Stop Sales are legally required to be publicly reported to NHTSA, so this obviously can’t be called a Stop Sale, because that would mean Tesla would have to do something legal.
Tesla Cybertruck deliveries are on hold as trims are flying off…. We previously reported on Tesla recalling 11,000 Cybertrucks due to some trims detaching while driving. That recall was in June of last year, but is looks like the problem might be coming back.
The weakly glued body panels are flying apart left and right, causing a safety hazard even faster than the frame can crack and break, faster than the wheels fall off. What a marvel of engineering genius!
Mind the gap.
The most amazing part of this whole story is that anyone is still trying to pay money for a Cybertruck.
Russian? I meant rushin’ to light so many Tesla on fire.
Tell-tale signs of a fire starting under the front wheel well, which suggests it was either arson or not arson. Hard to tell given so many Tesla burn up on their own. Source: BZ
Some readers may remember almost exactly a year ago nine Tesla were all set on fire in Berlin at the same time. It appeared to be a test of the city’s emergency response capabilities, yet never resolved.
“Neun Autos gehen in Berlin in Flammen auf!” […] At around 2 a.m., a dark Tesla burned on Paula-Fürst-Straße in Lichtenberg. A few minutes later another Tesla was on fire on An den Knabenhäuser Street!
Now again last night several Tesla were all set on fire in Berlin, presumably on the same or similar project.
German police said that four vehicles were set ablaze in the Plänterwald and Steglitz neighborhoods of Berlin…
The news today reads almost identically to last year.
The first car caught fire around 1:40 a.m. on Neue Krugallee in Treptow-Köpenick. Two other vehicles parked there were also damaged. Around 2 a.m., a Tesla caught fire on Albrechtstraße, and two others on Am Eichgarten in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. Three parked cars were damaged.
Only four this year? That’s a significant drop in spontaneous Tesla combustion.
To be fair Tesla sales in Germany have plummeted nearly 80%. Could a 50% drop in fires be pivoted as a silver lining by the Nazi-adjacent brand? Remember, this is the same CEO who calls his repeated space ship explosions shutting down entire airports as progress. And this:
Billionaire Elon Musk… on Thursday reposted a message on X saying “Hitler didn’t murder millions of people…”
Hitler didn’t murder millions? Yeah, ok Musk. And you didn’t salute Hitler. Sure, yeah, wink. I get it.
Maybe it’s not a group or a test after all. Maybe it’s not someone rushin’ to light fires when it’s… just a German winter weather pattern that causes a Tesla to self-destruct at exactly 2am on a wet cold morning. Is it like how SpaceX rockets within 10 minutes are supposed to rapidly disassemble billions of taxpayer dollars into toxic burning debris?
Notwithstanding Tesla and SpaceX fire faster marketing, the Berlin Police say just like last year that arson is suspected.
The M23 rebels, backed by Rwanda, captured Goma on January 28, 2025. In doing so they defeated the so-called “Romeo” contractors “hired” (e.g. funded by Russian oligarchs and Chinese investors) through the DRC government. The defeat was the coup d’grace to a strategy employed by competing powers seeking control of the region’s cobalt, coltan, and gold deposits.
Russia and China have pursued mineral interests in Africa through a calculated approach that has become increasingly agressive: exploit government weakness, offer security assistance through proxies, and secure mining rights in exchange. The Romanian contractors’ defeat was a flop, exposing the strategy in eastern DRC, temporarily giving Western-aligned Rwanda an advantage through their M23 proxies.
What makes this particularly revealing is how the “Romeos” operation mirrored Russian tactics seen elsewhere in the world. The disorganized deployment of poorly trained personnel given an AK47 and flak vest but nothing else — “supermarket guards” according to The Guardian’s investigation — resembles the approach used by Russian PMCs in Mali and the Central African Republic for example. The idea is to deploy men desperate for rapid enrichment (yet low chances of survival) as a “force” to maintain strategic resource access while avoiding direct accountability.
Congolese leaders have a history of employing white mercenaries. They led infamous campaigns against rebels in the turbulent years after independence from Belgium in 1960. Former Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko also hired ex-Yugoslav mercenaries as his regime collapsed in the 1990s. In late 2022, with the M23 surrounding Goma, the DRC government hired two private-military firms. One, named Agemira, was made up of about 40 former French security personnel who provided intelligence and logistical support to the Congolese army.
In case you’re wondering why the UK lost its appeal to the Congo and France is showing up instead, it’s both historic and regional…
Following Mobutu’s coup in November 1965, Maj Gen Louis Bobozo (left) was appointed to be his commander-in-chief of the ANC, as seen here in Kisangani, 1966 with French mercenary Col Bob Denard (right). The recent Romanian mercenary collapse follows a long history of dubious foreign fighters paid to heavily influence control of Congo’s resource conflicts.Source: “Army head, Mobutu seizes control in Congo Republic”, Indianapolis Recorder, 4 December 1965
As you maybe can see the DRC (formerly Zaire) has a rather toxic past relationship with both Belgium and France. While Belgium was the primary colonial power, of absolutely the worst violent racism imaginable, France has kept significant influence in the region. Mobutu’s 1965 coup to keep European mercenaries in control of the country was supported by Belgium, as well as the United States, in the context of Cold War geopolitics that mandated western rights to Congo’s vast mineral resources. This produced a 32-year authoritarian regime characterized by horrific human rights abuses and economic exploitation. Rwanda’s interventions in Congo began to unfold during the First and Second Congo Wars (1996-2003), driven by security concerns related to French meddling and Hutu militias along the border.
