San Francisco Regulators Want Elon Musk To Stop Lying About Robotaxis

Happy Tuesday! It’s September 23 2025, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at Tesla’s bay area robotaxis, which fit neither half of the word, as well as the continued fallout from Jaguar Land Rover’s cyberattack. We’ll also look at Volvo’s plans for U.S. hybrid production, and Berkshire Hathaway’s divestment from BYD. 

Tesla is staking its future on robots and AI rather than cars. This is an odd move for a carmaker, but an even odder one for a carmaker with a robotaxi rollout that contains neither robot nor taxi. Tesla’s ride-hailing launch in the Bay Area is one such rollout, with cars that are neither autonomous nor able to be hailed at will — despite CEO Elon Musk’s statements. Regulators are, as you might imagine, not thrilled about the mixed messaging. From Reuters:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tantalized investors in July with a robotaxi update: After a small-scale test in Austin, Texas, Tesla would rapidly expand driverless cabs to markets including the San Francisco Bay Area, where it was “getting the regulatory permission to launch.”

Musk posted on X earlier that month that Tesla would deploy robotaxis there “probably in a month or two.”

The reality of Tesla’s San Francisco plans did not include driverless taxis at all. The automaker had not applied for the needed permits, a process that can take years of testing under state oversight. Instead, it planned pre-arranged trips in human-driven vehicles only for riders who received an invitation. And it would do this under a permit that is typically used for limousines and does not allow on-demand ride-hailing, according to state officials.

News of Tesla’s robotaxi plans surprised and alarmed regulators, according to emails among California and federal officials and a Tesla public-policy staffer, which Reuters obtained through a public-records request. After a media report that Tesla would deploy Bay Area robotaxis in late July, a senior state transportation official asked the Tesla employee whether the company would clear up the “public confusion.”

Elon Musk saying something blatantly untrue about one of his companies? Well, I never. 

Jaguar Land Rover has been dealing with the fallout of a cyberattack for weeks now, and it’s not showing any signs of clearing up soon. The company hoped to be back up and running this week, but is now eyeing a date past Christmas to get things fully restarted. From Automotive News: 

Jaguar Land Rover is extending the closure of its factories until Oct. 1 following a cyberattack that has left its operations paralyzed and smaller suppliers struggling.

“We have made this decision to give clarity for the coming week as we build the timeline for the phased restart of our operations and continue our investigation,” JLR said on Sept. 23.

JLR’s factories in Britain produce about 1,000 cars a day and the automaker is said to be losing tens of millions of pounds, with many of its 33,000 staff told to stay at home.

…

Some JLR suppliers expect the factory disruption to last beyond Christmas, The Times of London reported.

I can’t wait to hear all the details on exactly what systems were hacked and exactly how. This is a truly massive level of fallout for one cyberattack, and it just keeps going. 

Automakers around the world are rethinking their production strategies, in the face of both U.S. tariffs and our seemingly global commitment to putting profit over the continued habitability of our planet. Companies that once promised to go all-EV are now investing in hybrids, and looking to produce them in the States — like Volvo is now planning. From Automotive News:

Volvo Cars is gearing up to realize the potential of its South Carolina factory, seven years after the first S60 sedan rolled off the assembly line there.

Volvo will begin production of its XC60 crossover at the Ridgeville, S.C., plant in late 2026. That will be followed by a “next-gen hybrid model” later in the decade, the automaker said Sept. 23.

Volvo did not name the hybrid model, only saying it is “designed to meet the specific demands of the U.S. market.”

Automotive News in July reported that model would be the XC90 large crossover — Volvo’s second bestseller in the U.S.

The factory isn’t anything new, so it won’t be adding the trillions of jobs the Trump administration hoped. But at least we’re getting hybrids, rather than the EVs that could mitigate our planet’s warming. That’s better, right?

Berkshire Hathaway loves to invest in promising companies, and it had a lot of money invested in BYD. Now, though, that investment is down to absolute zero. This probably isn’t a bad sign for BYD, though. From Reuters:

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has fully exited Chinese automaker BYD, a filing showed, ending a 17-year investment that grew over 20-fold in value in that period.

The filing by Berkshire’s energy subsidiary recorded the value of its BYD investment as zero as of end-March, down from $415 million at the end of 2024.

Buffett’s company began investing in Shenzhen-based BYD in 2008, when it paid $230 million for about 225 million shares, equivalent to a 10% stake at the time.

It began selling those shares in 2022 after BYD’s share price had risen more than twentyfold.

The key here is that Berkshire is looking for massive growth. BYD has gotten a lot of that out of the way, and the automotive sector has been in turmoil for the duration of the Trump administration — risks are rising, and the potential for massive upsides is down. No one wants to invest in companies that simply do well, they want billions of dollars for free. 

Remember when Mitt Romney put his dog on the roof of his car? How far we’ve come.

Gotta love Lambrini Girls.