Happy Friday, and welcome to Critical Materials, your source for the biggest stories shaping the future of the auto industry.

Every Friday, we break down the week’s biggest EV news, keep you up to speed on the cars we’re testing, and recap must-read stories from around the web on driverless cars, batteries, charging, and more.

– Today’s email was written by Rob Stumpf, Suvrat Kothari, and Tim Levin.

For over a century, cars have been broadly designed around a non-negotiable component: a human driver in the front seat. This week, federal regulators officially green-lit a vehicle that throws that template out the window, kicking off a new era for the autonomous vehicle race.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave Amazon-owned Zoox permission to start charging for rides in its purpose-built autonomous pod. The vehicle doesn’t have a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors, features that are typically required by law.

But through a temporary exemption to motor vehicle standards, Zoox is now able to roll out 2,500 of these vehicles annually for two years as part of a commercial robotaxi service. They’ll be subject to strict oversight, NHTSA says. Through an exemption granted last year, Zoox has been able to give free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco, but not paid ones.

In a way, it’s a full-circle moment. The first-ever fully autonomous ride on public roads happened in 2015 in a vehicle called the Firefly, designed by Google’s self-driving car project, now called Waymo. It had two seats and no conventional controls. (And Google gave the ride to someone who was blind, which I’ll add was a brilliant bit of marketing.)

Then Waymo started using Chrysler Pacifica minivans, before switching over to the swoopy Jaguar I-Paces it’s known for today. Its fleet and its lead in the AV industry has been built on modified versions of everyday cars anybody can buy.

But Waymo and others are eyeing purpose-built solutions too, and Zoox could provide the blueprint. Tesla would need to get NHTSA approval for the Cybercab, its two-door robotaxi with scissor doors. Lucid Motors cooked up a similar concept as part of its growing autonomy ambitions. Waymo is starting to roll out the Ojai, a van-like robotaxi built by Zeekr that it eventually intends to operate without a steering wheel.

The idea makes sense. By ditching the steering wheel and such, you gain interior space. The vehicle’s packaging can be more efficient too. Or a robotaxi can even be bidirectional, with no distinct front or back, like Zoox’s are. On a large enough scale, companies can save money on all the bits they don’t have to manufacture because there’s no human to use them.

Zoox says it plans to start charging for rides in Las Vegas next month.

-Tim Levin

The new Ferrari Luce was clowned up and down by the internet for, allegedly, missing the mark of what a Ferrari stands for. Let’s be real: Any electric Ferrari would’ve been controversial, but the Luce’s crisp, techy styling made people madder. But now the first reviews are finally coming out, and reviewers genuinely love the way Ferrari’s first EV drives.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Ferrari already met its 500-unit sales goal for 2026.

Tesla has built 10 million cars. Elon Musk as a big incentive to double that as part of his trillion-dollar compensation package.

Mazda Miata lovers rejoice: the next MX-5 will be ready to go electric. The Japanese automaker’s CEO recently said that the next-gen platform must be "ready for a scenario without a combustion engine,” which reads as if the car will be able to support an electrified powertrain.

Rivian’s R2 might be the company’s next big thing, but its commercial segment is growing fast. This year, Amazon added a whopping 10,000 Rivian EDVs to its fleet—meaning that it’s almost halfway to Amazon’s goal of 100,000 Rivian EDVs on the road by 2030.

Plus, early R2 range tests are in. Out of Spec and RivianTrackr managed to drive an R2 for 255 miles indicated at a steady 70 mph. The notably more aerodynamic Tesla Model Y Performance that they drove on the same route managed to do over 300 miles, beating its EPA range.

Nissan says that it cracked China’s code to building cars fast. The automaker has shifted from its standard old-guard way of R&D to a new streamlined platform-up approach with a lean crew equipped with the latest in AI tooling.

Andrei Nedelea sampled an 11-year-old Tesla Model S to see if one of Tesla’s earliest cars is still a good buy in 2026. He really enjoyed it, and the battery still had plenty of life in it too. Check out his video here.

BYD may finally have some charging competition coming its way. Rival Dongfeng recently revealed an ultra-efficient 1.5 Megawatt charger and is working on a new platform capable of delivering up to 2.4 MW.

And FAW, another Chinese car company, announced a battery that can recharge from 10% to 97% in around 8 minutes.

Dutch cities are running out of dedicated EV parking. A new pilot program will remove laws that prohibit ICE-ing of chargers and allow gas and diesel-powered cars to park at dedicated EV charging spots, opting to roll out more chargers to combat the change.

Factorial and SK On announced they’d work together to explore methods for manufacturing solid-state batteries on existing production lines.

Walmart is moving fast to build out chargers, and it’s quickly becoming a player to be reckoned with. There are now EV chargers at 326 of Walmart’s 4,600 U.S. stores, Bloomberg reports.

Honda and Nissan’s merger may have fallen through, but its potential for collaboration certainly hasn’t. The brands have agreed to jointly develop a new in-car operating system to combat Chinese rivals.

Waymo is gradually bringing its cars back onto highways. A couple of months ago, it stopped freeway driving amid incidents where its cars drove into construction zones.

Waymo’s new Ojai robotaxis are getting a revamped user interface that includes Google’s Gemini chatbot. Customers can verbally ask to change the A/C temperature or for a nearby restaurant recommendation.

A whistleblower has filed a federal lawsuit against Tesla, alleging that the company’s autonomous cars became “rolling hazards on public streets" when Tesla ignored his cries for additional oversight and instead “aggressively” ramped up its testing fleet.

Thanks for reading Critical Materials. See you next week!