The complex history involves multiple foreign actors pursuing strategic and economic interests in the region at the expense of Congolese sovereignty and development.
China, on that note, has traditionally focused on infrastructure investments to secure mining rights. But as competition intensifies for battery metals and rare earth elements essential to green technology, their interests increasingly align with Russia’s more aggressive militarized approach, let alone French history of extreme mercenary meddling. A crossover with Chinese passive methods becomes apparent when the DRC claims it has sourced a “fund” for security contractors.
Confused? Don’t worry, here’s a handy chart I made of the latest winners (green) and losers (red).
Rwanda-aligned forces gaining control of strategic mineral resources suggests a geopolitical realignment. M23’s capture of Goma means setbacks for Russian/Chinese interests, as well as France, their corruption/control of DRC government now potentially undermined. Click to enlarge.
The collapse of Goma’s defenses give insight into the paper-thin proxy strategy and why African nations are right to pounce on the weakened and incompetent Russian leadership. When mercenaries fled to UN compounds abandoning equipment and weapons, they demonstrated that hired guns, especially Russian-backed conscripts desperate for their next meal, rarely provide sustainable security solutions in complex conflicts.
For local populations, the real tragedy continues: violent competition for mineral resources that power smartphones and electric vehicles worldwide, while development and stability remain elusive. As Rwanda and M23 now control key mineral areas, Russia and China appear severely weakened in their approach in this critical region, likely seeking different arrangements to corrupt whoever controls the mines.
Here’s a sobering list regarding politicians who have lost their life in a transit crash.
2024: a helicopter crash killed President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi and many government officials.
2020: Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, died in a drone strike on his vehicle
2010: Lech Kaczyński, President of Poland, died in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia, along with his wife and 94 others, including many Polish government officials.
2005: John Garang, First Vice President of Sudan and President of Southern Sudan, died in a helicopter crash.
2004: Boris Trajkovski, President of Macedonia, died in a plane crash.
2002: Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota, died in a plane crash while campaigning for re-election, along with his wife, daughter, and several staff members.
1996: Ron Brown, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, died in a plane crash in Croatia.
1994: Juvenal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, President of Burundi, both died in the same plane crash, which helped trigger the Rwandan genocide.
1988: Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan, died in a plane crash along with several senior military officials and the U.S. Ambassador.
1986: Samora Machel, President of Mozambique, died in a plane crash near the South African border.
1981: Jaime Roldós Aguilera, President of Ecuador, died in a plane crash in the Andes mountains.
1981: Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama, died in a plane crash.
1980: Francisco de Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal, died in a plane crash.
1976: Abdul Razak Hussein, Prime Minister of Malaysia, died in a helicopter crash.
1969: René Barrientos, President of Bolivia, died in a helicopter crash.
1961: Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations, died when his plane was shot down in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) while on a peace mission to resolve the Congo Crisis.
1959: Barthélemy Boganda, first Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, died in a plane crash.
1957: Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines, died in a plane crash.
1949: Muhammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, died in an ambulance that failed en route to a hospital.
1943: Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, died in a plane crash in Gibraltar.
This short list is meant to highlight the vulnerability of even highly protected officials to transportation accidents. What’s particularly notable is that aircraft used by heads of state typically incorporate rigorous security protocols, redundant safety systems, and are subject to extensive pre-flight inspections.
By contrast, modern consumer vehicles exploit technological sophistication to exploit “efficiency” loopholes and safety shortcuts rather than pay for the protection necessary for highly targeted security threats. Furthermore, vehicles that are computerized and connected have introduced a radical new dimension of potential vulnerabilities that are not fully accounted for in high-value asset transportation security.
Consider now the short list of “features” and whether there’s a clear and proven associated threat:
Vehicle Feature
Safety Threat
Remote connectivity
Yes
Over-the-air updates
Yes
Drive-by-wire systems (software-controlled steering/braking)
Yes
Numerous electronic control units
Yes
GPS and navigation systems
Yes
Wireless key systems
Yes
Connected infotainment systems
Yes
Smartphone integration
Yes
I mention this to point out that any national leader stepping into a Tesla anywhere in the world is clearly in immediate danger of serious software and hardware flaws that send their car at high speed into a wall, just as one obvious example that we regularly see with Tesla crashes in the news.
A state leader in a Tesla is a form of negligence rarely seen, an extraordinary breach of public trust to put themselves in harm’s way.
Though Trump frequently attacked electric vehicles during last year’s campaign, he … sat in the driver’s seat of a sedan, with Musk seated beside him, and said he planned to buy one. […] He did not take a test drive but said he might “another time.” […] It is not clear when, if ever, Trump would have the chance to drive a car of any kind unless he does so within the White House complex or a similarly secure area.
Security agencies responsible for protecting heads of state are well aware of the threats and skilled in countermeasures for vehicles designated in leadership transportation. They never should or would allow a national leader to promote any unmodified commercial vehicle for their personal transit, regardless of the manufacturer, and yet….
In Dr. Strangelove, the image of an unstoppable automated sequence causing the end of the world was played for dark comedy. Today’s Tesla demonstrations celebrate careless implementations of dangerous architectural flaws.
A President was standing next to the Tesla CEO to pump the stock price, saying he would gladly get into an unsecured remote-controlled car. This suggests the Tesla CEO may have undue influence over that country’s leadership.
Consider again the list above. And perhaps most important of all, consider the sophistication of crashed machines that can affect the success of investigations.
Three casino executives who worked for billionaire real estate developer Donald J. Trump were among five people killed Tuesday afternoon in a helicopter crash in New Jersey about 40 miles north of Atlantic City.
