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 one big EV story from and recap must-read stories from around the web on driverless cars, batteries, charging, and more.

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

After countless delays (and nearly 10 years), the Tesla Roadster was finally re-revealed last night in what CEO Elon Musk said would be the "greatest product demo of all time." And boy was it ever.

We're still working to process exactly what we saw during Tesla's live stream, but there's no discounting how impressive it was.

First, Tesla managed to drive the Roadster up a wall and upside down by using a fan system to grip the surface underneath of the car. That was something to behold. Then the SpaceX-sourced thrusters came into play.

The Roadster drove right off of a C-shaped ramp—while still upside down—and kick-flipped it before safely landing on the ground using an insane setup of 10 cold-gas thrusters. It then used those same thrusters to jump nearly 25 feet in the air over a Tesla Semi while doing a barrel roll.

If you want that “Rocket” version of the car, you’d better know somebody in the Muskiverse, since it’s invite only. And I’d recommend having some acreage in the desert to fly on, because it will not be street-legal.

The car seems pretty crazy on the road too. It packs a sub-1 second 0-60 time and enough active aero to break every existing track record, according to Musk.

Will the Roadster mean much for Tesla's bottom line or flatlining car business? Probably not.

It'll be niche at best, despite being what Musk calls the last, best driver's car and the only model human-driven model that Tesla will sell long term. It highlights perhaps more than ever Tesla’s evolution from an automotive company into a collection of moonshot projects that have little to do with regular cars.

But was it also a technological display like I've never seen. Maybe even something that could rehab Tesla's image as an automotive innovator. Assuming it actually goes into production this time, at least. Last night, Musk said the new Roadster would go into production in 2028 “actually, for real.”

-Rob Stumpf

BMW is killing the EV game right now. Between attractive offerings and insanely good tech, the Germans are showing that playing the long game works.

Speaking of BMW, the new i3 is poised to be a big winner for the company and consumers looking for an ultra-efficient EV wearing the Roundel. It even managed to drive a whopping 753 miles on a single charge.

Ford has opened its invite list to pre-order its ultra-cheap Fathom EV pickup. It's not technically a pre-order, but it's enough to get you in line, for the line.

Slate's cheap EV pickup is almost here, too. The barebones automaker has now opened a showroom in Chicago to offer up test drives.

Chinese EVs are gaining ground all over the world. They're crushing Europe and now Canadians are waiting for China's latest tech before making their next EV purchase.

That sort of consumer adoption has proven to be confidence-boosting for China's EV industry as well. Many of its automakers are betting big on overseas sales, including Xpeng which believes will make up half of all its deliveries by 2030.

Volkswagen is admitting that the ID.Buzz costs way too much to build. The next-gen bus could be cheaper and get more tech to help out with sales.

VW needs those sales too. Last quarter, its EV sales in the U.S. decreased 90% year-over-year with only 1,421 electric cars sold.

We got to spend some time with the Mercedes CLA, which packs an all-new silicon anode battery that affords it some insane efficiency and charging gains thanks to its new cells.

Tesla's Supercharging footprint is growing (and in more ways than one). Over the last year, the average price of Supercharging has increased by 15% according to one study.

America now has more than 80,000 DC fast charging ports. We discussed that—and our biggest takeaways from the last 12 months without EV tax credits—on this week’s episode of the Plugged-In Podcast. Check it out on audio platforms and YouTube.

Rivian is expanding its partnership with Redwood Materials to more wholly own the battery lifecycle from cradle to grave.

Volvo might have dropped lidar as standard equipment from its cars, but that doesn't mean it's given up on self-driving. The Swedes have tapped Nvidia to help bring "eyes-off and mind-off" driving to its new cars.

Tesla Robotaxis keep crashing, but data shows that it's actually the remote operators causing a number of the collisions.

-Rob Stumpf

I know you’ve seen it. But one more time couldn’t hurt, right? I practically did a spit take when I saw this happen on the livestream.

Thanks for reading Critical Materials. See you next week!

-Tim Levin, Senior Editor