Tesla

As someone who’s lived in and visited family throughout the Inland Empire for years, I have seen firsthand the rapid growth that has changed the region.

When I travel to Yucaipa nowadays, the orange groves of my youthful weekend visits have long since been replaced by housing developments as the town has nearly doubled in 30 years.

My colleague Terry Castleman has been analyzing the demographic changes taking place in California but he recently took a deep dive into the explosive growth of income in the Inland Empire, in particular the south desert portion of Riverside County.

Castleman, a data reporter, noted that two of the top three communities that saw the greatest growth in average income in the state between 2017 and 2022 were in the Coachella Valley, perhaps best known for hellish summer temperatures, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

For this analysis, The Times considered only communities with more than 3,000 tax returns. I’ll address the cities with fewer returns shortly.

Thousand Palms saw average incomes rise more than 3.5 times over that span, from $12,700 in 2017 to nearly $45,000 three years later. In nearby Indian Wells, incomes nearly doubled, from $139,000 to $256,000.

Castleman analyzed what was happening in his full article. Let’s look at some of those findings.

The Coachella Valley is experiencing a desert bloom

Income levels in Thousand Palms were far lower than in Indian Wells — but each is getting richer from a regionwide perspective, said Kyle Garman, an agent for Keller Williams who has sold real estate in the Coachella Valley for eight years.

Part of the story is attributable to remote work, he said, but the valley has also undergone a shift from being primarily a tourist destination to a place to settle down.

“It’s not just Palm Springs, it’s not just people coming for the festivals, it’s the whole valley,” Garman said.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, home prices were much lower and only about 35% to 40% of residents stayed for the hottest months of the year, he said. As more attractions and infrastructure have become available to residents, though, “people are sticking around more.”

So, who is moving in?

The average California household has a net worth between three and six times their adjusted gross income, meaning that the average Indian Wells resident probably became a millionaire between 2017 and 2022 as average household income skyrocketed to $256,000 from $139,000.

In the Coachella Valley, “the money’s coming from all over,” Garman observed. When the housing market was most competitive, around 2022 and 2023, cash buyers flooded in.

Now, they’re high earners who have relocated to towns that were formerly less tony. “This is the new norm,” he said.

Garman pointed to a number of new Coachella Valley attractions that were drawing families — the Firebirds professional ice hockey team and Disney’s Cotino housing development.

Thousand Palms is unincorporated, drawing homeowners because, as one businessperson there put it: “Taxes are more reasonable, you have fewer regulations when you want to build.”

Notes that didn’t make Castleman’s cut

When Castleman looked at the income changes in smaller towns, he found some intriguing data.

He discovered staggering income jumps in towns like Helm, an unincorporated Fresno County village that has about 200 residents.

Between the 2017-2022 period, Helm saw incomes grow by 10 times, reaching near $200,000.

Castleman said many smaller towns throughout the state are disproportionately impacted by the moves of one or a handful of “big fish.”

“The experts told me that there was likely a big farm owner who reported huge losses one year and then huge gains the next year,” he said. “So, these towns can have wild fluctuations.”

For more, check out Castleman’s full story.

The week’s biggest stories

Crime, courts and policing

Trump policies and reactions

Entertainment and television news

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

FIRST it was Mondeo. Then Fiesta. Now Focus. 

Another much-loved Ford heading for the great scrapyard in the sky. 

6

6

6

No matter. 

Kia is here to fill the gap by giving us two sensibly-priced, Focus-sized family hatchbacks called “4”. 

One petrol. 

One electric. 

Plus, an electric saloon thingy. 

The same thing happened with small cars. 

Ford axed the cheery Ka runabout six years ago. Yet Kia is still shifting the dinky Picanto by the boatload. 

I dunno. Them crazy Koreans giving people what they actually want. 

Right, let’s discuss the cars you see on these pages today. 

The yellow car is called K4. That’s a five-door petrol hatch from £25k. Well-equipped. Fizzy 1-litre or 1.6 turbo petrols. Seven-year warranty. As with any Kia. Undercuts a Volkswagen Golf by £3k. 

The blue car is called EV4. That’s a five-door electric hatch from £35k, before any electric car grant. Looks great. Drives sweetly.

The chassis could easily handle more power. Iron Man and Mickey Mouse integrated in the onboard computer. 

I’m serious. 

You can personalise the central screen and satnav with your favourite movie characters. The kids will love that. 

Then watch Netflix or play arcade games, if you ever need to stop to recharge. 

I say IF because the biggest 81kWh battery will do 390 miles by the official WLTP test. Closer to 320 miles in the real world.

Still more than most people do in a week. And way more than a Vauxhall Astra Electric can manage. 

Everything is super easy 

The regular EV4 has a 273-mile ­battery and recharges in a 30-minute tea-and-pee break. 

Driving impressions. You sit nice and low in this car. We like that. It rides nicely (multi-link rear axle). 

We designed this car thinking about the European customer because they love to drive

Kia engineer

Handles nicely (also multi-link rear axle). Accelerates smoothly. Everything is super easy.

If you want to feel more involved, use the braking regen paddles on the steering wheel to mimic changing down gears for a bend. 

I reckon the four-wheel-drive GT due next year is going to be a lot of fun. 

A Kia engineer told me: “We designed this car thinking about the European customer because they love to drive.” 

Too right. 

The cabin is copy-and-paste Kia’s other award-winning EVs. Which means a nice mix of screens and hard controls, cup holders and chargers for everyone, lots of recycled materials, and lots of S P A C and E. 

Like 10cm more legroom in the back than a Tesla Model 3. Like a wide-opening boot that swallows loads more stuff than a Focus, Golf or Astra. 

That’s the benefit of a ground-up ­electric car. It’s no bigger on the outside. But you get a next-size-up cabin. 

6

6

6

Put simply, EV4 is a peach. 

Now for the car I’m less bothered about. The fugly EV4 Fastback. I reckon the designers were rushing to get to the pub. Either that or they finished it after they’d been to the pub. 

I’m sure someone will like it. 

It does have a bigger boot and the biggest battery as standard. 

But it costs £41k. 

At least Kia is doing Ford’s old job by giving everyone lots of choice. 

A LUXURY car is now able be unlocked without even using keys thanks to a hi-tech new feature.

The motor has left fans shocked as hands are not even needed at all to open the doors.

6

6

6

6

Mercedes has unveiled their jaw-dropping new Mercedes-Benz Vision V, which has gained attention on social media.

One influencer shared the exciting new motor on TikTok with a tour of the Vision V.

The display of the car’s door lights up as she walks towards the vehicle, and reads: “Hi Tuesday Le Roux.”

Le Roux then says, “We’ve got face recognition. Let’s scan.”

A camera appears as it scans Le Roux’s face.

This enables the passengers doors of the Mercedes slide open and the front door swings out.

And illuminated side step also comes out making it easier for passengers to climb into the vehicle.

The interior of the Mercedes reveals fully white leather seats and an illuminating floor.

A 65-inch television screen is also able to emeberge from behind the front seats.

“We also have seven projectors all over the car creating a fully immersive experience, including projecting on the windows,” Le Roux adds.

Other features inside the Mercedes is a chessboard that folds out between the passenger seats which are zero gravity, have extendable leg rests, and can be fully reclined.

On the outside, the front grill can light up along with a “world’s first illuminated” Mercedes-Benz star on the bonnet.

And there is no glass at all along the front headlights, which actually contain crystal.

The rim of the wheels also illuminate.

6

6

On the roof are several solar panels, and the back light is illuminated with a ring all around the back of the car – this contains the indicators.

Commenting on the video posted by car and technology influencer Tuesday Le Roux, fans shared their shock by this new motor.

One wrote: “Mercedes Vision V is like my living room.”

Another added: “Is this one car or heaven?”

A third said: “There is only two cars in the world, Mercedes Benz and the other cars.”

