Shortly after news broke Wednesday afternoon that its self-driving subsidiary Argo AI would be wound down, Ford CEO Jim Farley joined in on the company's Q3 earnings call and spoke at length about how senior management came to that decision. "It's estimated that more than a hundred billion has been invested in the promise of level four autonomy," he said during the call, "And yet no one has defined a profitable business model at scale."

In short, Ford is refocusing its investments away from the longer-term goal of Level 4 autonomy (that's a vehicle capable of navigating without human intervention though manual control is still an option) for the more immediate short term gains in faster L2+ and L3 autonomy. L2+ is today's state of the art, think Ford's BlueCruise or GM's SuperCruise technologies with hands-free driving along pre-mapped highway routes, L3 is where you get into the vehicle handling all safety-critical functions along those routes, not just steering and lane-keeping. 

"Commercialization of L4 autonomy, at scale, is going to take much longer than we previously expected," Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford, said during the call. "L2+ and L3 driver assist technologies have a larger addressable customer base, which will allow it to scale more quickly, and profitability."

"It’s taking that investment and putting it towards a business where we think we will have a sizable return in the near term relative to one that’s going to have a long arc," he added. The company didn't elaborate on a specific timeframe for when it would potentially be ready, thought Farley did stress that developing the foundational technologies needed for Level 4 will not be won quickly. "We don’t expect a single ‘Aha!’ moment like we used to,” he said.

Farley anticipates updated L2+ and L3 systems to arrive in the coming years alongside the company's second cycle of EVs in 2023 - 2025. "Ford is completely refreshing it's EV lineup globally, introducing fully updatable electrical architectures and in-house software development for controlling the vehicle," Farley noted. 

Fields stressed the importance of keeping much of the back end functions of these evolving ADAS technologies in-house. "We will have a core team that can integrate a system, understand its performance at the system level," he said. "And we will own the software. It is really important that we also own the connection to these vehicles. L3 is a connected technology, so the ability to have a pipeline that collects data and makes the system better and better — we must own that."

"That's a problem that actually doesn't exist in L4 and is a huge opportunity for us to create a Ford experience that's really unique." Fields said.

Lyft is once again rethinking its monthly subscription plan, and this time the cost might be easier to justify. The company has re-launched its Pink membership at $10 per month or $99 per year, or about half the previous price. You lose the discounts on all rides. Instead, the focus is on perks that may save you money in the long run. You now get free priority pickups that, according to Lyft, save an average of $3 to $4 per trip. You'll also receive "at least" a 5 percent discount on Preferred, Lux and XL rides, three free cancellations per month, a free bike or scooter unlock each month, free Sixt car rental upgrades, GrubHub+ discounts and roadside assistance for your own car up to four times every year.

The company still hopes you'll pay more. For $199 per year, Lyft Pink All Access includes unlimited 45-minute "classic" bike rides, unlimited e-bike and scooter unlocks (with discounted rates) and three yearly bike or scooter guest passes. If you regularly get around town on two wheels, this could represent a significant savings.

Drivers still get paid the same regardless of your discounts, Lyft says. You'll also receive a discount on rides if priority pickups aren't available when you book. Bike and scooter bonuses aren't available everywhere, however. You'll need to use them in a handful of US cities, including Denver, Los Angeles and New York City.

There's no mystery behind the reasons for the Pink re-do. This is Lyft's answer to Uber One, which costs the same $10 per month and shares the focus on "priority" service. Where Uber splits its attention between ridesharing and food deliveries, though, Lyft concentrates on transportation. Whichever service suits your tastes, the goal is the same — this is meant to ensure your loyalty while providing a recurring boost to the company's bottom line.

As promised, Ken Block has released his first Gymkhana video with an electric car — and this time, the vehicle is almost as important as the hooning. The "Electrikhana" sees Block drift around Las Vegas landmarks in a one-of-a-kind Audi S1 Hoonitron. It borrows design cues from the well-known Sport Quattro S1 while using a dual-motor system (with an 800V architecture), a carbon fiber shell and FIA-grade safety measures. Think of it as a souped-up cousin to the E-tron GT. Audi is shy on the exact performance figures, but it's safe to say they're enough for donuts around hotel lobbies and boxing rings.

And the video itself? It brings Ken Block's signature antics to Sin City, including drifts in tight spaces and plenty of tire smoke. The lower center of gravity inherent to EVs certainly hasn't affected the handling, as Block has no problems maneuvering in some tricky situations. However, what's most notable is what you don't hear — the switch to an EV means the noises are largely limited to tire squeal and the S1 Hoonitron's strange motor whine.

