Good morning and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s daily news roundup serving up the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.

The Downshift recaps news items in a sentence or two, fit with links to the deeper story. Here’s the bulletin for Thursday, June 4, 2026.

A number of trade groups and lobbies across industries, including the Alliance for Automotive Innovation which comprises many manufacturers, have signed and sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments sounding the alarm about the global drought of memory chips caused by the construction of AI data centers, and how that has and will continue to impact prices for consumers. There are some levers that policy makers can pull, but additional domestic manufacturing capacity will take years to materialize. [Bloomberg]

⛐ Toyota will ship “fewer than 500 units” of the new, more hardcore GRMN Corolla to the U.S., according to a marketing email sent out by the automaker.

Volkswagen of America CEO Kjell Gruner has reiterated that the ID4 and EVs in general will continue to be a staple in the automaker’s U.S. lineup, saying, “What’s important—because sometimes that was a bit misunderstood—is that the ID4 will remain in the market. It’s very important. We will have EVs in the market. Not just one, but at least two. For the time being, that’s going to be the ID4 and then the successor of the ID4.” [Automotive News]

Tesla has introduced unsupervised robotaxis in Austin, Texas. The company currently operates around 50 vehicles in the region, compared to Waymo’s 250. [Reuters]

Fuel economy numbers out of Canada for the upcoming C8 Corvette featuring the larger LS6 engine indicate that the new V8 shouldn’t consume much more gas than the current LT2. [GM Authority]

Rolls-Royce has given the electric Spectre a range and power bump for 2027, as well as the addition of a NACS charging port. [Automotive News]

Carvana was reportedly granted the option to purchase shares of new electric truck company Slate Auto last year, though it is unclear if the automotive retailer seized the opportunity. [TechCrunch]

Meanwhile, Uber is said to have invested nearly $500 million in self-driving tech startup Nuro up to this point, in addition to the same amount it’s poured into EV-maker Lucid. The rideshare company wants to unite the two firms to offer Lucid Gravity robotaxis in its fleet. [Reuters]

Got a news tip? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com

• A set of new-looking door releases were spotted in the Tesla Cybercab.
• Tesla committed to changing its door handles last year after regulators began to crack down on electronic releases.
• It’s not clear if these new releases will make it into Tesla’s existing vehicle lineup.

Door handle technology isn’t exactly something that you expect to be excited about. It’s just something you expect to work. However, in the EV age, it’s not as cut-and-dry as just pulling a lever, and that’s gotten various automakers in hot water with regulators across the globe.

Tesla is one of those brands. Its door handles—both the ones on the outside of the car and the releases on the inside—have long been the subject of controversy. The automaker pledged to redesign them last year, and it looks like we may have our first glimpse of how the new latches could function thanks to a close-up with the upcoming Tesla Cybercab. Let’s see what’s changed.

Photo by: InsideEVs

A short look at the handles comes courtesy of a YouTube video posted by Tesla influencers Kim Java and Josh West. The video shows the duo briefly talking about the internal door release mechanism and how it functions. The Tesla blog Not A Tesla App first spotted the discussion of the door mechanism. 

Now, sure, if you want to open the door on the Cybercab, you could use the button on the giant center screen. But most logical people, especially those in an emergency where there might not be power, will reach for the door. That’s where the need for a smarter, easier-to-use physical latch comes into play.

The video shows a door pull that opens upward, rather than the kind of button Tesla has historically used to pop doors. 

Based on the description given in the video of how the door release mechanism functions, the new latch combines the electronic and mechanical releases together into a single progressive lever. A short pull is said to actuate the electronic release, but if the operator pulls the handle a bit further, it releases the latch mechanically. The lever also clearly has the word “Open” marked in braille to help passengers find it more easily.

Source: Kim Java/Josh West 247 (YouTube)

Photo by: YouTube

We don’t actually see this two-stage release in action in the video, but if the new latch truly does operate as described, it would signal a departure from how Teslas currently function. Historically, Tesla has separated the electronic and mechanical releases into their own controls so that the operator doesn’t accidentally pull the mechanical latch and potentially cause damage to the car’s exterior glass or trim.

To be clear, Tesla has not publicly stated that this latch is its new-style latch, or if the latch will make it into any other vehicle than the Cybercab. However, this does mark the first time that a latch like this, instead of a button, has been spotted on a Tesla. That suggests this could be the new dual-action lever that Tesla is working on implementing in its lineup. 

Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, told Bloomberg last year that Tesla wants to make its latches easier to use in “a panic situation.” He described a very similar mechanism:

“We actually have a mechanical release that’s basically right at the electronic one too, and we’re combining the two. So in the moment that you’re in a panic situation, the muscle memory to go to what you know is right there. So you just pull a little bit further on the lever, and you have the mechanical release. So that’s something that we’re working on.”

A single button system is easy to understand, easy to label, and potentially simple to standardize across all of its vehicles. Most importantly, it could easily save a life in the event of an emergency.

The automaker told the world that it was working to redesign its door handles last September after Bloomberg published an article that linked the door handle designs as a contributing factor to several injuries. It went on to attribute at least 15 fatalities to Tesla’s door handles later that year.

But the bigger question is whether or not these kinds of latches will make it to all four doors. The rear doors in Tesla’s cars have had hard-to-find emergency releases, like ones hidden behind a speaker grille or below a panel in the door pockets. Tesla has revised this over the years, and it isn’t the only brand to do this. In fact, other automakers have received criticism over potentially hard-to-use latches—and rightfully so, because people don’t have time to learn how to use a new system when in an emergency.

Tesla needed to make this change. Not just because it’s a smart thing to do, but because regulators around the world are cracking down on this as a safety measure.

It’s not clear if this is the updated release that will make it in Tesla’s other cars, or how this system will stand the test of the end user. But it could be a much welcomed change to anyone who has ever attempted to exit a Tesla for the first time.

• Tesla confirms it’s turning Semi charging from a tiny pilot program into a real long-haul Megacharger network.
• The Megacharger map lists 64 new locations showing actual usable corridors for trucks to take.
• Tesla’s Semi push is not limited to the United States; Europe is clearly in the plans too.

There are currently just two Tesla Megachargers charging Tesla Semi trucks. One near Stockton, California, and another near Reno, Nevada. But their number will increase rapidly now that Tesla has added 64 additional Megacharger locations listed as “coming soon.”

The manufacturer hasn’t provided an exact timeline for the Megacharger rollout, but its Q4 shareholder report contained a map showing 37 locations that would enter service in 2026. Previously, in April of 2025, Tesla’s Semi program boss, Dan Priestly, said at the ACT Expo that the company aimed to have 46 Megachargers online by early 2027.

Photo by: Tesla

Tesla could have added more chargers to its 2027 rollout plan or the remaining 18 locations will be built at a later date. California and Texas will have over 50% of these new Megachargers, with 18 and 17 locations, respectively, and important hubs are also coming to Washington state, Georgia and Florida, as well as the city of Chicago, which has four locations planned. The goal of the expansion is to create corridors that enable viable routes across the United States.

The news of the Megacharger network expansion comes from Jason Gies, who works for Tesla’s business development department for the Semi truck. He said in a LinkedIn post that “You can see Megachargers and coming soon sites forming a backbone across the country. Chicago is becoming a real anchor. The Southeast is filling in. Corridors are starting to connect, not just scatter pins.”

After missing the original plan to start production of the Semi in 2019, it is finally starting in 2026. Tesla has given the truck a refresh, updated its specs, and confirmed it can charge at 1.2 megawatts. In late December, Tesla published a video on X showing a live charging session of a Semi topping up from a Megacharger and reaching over 1.2 MW (1,206 kW).

The Semi will be available in Standard Range form with up to 325 miles of range, fully loaded, or in the bigger-battery Long Range model, which pushes the range to 500 miles. Tesla doesn’t state the battery sizes for either version, but they should be around 550 kW and 875 kW, respectively, and both can charge to 60% in around 30 minutes.

Tesla is also looking to establish a Megacharger network in Europe, where it plans to launch the Semi at some point in the near future. We don’t have details yet, and all we know now is that David Forer, a senior project developer for charging at Tesla, mentioned Megachargers in Europe when discussing a job listing on LinkedIn.

In an interview posted yesterday on X, Elon Musk confirmed that a European version of the Semi is also planned and it should arrive “hopefully next year.” This confirms the need for a European Megachager network, although that’s likely further in the future, and it may initially be one or two locations, just like it is right now in the U.S., before the planned expansion.