The Mercedes-Benz Vision V is set to be a range of luxurious people carriers to launch in 2026.

It will come in a variety of different models, from ultra-luxurious “CEO transport” to seven-seater family cars.

Despite a difficult start to the year, Tesla (TSLA 2.27%) stock is now up by double digits in 2025. With a market cap of $1.3 trillion, however, many investors are wondering how much additional growth potential shares offer. Some analysts think that Tesla can become a $2 trillion business by the end of 2026. But there are some key risks to be aware of before loading up on Tesla stock.

Image source: Getty Images.

Tesla trades at a steep premium to Rivian and Lucid Group

The biggest risk facing Tesla right now is the stock’s premium valuation. Shares trade at a price-to-sales ratio of around 16. Other electric car stocks like Lucid Group and Rivian have stocks that trade between 3 and 7 times sales. According to this metric, Tesla trades at a 100% to 400% premium over the competition. That’s the case even though competitors like Rivian and Lucid have market caps under $20 billion, theoretically providing much longer growth runways versus Tesla’s $1.3 trillion valuation.

Of course, paying a high premium isn’t a problem if the company in question is growing fast enough to justify such a valuation. A company that trades at 16 times trailing sales, for instance, would trade at just 8 times sales one year from now if revenues grew by 100%. That is far from the case for Tesla, however.

This year, analysts expect Tesla’s sales to fall by around 5%. For comparison, Lucid and Rivian are expected to see sales grow by 61% and 6%, respectively. Next year, analysts do expect positive growth to return for Tesla, with 20% sales growth expected. But Lucid and Rivian are still expected to see higher sales growth than Tesla, with 93% and 33% expected sales growth, respectively.

So at least on a price-to-sales basis, Tesla shares trade at a hefty premium to both Lucid and Rivian even though its expected sales growth both this year and next year are below that of both companies. What’s up with that?

To be sure, competitors like Rivian and Lucid don’t have the scale or brand name recognition that Tesla does. But as mentioned, both also have arguably much more room to grow long term. The main differentiator is current or near-term growth, but long term growth potential in a new and exciting — but possibly overhyped — business segment: robotaxis.

Source: Getty Images

Robotaxis could become a $1 trillion business for Tesla

Analysts are very bullish on Tesla’s robotaxi dreams. The company launched a pilot version of its autonomous taxi service this summer in Austin, Texas. Additional cities like San Francisco may soon be on the way. Tesla CEO Elon Musk optimistically believes there could be 1 million or more Tesla robotaxi’s roaming the streets of America by the end of 2026.

How big could this business be for Tesla? Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, believes it could soon add $1 trillion to Tesla’s market cap. Cathie Wood, a high-profile, outspoken Tesla investor, believes the overall market could eventually be worth $10 trillion. Tesla is uniquely positioned to take on this market, with its large production facilities, multi-year investments in autonomous driving, and its sheer access to capital.

Even if Tesla’s robotaxi service stumbles in its first year — which many skeptics predict — the growth opportunity is clearly immense. And as mentioned, Tesla is uniquely capable of taking a leading role in this new industry. But as Reuters recently pointed out, “getting from dozens to millions of self-driving cars won’t be easy.” This should be viewed as a multi-decade opportunity for Tesla, not a near-term reality. Tesla’s bumpy rollout in Austin should be a testament to that fact.

Tesla’s stock price is reasonable for long-term investors who believe in the company’s robotaxi aspirations. But the premium is far too high for a simple EV manufacturer with smaller business segments in energy storage and generation. Tesla remains an exciting company to watch, but investors must be bullish on robotaxis over the long haul to justify a position.

It’s the city that’s proved irresistible for Chappell Roan and marked the finish line for fictional character Forrest Gump.

Santa Monica easily sits among the pantheon of iconic Southern California communities due to its combination of weather, beach backdrop, energy and friendliness.

Yet, that lore has been chipped away by sexual scandal, stagnation and, more recently, by another bubbling calamity.

My colleagues Salvador Hernandez and Richard Winton documented last week that Santa Monica is on the brink of financial crisis, with hundreds of millions of dollars in sex abuse settlements draining the city.

How Santa Monica fell into this predicament and the measures it may take, including cutbacks, to remedy this situation are the focal points of their article.

Let’s take a look at their reporting.

One man’s rampage

The city still faces 180 claims of sexual abuse by a former Santa Monica police dispatcher, a scandal that has already cost $229 million in settlement payouts.

Eric Uller, the former city dispatcher, preyed on children mostly in predominantly Latino neighborhoods of the city, often traveling in an unmarked police vehicle, or his personal SUV.

Uller had been hired and continued to work with children despite a 1991 background check that revealed he had been arrested as a teen for molesting a toddler he baby-sat, according to a report reviewed by The Times.

It wasn’t until 2018 that he would be arrested and charged. He died by suicide in November 2018.

On Tuesday, the city declared that it is in fiscal distress, a move that raised concerns among city workers that cuts, and perhaps layoffs, were coming.

“The financial situation the city is dealing with is certainly serious,” City Manager Oliver Chi said during Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The worries among city workers reached such a peak that before Tuesday’s meeting Chi sent out an email to all city employees, trying to reassure them no layoffs were being planned.

Santa Monica’s recently approved budget for 2025-26 expects $473.5 million in revenue, but $484.3 million in costs, and city officials worry that the sexual abuse scandal could continue to put a drain on city coffers that are already reeling from an economic downturn.

More than just sex scandals

Current and former officials said the current financial woes were taking shape years ago.

“Santa Monica has failed to reign in unnecessary spending for a number of years, and we’ve known this financial crisis has been looming for a while,” said former Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock, who lost his seat in the November election.

The city has faced a steep downturn in tourism and retail revenues, Brock said, along with several businesses that have left downtown and the promenade.

“You might have to right-side services, and look at areas where [the city] might be overstaffed,” he said. “I recommend we go back to basics.”

Staving off a panic

Santa Monica officials had initially been set to consider a “fiscal emergency,” a move that would have triggered certain measures by the city to address it, such as cuts and dipping into reserves.

But the declaration voted on Tuesday instead called for a declaration of “fiscal distress,” which Chi said was meant more for the city to communicate its financial situation with other agencies, get help in seeking grants and other funding, and as a tool to work on a “realignment of city operations.”

One city official, who asked not to be named because they weren’t cleared to speak on the record, said employees remained skeptical of what steps the city would take, and whether it could mean cuts to their pay or benefits.

What steps exactly the city is set to take remain unclear.

Whatever happens next in Santa Monica, our reporters will be there to document. As for now, check out the full article.

The week’s biggest stories

(Julie Leopo/Julie Leopo / For The Times)

Trump administration policies and their reactions

Jimmy Kimmel suspension and protest

Crime, courts and policing

Infrastructure needs and upgrades

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Saul Lopez)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

TEN of the cheapest new cars on sale right now in the UK have been revealed.

Experts have also outlined their thoughts on the selection of new vehicles.

Top Gear gave advise on the list of the ten cheapest cars currently on sale, which includes a bizarre “micro car”.

1. Citroen Ami – £7,695

10

At the top of the list is the Citroen Ami that is being sold for “the price of a well-used BMW 3 Series”.

It appears to have the “bones” of a quadricycle with a very boxy shape.

This Citroen comes with an 8bhp electric motor, and 5.5kWh.

Top Gear analysts said it was “fun to use and an entirely loveable object” which can reach top speeds of 28mph.

2. Leapmotor T03 – £14,495

10

This is a small Chinese electric car that appears well built.

And its price of £14,495 includes a Leapmotor grant of £1,500.

Even though it is small, the interior is still quite roomy and reasonably comfortable.

“The Dacia Spring has already shown that cheap cars like this can have character, something the T03 severely lacks,” reviewed Top Gear.

3. Dacia Sandero – £14,715

10

When it first came into the UK, the Dacia Sandero actually cost just £8,000.

