remis, 15, whose piece “I <3 NY” incorporates watercolor over the titles of famous musicals like Hamilton and Sweeney Todd.

“Those are different musicals that I know and love,” Remis said.

“Some I saw on Broadway. Just so you know, I also put Cats on there just to anger my dad,” he joked. He said his dream is to act on Broadway.

Noah’s dad, Rich Remis, might not be a fan of Cats, but he is a fan of seeing his son’s love of theater expressed in his painting.

“To hang it up in a gallery with everyone else’s work, it just really adds a special weight to it that I think is certainly not lost on Noah,” he said.

Noah, in response, added: “Don’t get emotional.”

Noah said he hopes other kids will be inspired by his work and maybe even take it home.

Berman, who’s been with Help Group for more than four decades, said she has big plans for the space, which opened last week.

“Our plan is for the community to see the gifts that our neurodiverse artists have, not only in their art but as human beings,” Berman said.

Tanaka Day, an epic meet-and-greet of people with the Japanese surname, is happening the weekend of Sept. 19 and 20 at — wait for it — Tanaka Farms in Irvine.

"I'm the idea guy around here," said proprietor Glenn Tanaka — aka Farmer Tanaka — who dreamed up the inaugural event. "Some of them [were] pretty good, some turned out OK."

For this one, 400 people from across the country RSVP’d, bonded by a Japanese surname that is one of the most common in the U.S. — and one that speaks to the history of Japanese immigration that first brought laborers here starting in the late 1800s.

Glenn Tanaka runs the family Tanaka Farms in Irvine.

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Courtesy Tanaka Farms

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One of them was Glenn's grandfather, Takeo Tanaka, who put down farming roots in California that span four generations and counting — Glenn's father George Tanaka, Glenn himself, and Glenn's son Kenny, whose three children are a regular presence at the farm.

"Tanaka literally means middle of the rice field," he said — farmers, essentially. And because many early immigrants were from farming villages, he added, "a lot of Tanakas came over."

The 69-year-old figured, why not bring as many of them together as possible — to hang out, tell family stories and help fill in the tapestry of the Japanese American immigration experience united by the surname.

One example is how the incarceration of Japanese Americans in camps during World War II had touched those who worked and owned farms — and ended up having to sell their holdings on the cheap.

Already, stories are flooding in. Tanaka said different siblings from one Tanaka family had sent in their experiences.

One brother read them and wound up learning new things about the family.

"What's really good to know is I've helped create families that talk," Tanaka said. "Because now they're asking, 'What did, you know, great-grandmother do?'"

That ocean breeze is just not cutting it in schools in Torrance and Long Beach as Southern California reels from a heat wave.

Parents have taken to social media, created petitions and are proposing a bond measure in order to address the sweltering classrooms as temperatures hit triple digits in some areas.

Only 25% of Torrance Unified classrooms have air conditioning, according to a district spokesperson. And while 90% of Long Beach Unified schools have air conditioning, the schools without air conditioning have to bear this heat spell until the end of 2027 when new air conditioning will be in all classrooms.

What are schools doing to beat the heat?

In Long Beach, the district says there are portable fans in classrooms without AC and the district has installed heat-blocking window covers.

"The things that we do immediately and have been doing for several years, hydration stations,” Keith Butler, the deputy superintendent at TUSD, told the school board early this week. “So our nutrition services freezes blocks of ice, puts them into containers with water, and students are — and staff are able to rotate through and at least get ice water.”

There is also a classroom rotation system so everyone gets a turn in cooling zones, he said.

Can schools close on extreme heat days?

Eric Mitchell, a spokesperson for LBUSD, told LAist, “The District will not close schools because of extreme weather unless the City of Long Beach Public Health Department or a state-authorized emergency response agency directs it.”

Baillie echoed his words adding that a state-declared emergency allows schools to close temporarily without needing to make up teaching time. School funding is dependent on attendance and instructional time.

If a local emergency is declared, school districts, she said, must consult with labor unions to adjust the school schedule to either extend the school year or move to a student-free professional development day.

“Our district is actively discussing creating union-approved ‘weather days’ that would provide a mechanism to adjust the schedule,” Baillie said. “Thresholds would be part of that discussion and might focus on when national weather alerts elevate a heat advisory to an extreme heat event, as they did this week.”

So how can Torrance get ACs in the classroom?

School districts like Torrance pay for facility upgrades like new ACs through district issued bond measures. A school district takes a loan and the people in that city pay back that loan through an increase in their property taxes. That is because there is no specific state allocation of funding for major upgrades or construction. Most of the money schools get from the state is spent on instruction and other student services. There have been some occasional grant programs, like CalShape, but no ongoing source of funding.

This week, a petition to get TUSD to place a bond measure on the ballot to fund ACs has already garnered over 1500 signatures.

But, Baillie said, “Third-party polling completed earlier this year showed a willingness to vote for additional future bonds; however, when specifically asked about the costs of specific bonds to fund the $520 million needed to upgrade the electrical systems and install AC at all 34 campuses, polling showed there would not be enough support (bonds require 55% +1 of voters in an election) to pass a bond for AC.”

And so the bond measure was not placed on the upcoming ballot.

Butler, the deputy superintendent, explained during this week’s school board meeting that parents cannot simply donate an AC unit.

“ One [reason] is it's not super effective to have a typical window unit from a home that would be trying to cool a 960 sq. ft. classroom with 27 students and a teacher, maybe an instructional aide,” he said. “But the bigger issue is the ones that are large enough to really do that, the room has to have a large electrical load, and our electrical system within our buildings where most of them were built in the 1960s, it's just not meant to handle what it does.”

LAist reporter Mariana Dale contributed to this article.