However, it is still the cheapest “proper” petrol-powered car that can be bought in the country at the moment.

The vehicle has been described as “simple”, “spacious”, and one that “absolutely nails the brief” for allowing passengers to get from one place to another.

Top Gear’s verdict on the Dacia Sandero was: “If you don’t in the least bit care about cars, this is probably what you should buy.”

4. Dacia Spring – £14,995

10

This car is small, electric and cheap for new cars generally.

It has also been considered “simple” but “fun” like its bigger sibling.

Top Gear stated: “It proves to everyone else it is possible for a BEV to weigh largely the same as its petrol equivalent.

“Well done Dacia.”

5. Kia Picanto – £16,695

10

The latest Picanto from Kia is aligned with the maker’s belief in The Small Car,

While looking great, it has a fun motor that offers enough practicality for urban life.

“For a first car or something that’s just needed as a runabout, you can’t go at all wrong with the Picanto,” said Top Gear.

6. Toyota Aygo X – £16,845

10

This is a 1.0L, three-cylinder-engined car ideal for the city.

It also has a 71bhp that comes through the front wheels for an exciting 0-62 mph in 14.9 seconds.

For the city, this is surely sufficient because it is unlikely you will going faster than 5mph much.

Top Gear’s verdict on the Aygo X was: “It rides and steers impressively well, although the little three-cylinder engine can feel a little gutless.”

7. Microlino – £16,990

10

The Microlino is said to be “becoming the cutest, most adorable thing on the road at any given point”.

It is a “micro” car though so doesn’t leave any room for passengers.

Basically a life-sized, portable, electric Playmobil toy.

“As a car it’s flawed,” admits Top Gear.

“Think of it more as a pet.

“Not brilliantly house-trained, but somehow kinda loveable.”

8. Hyundai i10 – £17,100

10

This Hyundai is thought to be the most sophisticated version of the humble i10 yet.

It offers fairly impressive levels of technology and tools, with some decent space inside.

A good overall small car, especially for the price.

“Well done Hyundai for having come up with a fresh city car when lots of other car-makers have canned theirs,” said Top Gear.

9. MG 3: £17,245

10

The third generation of the Chinese car maker is small, but not a bad drive.

It’s simple, with a more refined interior to make a good all-rounder.

There is still room for improvement in the ride as Top Gear suggests: “If you can ignore the badge snobbery, you could do a lot worse.”

10. Fiat Grande Panda (hybrid) – £18,035

10

This vehicle marks a return for Fiat in making motors that are cheap but fun and full of character.

Top Gear writes: “It has a cheery countenance and knowing sense of heritage.

“We approve.”

Tesla (TSLA 7.21%) is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs), but rising competition is slowly chipping away at its market share. EV sales are still the main driver of Tesla’s financial results, but CEO Elon Musk is trying to future-proof the company by steering its resources into new products like autonomous vehicles and robotics.

Ark Investment Management, which was founded by seasoned tech investor Cathie Wood, predicts autonomous vehicles will transform Tesla’s economics. In fact, Ark thinks a whopping 86% of the company’s earnings will come from self-driving robotaxis by 2029, paving the way for a stock price of $2,600. That would be a 615% increase from where Tesla stock trades today.

How realistic is Ark’s forecast? Let’s dive in.

Image source: Tesla.

Tesla’s EV business is sputtering

To meet Ark’s bullish 2029 forecast, Tesla will have to transition from selling passenger EVs to selling self-driving robotaxis, and it will also have to build new services like an autonomous ride-hailing network.

Unfortunately, Tesla is currently operating from a position of weakness, which is forcing this shift earlier than the company perhaps would have liked. After all, government regulators haven’t approved Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) software for unsupervised use anywhere in the U.S. yet, which is a huge barrier to the success of its upcoming Cybercab robotaxi.

Tesla delivered 1.79 million passenger EVs during 2024, which was down 1% from the prior year, marking the first annual decline since the company launched its flagship Model S in 2011. The situation is much worse in 2025, with deliveries shrinking by a whopping 13% in the first half of the year. This led to a 14% decline in Tesla’s revenue and a 31% collapse in its earnings per share (EPS) during the same period, which is alarming to say the least.

A rapid increase in competition is a key reason for Tesla’s woes. Low-cost EV producers like China-based BYD are making serious inroads into some of Tesla’s biggest markets. Tesla’s sales sank by 40% across Europe in July, despite EV registrations climbing by 33% overall. BYD, on the other hand, saw a whopping 225% increase in sales in the region.

Simply put, Tesla is quickly losing market share in the passenger EV space. The company is launching a low-cost EV of its own in order to compete, but production just started so it probably won’t be a factor until next year at the earliest.

86% of Tesla’s earnings could soon come from autonomous robotaxis

Elon Musk is making a big bet on autonomous ride-hailing. The Cybercab, which will enter mass production in 2026, will run entirely on Tesla’s FSD software, so it’s designed to operate without any human intervention. In theory, that means it can haul passengers and even small commercial loads at all hours of the day, creating a lucrative new revenue stream for the company.

Scaling this business will come with challenges. I mentioned FSD isn’t approved for unsupervised use in the U.S. just yet, but Tesla will also have to compete with established ride-hailing giants like Uber Technologies, which has already partnered with 20 other companies in the autonomous driving space. Around 180 million people already use Uber every single month, so it’s in a much better position to dominate the autonomous ride-hailing industry compared to Tesla, which has to build an entire network from scratch.

However, Ark thinks Tesla will eventually make it work. Its forecasts suggest the company will generate $1.2 trillion in annual revenue by 2029, with 63% ($756 billion) coming from its robotaxi platform alone. Ark says that could translate to $440 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), with 86% attributable to the robotaxi because of its high profit margins — human drivers are the largest cost in existing ride-hailing networks, but the robotaxi won’t need them.

Don’t rush to buy Tesla stock just yet

In my opinion, Ark’s predictions are too ambitious. Wall Street thinks Tesla will generate around $93 billion in revenue during 2025 (according to Yahoo! Finance), so that figure will have to grow by almost 1,200% over the next four years to meet Ark’s forecast of $1.2 trillion — driven by a brand-new robotaxi product that hasn’t even hit the road yet.

Tesla’s valuation is another issue. Its stock is trading at an eye-popping price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 209, making it almost seven times as expensive than the Nasdaq-100 technology index — which trades at a P/E ratio of 31.6. Remember, Tesla’s earnings are currently shrinking, which makes its premium valuation even harder to justify.

Therefore, I’m hesitant to buy into the idea that Tesla stock could surge by another 615% over the next four years to reach Ark’s price target of $2,600. It might be possible if the company’s robotaxi platform becomes as successful as Ark predicts, but I think that’s unlikely in such a short period of time. After all, Elon Musk has promised unsupervised self-driving cars for the last 10 years, and Tesla still hasn’t delivered.

When the thought of truly delicious pancakes bubbles up, various trips and experiences flood my mind and activate my hunger receptors.

I’m transported back aboard the Amtrak booze train heading to San Diego for a Chargers game, where I have to make time for Richard Walker’s Pancake House. Their famed, often still sizzling and flaky, gigantic baked apple pancake is the embodiment of flapjack largesse.

There’s the homespun goodness of a sweet cream pancake volcano at the Black Bear Diner, a common haunt when I visit family in the Inland Empire. And can you visit The Grove for breakfast without trying Du-Par’s heavenly and buttery pancakes?

Pancakes own a special place in many of our hearts, partly because they are comforting, filling and customizable.

Food writer Khushbu Shah created a list of 11 pancake spots throughout Los Angeles that includes classics and some new spots.

We’ll dip into that grouping and pull out some favorites where new memories can be created.

Breakfast by Salt’s Cure (Santa Monica)

The oatmeal griddle cakes from Breakfast by Salt’s Cure.

(Andrea D’Agosto)

I almost hesitate to call these pancakes, and in fact, the official name on the menu is “Oatmeal Griddle Cakes.”

Made from a base of oat flour and cinnamon sugar, these thin-yet-hearty griddle cakes taste like a deeply gooey, slightly underbaked oatmeal cookie. There is absolutely no maple syrup or syrup of any kind available, but you won’t need any if you are careful to get the scoops of cinnamon molasses butter into every nook and cranny.

Café Telegrama (Hollywood)

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

What sets the pancakes at Café Telegrama apart from the rest of the pancakes in Los Angeles are their iconic crispy edges.

Perfectly caramelized, they are the result of cooking the pancakes for at least seven minutes in a generous pool of nutty brown butter. The edges are in sharp contrast to the rest of the pancake, which is quite tender thanks to the ricotta in the batter.

They arrive stacked two to a plate, swimming in maple syrup, and topped with a generous amount of house-made blueberry compote.

The Griddle Cafe (Hollywood Hills West)

Bigger isn’t always better, but it’s impossible not to be delighted by the truly massive, dinner plate-sized pancakes that show up either two or three to a stack at this legendary Sunset Boulevard breakfast spot.

While the classic buttermilk pancakes are solid, this is not the place to hold back — you might as well really go for it with one of the diner’s over-the-top novelty options.

The best?

Either the Golden Ticket, pancakes stuffed with brown sugar-baked bananas, caramel, walnuts and streusel; or the Black Magic, a stack of pancakes brimming with crispy yet soft crushed Oreo cookies and a mountain of whipped cream. Just be ready to nap afterward.

Yang’s Kitchen (Alhambra)

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

It’s worth braving the weekend brunch lines at this beloved Alhambra institution for the giant cornmeal pancakes.

The team at Yang’s whips together cornmeal from Grist & Toll with mochiko rice flour from Koda Farms to create a pancake that is gently chewy with deep savory notes from the cornmeal.

There is no maple syrup: Instead, they come topped with fresh whipped cream, seasonal fruit and condensed milk for drizzling. They might not be traditional by any means, but it’s always worth ordering a stack for the table.

For more, check out the full story.

The week’s biggest stories

(Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)

Emmys and entertainment news

Charlie Kirk slaying

Children and education

Sports programs looking to reboot

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

“Elon has reached peak Tesla (TSLA 7.21%) sales, and he knows it,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars, according to Automotive News. “I predict minimal investment in his current product, except in the area of self-driving tech.”

Peak Tesla? You know what they say: When it rains, it pours, and investors have been in the middle of a thunderstorm all year. Tesla has hit a number of speed bumps, including backlash facing Elon Musk and his political tour, declining sales and profits, the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit and disappearing zero-emission credit sales, mounting lawsuits, increased competition from advanced and affordable Chinese vehicles — you name it, it probably went against Tesla’s favor.

So, is it finally time to give up on Tesla?

Not so fast

There’s no question Tesla is in a transition period of sorts, evolving from the electric vehicle (EV) maker investors knew and loved into a robotaxi operator offering ride-hailing services at low prices — and potentially a robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) company to boot.

Right now, Tesla’s focus has zeroed in on a couple of different developments. First, the Cybercab is set for production in 2026, and Musk has previously said it will serve the robotaxi fleet and go on sale with a sub-$30,000 price tag at retail. It’s a dedicated two-door autonomous vehicle that allegedly won’t have human controls, such as steering wheel or foot pedals, per the company at its 2024 unveiling.

Tesla’s Cybercab. Image source: Tesla.

That said, Tesla has made a habit of overpromising and underdelivering, which has set up a healthy amount of skepticism. “I have to think that autonomy is further away than a lot of people expect,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, according to Automotive News. “By 2030, you’re still going to have a steering wheel and a driver. Even in Teslas.”

Tesla’s primary goal with the Cybercab is simply to create a robotaxi with the lowest cost per mile of operation — a simple idea that will be easier said than done. Through efficiency, slower acceleration, and lower top speed, among other factors, Tesla hopes to achieve a target cost of under $0.30 per mile of operation.

What else is in store?

Aside from the Cybercab, Tesla still has other developments to focus on in the near term. These developments include a plan to address affordability by launching a stripped-down Model Y crossover during the fourth quarter, which could help offset the expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.

It’s not quite a new Tesla model with a sticker price around $25,000, as has been promised in the past, but shifting plans to modify current models for affordability rather than create a new nameplate was likely the right move — Tesla needs to be more competitive on price, and quickly.

Tesla is also planning a second-generation Roadster, which was first promised to be in production as long ago as 2020, but is now expected within the next couple of years. Last, and perhaps least, Tesla is opening a factory next year dedicated to its often-forgotten Semi tractor trailer.

What it all means

While investors might have raised an eyebrow at that staggering announcement Tesla dropped on the market about a new compensation agreement for Elon Musk, potentially worth up to $1 trillion, the truth is that Tesla needs the best version of Elon Musk over the next decade. Tesla faces slowing sales in key markets, consumer backlash in the U.S. and Europe, and intense competition in China that has swallowed foreign automakers whole amid a brutal price war.

Tesla has its work cut out for it, no doubt. But if Musk can refocus his priorities on Tesla, even if it costs the company in compensation, it could position the EV maker to evolve more over the next decade than anyone imagined possible — think robotaxi services, robotics, and AI.

We could be watching the beginning of a slow-motion train wreck, or the beginning of one of the best investments in our lifetime. Because the latter is still possible, it’s not yet time to give up on Tesla.

HARROWING new details have emerged after a decomposing body was found stowed in a bag inside a Tesla car belonging to the singer D4vd.

Cops are still working out how the person ended up in the vehicle and how they died. 

2

2

The body was found inside the car that had been impounded and sitting in a Hollywood, Los Angeles, tow yard. 

Cops suspect the human remains had been in the abandoned car for about five days before it was towed.

The grim discovery has sparked a probe and coroners have now started to release details about the person found inside the car.

A Los Angeles County medical examiner revealed a woman with “wavy black hair” was found inside the car.

The body had been put inside a bag and was discovered in the front trunk.

She had a distinctive tattoo that said: “Shhh,” as reported by TMZ. 

The woman was wearing black leggings and a tube top. 

She was also wearing a metallic stud earring and a bracelet that was in the shape of a letter W.

Cops are probing the case as a homicide. 

But, coroners didn’t reveal her age, nor the cause of death.

D4vd himself has not commented on the investigation.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.

Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun

The security of former Vice President Kamala Harris, once the duty of the U.S. Secret Service, has been thrown into flux, again, days after President Trump canceled her federal protection.

My colleague Richard Winton broke the news Saturday morning that the Los Angeles Police Department, which was assisting the California Highway Patrol in providing security for Harris, has been pulled off the detail after internal criticism of the arrangement.

Let’s jump into what Winton wrote about this quickly-evolving story.

What happened to Harris’ Secret Service protection?

Former vice presidents usually get Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, while former presidents are given protection for life.

But before his term ended in January, President Joe Biden signed an order to extend Harris’ protection to July 2026.

Aides to Harris had asked Biden for the extension. Without it, her security detail would have ended last month, according to sources.

Trump ended that arrangement as of Monday.

How did the CHP and LAPD get involved?

Winton wrote Aug. 29 that California officials planned to utilize the CHP as her security detail. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was required to sign off on such CHP protection, would not confirm the arrangement. “Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” said Izzy Gordon, a spokesperson for Newsom. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”

Fox 11 broke the story of the use of LAPD officers earlier this week and got footage of the security detail outside Harris’ Brentwood home from one of its news helicopters.

On Thursday, Winton verified that LAPD Metropolitan Division officers designated for crime suppression had joined the security detail.

The effort was described as “temporary” by Jennifer Forkish, L.A. police communications director.

Roughly a dozen or more officers have begun working to protect Harris.

Sources not authorized to discuss the details of the plan said the city would fund the security while Harris was hiring her own security in the near future.

Controversy ensued

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, lambasted the move.

The union did not address Harris as a former vice president, nor as California senator or state attorney general, in its official rebuke.

“Pulling police officers from protecting everyday Angelenos to protect a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes and who can easily afford to pay for her own security, is nuts,” its board of directors said.

The statement continued: Mayor Karen Bass “should tell Governor Newsom that if he wants to curry favor with Ms. Harris and her donor base, then he should open up his own wallet because LA taxpayers should not be footing the bill for this ridiculousness.”

What’s next?

The CHP has not indicated how the LAPD’s move would alter its arrangement with the former vice president or said how long it will continue.

The curtailing of Secret Service protection comes as Harris is going to begin a book tour next month for her memoir, “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, which include visits to London and Toronto. The book title references the short length of her presidential campaign.

For more info, check out the full story.

The week’s biggest stories

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Crime, courts and policing

Trump administration policies and reactions

Traffic and transportation

Fire and nature

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Hannah Pilkes)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

In a couple of months, California voters will have the opportunity to reshape our state’s political map and, perhaps, tilt the balance of power nationally from red to blue.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who gained recent national attention for his CAPS LOCK social media posturing, spearheaded a bold overhaul of California’s congressional map in response to Texas Republicans’ efforts to add five GOP seats to the House of Representatives.

The redistricting effort, presented at the ballot as Proposition 50, has been blasted by Republicans, but its ultimate fate will be decided by voters on Nov. 4

Times reporters and colleagues Hailey Wang, Vanessa Martínez and Sandhya Kambhampati dissected what the changes could mean.

Here’s some of their analysis.

Methodology behind the analysis

To get a sense of how the proposed maps might alter the balance of power in Congress, The Times used results from the 2024 presidential election to calculate the margin of victory between Democrats and Republicans in the redrawn districts.

In some cases, districts were split apart and stitched together with more liberal areas. In one area, lines have been redrawn with no overlap at all with their current boundary.

As a result, four formerly Republican-leaning swing districts would tilt slightly Democratic, and two others would shift more heavily toward the left. Four out of the five remaining Republican strongholds would become even darker red under the proposed map.

All told, the new maps could help Democrats earn six seats.

We’ll examine two Southern California districts from their list.

41st District: Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona)

Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st District, long centered in the competitive western Inland Empire, would be eliminated and completely redrawn in Los Angeles County. The district would transform from a swinging GOP-leaning seat into one where Democrats would hold a 14-point advantage.

Parts of the new 41st would be carved out of the current 38th District, represented by Democrat Linda Sánchez. That change shifts some of Sánchez’s Democratic base into the new 41st district, making it more favorable to Democrats while leaving the 38th slightly less blue.

At the same time, the Latino share of the population would rise, further bolstering the Democrat‘s strength in the proposed district. The new 41st seat would become a majority-minority district. The redistricting proposal includes 16 majority-minority districts; the same number as the current map.

A section of the current 41st district would be added to Anaheim Hills’ Republican Young Kim’s 40th District. The reshaped 40th District would move 9.7 points to the right — the biggest rightward shift among Republican-held districts.

48th District: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

In 2024, voters in the 48th District reelected Republican representative Darrel Issa by 19 points, while his district swung to Trump by 15 points.

But the proposed lines would shift Republican voters into a neighboring district in favor of bluer voters from the Coachella Valley, giving Democrats a new edge.

The district’s demographics would also change, with a larger share of Latino voters. As a result, a safe Republican seat would become a swing district, where Democrats would hold a narrow 3-point advantage.

The proposed 48th District includes Palm Springs, a liberal patch that was previously in the 41st District.

What the changes could mean

The analysis found the redistricting effort, which will go to voters on Nov. 4, could turn 41 Democratic-leaning congressional districts into 47.

Democrats currently hold 215 seats in the House, and Republicans have 220. The shift could be enough to threaten the GOP’s narrow majority.

For more on the analysis, check out the full article.

The week’s biggest stories

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

COVID and healthcare policies

Crime, courts and policing

Transportation and traffic

Entertainment and media news

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — Tesla is preparing to offer Elon Musk a new pay and incentives plan that would give him more control, more shares and up to nearly $1 trillion in compensation.

Musk is already the world’s wealthiest person, and this new plan is worth about $975 billion.

In order to cash in on the full amount, Musk would have to multiply Tesla’s stock value by eight times over the next decade. All of his compensation would be in Tesla shares. Stockholders will vote on the package at a Nov. 6 annual shareholders’ meeting. Tesla also said in the filing Friday that it will ask shareholders to vote on whether to invest in Musk’s new xAI.

“Retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla achieving these goals and becoming the most valuable company in history,” Robyn Denholm, chair of the Tesla board, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, a director on the board, said in a letter to shareholders.

Musk’s net worth is more than $400 billion, according to Forbes. This compensation plan would add around $900 billion. If he raises Tesla’s stock value from $1.1 trillion to $8.5 trillion, it would be the highest compensation in history.

He would also have to stay at Tesla for 7.5 years to cash in his shares, and 10 years to get the full amount. He would also have to deploy 1 million autonomous taxis and humanoid robots, plus see a more than 24-fold increase in profits.

“If he performs, if he hits the super ambitious milestones that are in the plan then he gets equity — it’s 1% for each half a trillion dollars of market cap, plus operational milestones he has to hit in order to do that,” Denholm said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

As companies around the world work to create electric cars, self-driving cars and robots, these milestones will be an enormous challenge.

Many shareholders are disillusioned with Musk over his recent performance. Tesla has seen profits slow in the past year as his behavior and his foray into politics hurt the company’s stock prices.

In January, a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled against Musk’s 2018 compensation package and ordered him to return what he’d already earned from it.

Each of the 96 million shares received in the deal trades at just over $300. Musk would have to pay $23.34 for each of those shares, equal to the amount he was expected to pay when he was first awarded his 2018 compensation package. Tesla is appealing the ruling.

In early August, ​​Tesla’s board gave Musk a $29 billion pay package.

The new package was a “good faith” award designed to keep Musk at the helm of the company.

It would give him 96 million shares of the company that he could take after two years of service in a “senior leadership role” at Tesla. Musk hinted last month that he wanted more ownership at Tesla beyond his 13% stake to prevent his ouster by “activist” shareholders.

If you live in the greater Los Angeles area, it’s likely you have a defining San Fernando Valley moment or routine.

Those can include waiting 30 minutes at Glendale’s Porto’s for savory potato balls or meat pies. Or perhaps that’s flying out of Southern California’s top-ranked airport, Hollywood Burbank, at least according to Fodor’s Travel Guide.

Maybe you melted your face off in Woodland Hills, the hottest community in all the county, or unsuccessfully tried to reverse parallel park there. Of course, San Fernando Valley’s favorite spots include Universal Studios Hollywood and its own mission.

For fans and newcomers to the area alike, there’s a little something for everyone.

The Food Team at The Times has crafted its own tribute to the Valley, with its 65 favorite places to eat, 24 best bars and coffee shops, top Italian deli and even some celeb hotspots.

All the articles are worth a view. Here’s a small sample of what our writers covered.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Cupid’s Hot Dogs (from the 65 favorite places to eat)

Colleague Stephanie Breijo wondered why Cupid’s is so quintessentially San Fernando Valley.

Maybe it’s the large “The VALLEY” mural in the Winnetka location’s parking lot — where carhop service and car shows can occasionally be found — or perhaps it’s that iconic heart-shaped signage that has stood over low-slung buildings and strip malls for nearly 80 years.

It’s probably the fact that the Walsh family has been slinging hot dogs across the Valley since 1946, with sisters Morgan and Kelly Walsh serving as third-generation stewards.

Whatever the case, their thin dogs still snap with each bite. The signature Cupid dog — a creation of their father’s in the 1980s — is punchy with mustard and onions, and the chili is so thick it’s practically a paste.

The flavors and generational influence collide here, a sort of trip through decades of family and Valley history in a single hot dog stand.

Canto VI (from the 24 best bars and coffee shops)

Restaurant critic Bill Addison wrote that Canto VI owner Brian Kalliel brought a high level of experience into his Chatsworth venture.

Kalliel previously worked as a sommelier at Augustine Wine Bar and Mélisse.

He sets his caliber for wines high, and delivers with an ever-changing selection through which he guides customers from behind the bar, engaging them in conversations on their tastes.

Wine flights, by-the-glass options, a few rarer bottles with some age for the nerds: Kalliel has his audience covered. The dining room — serving wine-friendly snacks, including nicely composed cheese and salumi boards, and Italian-leaning entrees from Chester Hastings, formerly chef at Joan’s on Third — has distinct supper club vibes.

Couples gravitate to the bar. Larger groups land at dimly lit tables. Ordering happens at the counter, which can be disorienting if the staff doesn’t make the process clear to first-timers. With a full house the place feels informal and occasionally a little chaotic and decidedly grown-up, largely due to Kalliel’s confident, hospitable ringleader presence.

(Brandon Ly / Los Angeles Times)

Where Kelly Kapowski grabs a burger

Senior Food Editor Danielle Dorsey tracked down celebrities, media members and politicians to ask about their hidden Valley gems.

Tiffani Thiessen, of “Saved by the Bell” and voice of She-Hulk in the “Lego Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition,” gave us three.

“Bill’s Burgers [is] our [favorite] burger in the Valley,” Thiessen said. “Super casual setting for a quick bite with the best legendary old school burger.

“Oy Bar [is] one of our favorite date night spots [and the] food is always on point. Casa Vega [is a] nostalgic Mexican joint that has been a staple in the Valley for many years and [I] hope it continues.”

Hopefully readers will find their own San Fernando Valley staple. For more, check out the entire Guide to the 818.

The week’s biggest stories

(Joe Burbank / Associated Press)

Trump administration policies and push back

Labor Day travel and plans

Crime, courts and policing

Community struggles and issues

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by HBO / David John Photography)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

For college football fans, the tranquility and/or boredom of game-free weekends has officially ended.

Yes, the college football season is back today along with all of the game-day traditions: tailgating, plopping on the couch with a 60-inch screen, backyard barbecues and incessant complaining about traffic from residents near the Rose Bowl.

Hope is high for the USC and UCLA football programs, members of the Big 10 Conference (it still feels weird saying that!).

Our L.A. Times sports team put together an amazing digital preview package for the upcoming season. The Trojans start first, hosting Missouri State at the Memorial Coliseum at 4:30 p.m. today while the Bruins welcome Utah to the Rose Bowl at 8 p.m.

Let’s sample some of that coverage and wish both teams the best of luck. And as an Alabama alumnus myself, may I add a very loud Roll Tide!

Expect a roller-coaster season from USC quarterback Jayden Maiava

My colleague and Trojans beat writer Ryan Kartje said the redshirt junior made a concerted effort over the summer to eliminate the back-breaking mistakes he struggled with last season.

Since last season, he dug deeper into head coach Lincoln Riley’s offense and worked on his mechanics with the experts at the 3DQB training academy in Huntington Beach.

But Maiava’s style has lent itself to high variance.

He loves to chuck it deep and too often throws it into coverage. That could yield some thrilling results. We’ll have to see if that will benefit USC or not.

But 4.3% of his passes last season were deemed turnover-worthy by Pro Football Focus. That was third-highest in the Big Ten and too high for USC’s offense to reach its potential.

Check out Kartje’s six bold predictions for USC football.

UCLA’s defense will need big seasons from safety Key Lawrence and edge rusher Devin Aupiu.

My colleague and UCLA beat writer Ben Bolch said UCLA will look for leadership on defense.

Perhaps the most energetic player on the team, Lawrence, a Mississippi transfer, also boasts plenty of talent, speed and smarts.

Barring a setback from a minor right leg injury he sustained midway through training camp, Lawrence projects to be an opening-day starter.

He’ll need to anchor a secondary that’s replacing every starter.

As for Aupiu, UCLA’s pass rush was meh last season, generating 22 sacks to rank tied for No. 78 in the nation.

As a part-time starter, Aupiu made 4½ tackles for losses, including 1½ sacks — decent production given his limited playing time and easily the most among returning players. Getting into the backfield more often this season is a must for the redshirt senior.

Bolch has more in his article: “Ten Bruins who must step up for the football team to thrive in ’25.”

Prediction time: The Bruins will be bowl-bound while the Trojans will split with their rivals.

Bolch is predicting a season full of surprises and a bowl berth for the Bruins. Does he think they’ll beat USC? You’ll have to read his preview.

Kartje is predicting a fast start for the Trojans, who will run into some bumps and bruises in the Big 10 before rallying with a flourish. Will USC topple UCLA and Notre Dame?

Kartje thinks only one victory is in store, but which one? Read his preview to find out.

Our Times sports team also lays out key points to watch in UCLA’s and USC’s season openers while they chat up what’s in store this season.

Of course, you can always find more at each team’s landing page, https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla and https://www.latimes.com/sports/usc.

See you at a game.

The week’s biggest stories

Trump administration policies and reactions

California politics

Crime, courts and policing

Entertainment news

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

If buying Tesla (TSLA 6.18%) is indeed going to set an investor up for life, then its robotaxi business will have to be successful, and CEO Elon Musk will have to achieve his aim of making unsupervised full self-driving (FSD) software publicly available. While it’s uncertain if those things will happen, there’s one trend in the electric vehicle (EV) industry that significantly strengthens the case for Tesla. But to understand it, it’s important to start by addressing one key issue.

What’s going wrong with Tesla’s electric vehicle sales?

Musk is a divisive figure, but he’s not the only CEO to attract controversy or take positions that some find disagreeable and others find enlightened. This isn’t the place to enter that debate, but it is the place to look at matters rationally. A standard narrative has it that Tesla’s declining electric vehicle sales in 2025 are a consequence of Musk’s political involvement. If this were the case, Tesla would, indeed, have a major structural issue that definitely wouldn’t make it a stock to buy in hopes of it putting you on easy street. 

My opinion is that the evidence for this argument is weak. Tesla doesn’t have a sales problem because of Musk. It has a Model Y problem, and it has an interest rate problem. Let’s put it this way: According to Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report, sales of Tesla’s Model Y (its best-selling sport utility vehicle, or SUV) were down more than 24% in 2025 year to date through mid-July compared to the same period in 2024. In contrast, sales of its second best-selling car, the Tesla Model 3 (a mid-size sedan), rose almost 38% on the same basis.

If anti-Musk sentiment were behind the sales drop, that would show up for both models. Something else is going on. 

Competition is coming for Tesla

More likely, it’s the fact that other automakers have developed SUVs at price points that are highly competitive to the Tesla Model Y, even though many of them continue to lose significant amounts of money on EVs. Examples of SUV EVs gaining market share in the U.S. are Chevrolet’s Blazer and Equinox, Nissan’s Ariya, Hyundai‘s Ionic 5, and Honda‘s Prologue.

Image source: Getty Images.

General Motors‘ (NYSE: GM) Chevrolet is a case in point. Earlier in the year, GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said, “We achieved variable profit positive on our EVs in the fourth quarter.” This is a good step, but it only means that revenue from its EVs covers the cost of labor and materials to build them. That’s fine if GM is going to make the same model in perpetuity. It’s not fine if GM is going to spend on research and development, factories, and other capital investments to develop a new car.

In reality, what’s happening to Tesla is a textbook example of new entrants driving down the sales and margins of an established industry leader by building loss-making vehicles with the intent to build the scale and market presence to turn profitable at some point.

As such, Tesla’s margins are being squeezed by a combination of competitors entering the SUV EV market and by ongoing relatively high interest rates — it’s not a coincidence that its well-performing Model 3 is its cheapest model.

Data source: Tesla.

It’s also not a coincidence that Tesla’s response to these conditions is to create a long-awaited, low-cost model, which is “just a Model Y” according to Musk.

What it means for Tesla investors

The key to Tesla’s future is the robotaxi and unsupervised FSD. Both are subject to debate, and Tesla remains a high-risk/high-reward stock that won’t suit most investors.

But here’s the thing. The profitability challenges inherent in EVs, combined with the difficulty of producing low-cost, affordable EV models at a profit for all automakers, strengthen the idea that robotaxis and ride-sharing have a big future as a solution to the problem.

EVs tend to have high upfront costs, but low operating and maintenance costs. Therefore, their most economically productive use could turn out to be as robotaxis, where they are heavily utilized to take advantage of their low running costs and justify their upfront price tags.

As such, if the future is EVs, whether by personally owned cars or robotaxis, then Tesla’s approach is the right one, and it has the potential to generate significant returns for investors if it gets robotaxis and unsupervised FSD right. Whether it will set investors up for life is an unknown — and planning on any one stock to do that would be foolish — but it’s got lots of promise. 

If you browse through social media, it’s easy to find commentary about canceling the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

There are Angelenos who lack confidence in the city and county’s ability to roll out the red carpet due to perceived failures during the Palisades and Altadena fires.

Others believe construction will lead to the displacement of the homeless or that the Games won’t make money.

One syndicated columnist pleaded with L.A. not to work with “a lawless U.S. regime,” while sportswriter and author Jeff Pearlman wondered if Latin American athletes would feel safe in the U.S. due to the Trump administration’s current deportations.

There are pushes from some, but how possible is it that the Games will be canceled?

My colleague Thuc Nhi Nugyen wrote about that issue and dispelled the notion any cancellation was likely.

Let’s dive into her work.

Why is backing out difficult? We’re three years away

Host cities and host country national organizing committees (in this country, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) sign a host city contract (HCC) after the International Olympic Committee officially awards the Games.

The contract for the 2028 Games, signed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti and then-City Council President Herb Wesson in September 2017, includes procedures for termination from the IOC’s perspective but doesn’t leave the same option for the host city or the national organizing committee.

“While one cannot foreclose all potential theories, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Los Angeles could terminate the HCC without facing substantial legal issues,” Nathan O’Malley, an international arbitration lawyer and a partner at Musick, Peeler & Garrett, wrote in an email. “Especially if the reason for ending the contract was a political disagreement between the federal, state and local branches of government.”

When even COVID-19 didn’t stop the Games

After an initial one-year delay of the Tokyo Games, medical professionals pleaded to cancel amid rising COVID-19 cases.

Public sentiment soured drastically, with protests in the streets. A March 2021 poll by Asahi Shimbun, one of the most prominent newspapers in Japan, found 83% of voters believed that the Olympics set to take place that summer should be postponed or canceled.

But, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said, only “the IOC has the authority to decide.”

Breaching the contract could have put Tokyo in danger of being sued by the IOC for $4-5 billion, economist Andrew Zimbalist told Yahoo Sports in 2021. The Nomura Research Institute estimated the total cost of cancellation to be 1.8 trillion yen — about $12.3 billion.

What influence will President Trump have?

LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman has emphasized that he has assurances from the federal government that the United States will be open, despite recent travel bans and tighter scrutiny of international travelers arriving in the U.S.

Trump’s June proclamation includes exemptions for athletes, team personnel or immediate relatives entering the country for the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.

But in the two months since the ban, visas have been denied for athletes, including the Cuban women’s volleyball team traveling for a tournament in Puerto Rico, a baseball team from Venezuela that qualified to play in the Senior Baseball World Series and Senegal’s women’s basketball team preparing for a training camp.

One final outlook

If any city should be ready to host the biggest Olympics in history, it should be L.A. Not only because of the existing venues, but because of the unprecedented 11-year planning time after the IOC awarded the Games in 2017.

Now with less than three years remaining, relocating to a city that would likely have to build new venues would be unrealistic for the IOC.

“For Los Angeles, a city whose identity is partly predicated on staging the Olympics twice, and now having a third time,” said Mark Dyreson, a sports historian at Penn State University, “I think it would be really, really difficult for L.A. to give up the Olympics.”

For more, check out the full story.

The week’s biggest stories

High-profile murders and deaths

Health issues and heat

Trump and his impact on California politics

Los Angeles-area fires

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Jamie-Lee B.)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

At the moment, just 11 publicly traded companies can claim a market capitalization above $1 trillion.

That elite trillion-dollar club includes tech juggernauts such as Nvidia (NVDA 1.65%), Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor, Tesla, along with Warren Buffett’s diversified conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Among them, Nvidia reigns supreme. With a market cap of roughly $4.4 trillion, it’s the most valuable company in the world.

Not only do I think Nvidia is positioned to maintain that crown, I also expect it to remain worth more than Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, and ambitious AI player Palantir Technologies combined over the next five years, thanks in no small part to the transformative potential of its quantum computing business.

Quantum computing is the next frontier of AI

Quantum computing is widely regarded as the natural successor to classical computing. Traditional computers store and process information in binary formats — 0s and 1s. Quantum machines use qubits — units that can have values of 1 or 0, but also can exist in complex linear states that are combinations of 1 and 0 through a phenomenon known as superposition. 

In theory, this gives quantum computers the ability to rapidly tackle problems that would take today’s most advanced supercomputers prohibitive amounts of time to solve — from cracking high-level cryptography to drug discovery to climate modeling.

Although the quantum computing industry remains in its infancy, expectations are sky-high. Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company projects that breakthroughs in quantum applications could generate trillions in economic value over the coming decades.

Image source: Getty Images.

How Nvidia is playing a critical role in the quantum era

A wave of smaller innovators is attempting to make headway in the quantum computing landscape, exploring avenues such as trapped-ion technology, annealing, and photonic qubits in a race to unlock the next generational breakthrough.

Nvidia, by contrast, isn’t positioning itself as a singular hardware architecture. What investors may not fully appreciate is that the company is already deeply embedded in the quantum ecosystem. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) are increasingly being used to run advanced simulations, particularly in hybrid systems that bridge quantum and classical computing.

Yet Nvidia’s true differentiator lies not in hardware but in software. The company’s CUDA computing platform, long the backbone of AI infrastructure, is now being adapted into CUDA-Q — a platform designed to support quantum applications on the next generation of processors.

By building this bridge between hardware and software, Nvidia is positioning itself as an indispensable layer for scaling quantum development, regardless of which architectures and approaches succeed and reach critical scale. This strategy gives the company asymmetric exposure to AI’s next trillion-dollar opportunity, reinforcing its potential for continued valuation expansion over the long term.

Why Berkshire, Tesla, and Palantir could lag through 2030

Against this backdrop, it’s worth examining the valuation profiles of the three companies that I don’t expect even combined to surpass Nvidia in the next five years.

• Berkshire Hathaway: As a mature and diversified conglomerate, Berkshire is now widely regarded as a steady compounding machine rather than a disruptive, growth-oriented force reshaping industries. Investors typically refrain from assigning premium multiples to businesses of this type. While it certainly has upside potential and the opportunity to generate respectable returns over the next five years, Berkshire’s valuation profile lacks the explosive appeal of Nvidia.
• Tesla: Tesla already carries a frothy valuation fueled by investor enthusiasm for its AI-driven ambitions — most notably its plans for a robotaxi fleet and its humanoid robot, Optimus. The challenge, however, is that the scalability of these initiatives remains unproven. Both the autonomous vehicle and robotics markets are highly competitive, and Tesla risks a sharp valuation reset if investors begin to lose patience with the company’s execution or management’s ability to deliver on its aggressive timelines.
• Palantir: Palantir has successfully branded itself as a mission-critical enterprise software provider, uniquely positioned to capture the flow of AI investment as it moves downstream from infrastructure to applications. Still, challenges remain. The company faces formidable competition from Microsoft, fast-growing unicorn Databricks, and specialized players like BigBear.ai and C3.ai. Palantir’s investment profile over the next several years looks vulnerable. With its valuations already stretching beyond their historical norms, any news that shows a misalignment between investors’ lofty expectations and the reality of Palantir’s growth fundamentals could send the stock plummeting.

In 2030, Berkshire will likely remain a durable pillar of investment stability. Meanwhile, Tesla and Palantir may dazzle intermittently, but if they cannot keep pace with the dynamics of their respective competitive landscapes, investors’ enthusiasm for them could wane.

On the other hand, by the start of the next decade, Nvidia could occupy a key position at the intersection of AI and quantum computing. With the potential to become a core player in that hardware and software ecosystem, Nvidia represents the ultimate technology stack of the quantum era. If it succeeds there, that would allow it to justify a valuation that could easily eclipse many of today’s industry leaders combined.

Tesla (TSLA 6.18%) has dominated the electric vehicle (EV) market for over a decade, but the company’s core business has begun to struggle. Rivian Automotive (RIVN 7.80%), meanwhile, is still in the early innings as an automaker, but is starting to hit important milestones.

Both stocks come with risk, but one has a much better setup for investors right now.

Rivian’s R2 opportunity

Rivian slipped back into negative gross margins in Q2 after two straight positive quarters, with higher material costs due to supply constraints and new tariffs taking their toll. The loss of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit this fall will be another drag. Those are real headwinds, but they don’t take away from the progress that Rivian has been making.

Building out a profitable EV business is not easy, with even major automakers often struggling to sell their EV models for a profit. However, Rivian took a big step in this direction when it switched to a zonal architecture. This slashed the number of electronic control units and wiring in its vehicles, making its SUVs cheaper to build. It also helped the company secure a major partnership with Volkswagen, which opened up its checkbook to gain access to the technology and form a joint venture.

The next big step for Rivian will be launching its new, smaller R2 SUV next year. At a starting price of around $45,000, it will target a much broader audience than the R1 luxury line, which costs over $100,000 for some versions. Importantly, Rivian has locked in costs through supplier contracts and expects the R2 to deliver stronger margins through lower material costs, higher volumes, and shared fixed expenses with its R1 and electric delivery van lines.

On the financial front, Rivian is backed by Amazon, which uses its delivery vans, and it still has more cash coming from Volkswagen if and when certain milestones are reached. It has also secured a $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy to help build a second U.S. plant. With $7.5 billion in cash and short-term investments, the company has plenty of capital to support the R2 launch. Management is targeting earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) breakeven by 2027, which seems like a realistic timeline if the R2 is successful.

Rivian is still a high-risk name, but it has the balance sheet, the partners, and the right vehicle strategy to grow into a profitable business.

Tesla is losing momentum

Tesla’s core auto business has been heading in the wrong direction. Deliveries dropped double digits in each of the past two quarters, while auto revenue slid 16% in Q2. Profitability and cash flow have also taken a hit. Adjusted EPS dropped 23% last quarter, while operating cash flow fell 30% and free cash flow collapsed to just $146 million.

Meanwhile, its high gross margin regulatory credit sales were cut by more than half during the quarter. Musk has already warned investors that things could get worse once the EV tax credit disappears later this year.

Rather than focusing on improving its ailing auto business, Musk has instead continued to try to sell investors on Tesla’s autonomous driving and robotics ambitions. The company has launched a small pilot robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, but the service is limited to a geofenced area and requires a Tesla employee as a safety driver. It’s also already drawn scrutiny from local officials after several safety incidents.

Tesla is promising a rapid rollout of robotaxis across half the U.S. by year-end pending regulatory approvals, but the technology does not appear ready. Its decision to eschew lidar technology and use a camera-only approach remains controversial. This design saves costs, but the technology has struggled in some complex driving conditions, leading to questions around the safety of its approach. By comparison, Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxi is far ahead, with years of experience operating paid, driverless rides in multiple cities.

Image source: Getty Images.

Which EV stock wins?

Both Tesla and Rivian stocks carry their fair share of risk. Rivian is still unprofitable and faces near-term headwinds from tariffs and the loss of EV tax credits. Tesla, however, has a weakening auto business, a valuation that assumes big success in robotaxis and robotics, and a CEO whose actions have hurt the brand with many consumers.

Between the two, Rivian looks like the better investment. The company is improving its cost structure, expanding its market with the R2 SUV, and has the support of well-financed partners to help fund its growth. Tesla’s stock, by contrast, is still priced as if its autonomous driving and robotics bets will pay off, even though it has yet to prove they can.

For investors willing to take on risk, Rivian is the better EV stock to own in my view.

What Californians think about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional districts has been a source of hot debate.

Republicans rallied around polling conducted by Politico last week that noted that California voters preferred an “independent line-drawing panel” determining seats to the House of Representatives versus giving that role to the state Legislature.

New polling, however, suggests more voters may now be backing the governor than stand opposed, with a large contingent undecided, according to reporting from my colleagues Melody Gutierrez and Laura J. Nelson.

Let’s jump into what the numbers say.

Why is Newsom considering redistricting?

The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.

Texas’ plan creates five new Republican-leaning seats that could secure the GOP’s House majority. Texas is creating the new districts at the behest of President Trump to help Republicans keep control of the House in the midterm elections. California’s efforts are an attempt to temporarily cancel those gains. The new maps would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections.

Newsom and Democratic leaders say California must match Texas’ partisan mapmaking to preserve balance in Congress.

New polling supports Californians fighting back

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times, asked registered voters about the Newsom-backed redistricting push favoring California Democrats. This effort serves as a counterattack to President Trump and Texas Republicans reworking election maps to their advantage.

When voters were asked whether they agree with California’s redistricting maneuver, 46% said it was a good idea, and 36% said it was a bad idea.

Slightly more, 48%, said they would vote in favor of the temporary gerrymandering efforts if it appeared on the statewide special election ballot in November. Nearly a third said they would vote no, and 20% said they were undecided.

One interpretation of the data

“That’s not bad news,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “It could be better.”

DiCamillo added: “With ballot measures, you’d like to be comfortably above 50% because you got to get people to vote yes and when people are undecided or don’t know enough about initiatives, they tend to vote no just because it’s the safer vote.”

The strongest backers

Among voters who regularly cast ballots in statewide elections, overall support for redistricting jumped to 55%, compared with 34% opposed.

DiCamillo said that is significant.

“If I were to pick one subgroup where you would want to have an advantage, it would be that one,” he said.

Where to find the undecided votes

Winning in November, however, will require pushing undecided voters to back the redistricting plan.

Among Latino, Black and Asian voters, nearly 30% said they have yet to decide how they would vote on redistricting.

Women also have higher rates of being undecided compared with men, at 25% to 14%.

Younger voters are also more likely to be on the fence, with nearly a third of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they are unsure, compared with 11% of those older than 65.

The ever-growing divide

The partisan fight over election maps elicited deeply partisan results.

Nearly 7 in 10 Democratic voters said they would support the redistricting measure, and Republicans overwhelmingly panned the plan by about the same margin (72%).

Former President Obama endorsed it, and California’s former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, told the New York Times he would fight it.

The effort faced opposition this week in Sacramento during legislative hearings, where Republicans blasted it as a partisan game-playing.

California Republicans attempted to stall the process by filing an emergency petition at the state Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the California Constitution by rushing the proposal through the Legislature.

The high court rejected the legal challenge Wednesday.

We’ll be following along and providing updates until election day. For now, check out the full article.

The week’s biggest stories

(Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee)

Gavin Newsom’s policies and reactions

Crime, courts and policing

Entertainment news

Amazing animal tales

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.