The video is a not-very-subtle plug for Audi's lineup and racing heritage, and you certainly won't be recreating these feats away from a track. However, it represents a milestone for the cultural acceptance of EVs. Where electric cars used to be associated mainly with eco-conscious drivers, they're quickly becoming the machines of choice for performance-minded enthusiasts thanks to their instant torque and supercar-beating low-end acceleration. Block's Electrikhana helps show that EVs are viable for twists and turns, too.

At the tail end of last year, a curious new entry into the ebike market emerged: Urtopia. The company’s mission seemed pretty clear, to make the most feature-rich, connected bike the world has ever seen. And with a built-in 4G SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a fingerprint reader and mmWave sensors for collision detection, it was likely accomplished. Except, the model we tested was a prototype leaving us unable to evaluate some of the more interesting features. Until now.

The retail version of the bike is almost identical to the pre-production version we tested at the end of last year bar a few minor cosmetic details. The D-pad on the left handle has been slightly redesigned and the fingerprint reader on the right is also now a button. The only other visible change is the dot-matrix display, which is now flat and easier to read.

Perhaps one of the main features we couldn’t test wasn’t available at all – the app. With so much going on in the bike, it’s more important to have a companion tool on your phone to confirm settings and to extract more use out of some of the sensors (ride tracking, for example).

James Trew / Engadget

All I’ll say is, the bike might be the final hardware, but the software side of things started out a little... less complete. But in the space of a few weeks, the app has been redesigned and there have been a couple of firmware updates for the bike itself and the experience feels much less like a work in progress.

But first a little reminder. The Urtopia bike is a fixed-gear (Gates carbon belt), single hub-motor ebike with three levels of speed assistance (20MPH in the US, 15MPH in Europe). The 30lbs/15Kg city bike offers approximately 60 miles of assistance out of the 360Wh battery. That’s a fairly common spec for an ebike, but one look at the Urtopia will tell you this isn’t really a normal bike.

Last time around I was able to test Urtopia’s cred as a general road bike, and despite a slightly stiff ride (there’s no suspension) it performed well, with smooth pickup from the torque-based motor. The voice control for changing speed, locking the bike and more was also fun but perhaps not the smoothest experience (and even if it were, I’m not sure we’re collectively ready to be speaking to our bikes in public yet).

The first thing I wanted to try here was the 4G connectivity. Utopia isn’t unique in having a cellular connection (newer VanMoofs, for example, also offer connectivity), but the 4G here is behind a few interesting features. For once, you’ll (theoretically) get a log of your ride in the app every single time you go out. I say theoretically as it often didn’t work for me. Then sometimes it did. I couldn’t quite pin down what caused it to work sometimes and not others, but I suspect it’s to do with whether you leave the bike in standby while at home, or if you power it down (thus fully resetting the sensors).

After one of the firmware updates this feature became more reliable. Which is good, because it was frustrating to put in double-digit miles only to come home and find your ride wasn’t logged. Right now, there’s not a lot you can do with the data other than see where you went and how fast in a slick animation. It, of course, logs all your miles and… as I went to check the app for what other data it records there was an app update (duration, calories, average speed and even CO2 saved is the answer). Right now, you can only share the rides with the in-app “community” but the option to share to services like Strava would be a real positive.

James Trew / Engadget

In a similar way, the app can also tell you exactly where your bike is at any time, as long as the battery is connected and has enough power to ping the network. It will stop working once the battery totally dies, of course, but if someone steals your ride, you should have plenty of time to ping it and locate it before they realize it’s the world’s most connected bike and what a fool’s errand stealing it was. 

Another security feature is the fingerprint sensor. This was physically present on the prototype, but without the app, there was no way to set it up. It works surprisingly well and allows you to turn the bike on or to disable the alarm quickly. You can still ride the bike without assistance without unlocking the bike with your finger, but it’s effectively a cumbersome fixie at this point. Unless you turn the alarm on, then it’ll start sounding an alert at the slightest, and I mean slightest movement which can only be disabled with a registered digit.

One of the more intriguing additions to the Urtopia’s spec sheet are the mmWave sensors. These are designed to detect vehicles approaching from behind on either side. If something is detected, you’ll be alerted through a visual signal and vibrating handlebars. In practice, it’s a little hard to test without deliberately endangering yourself, but it does seem to work. Although, I am not sure whether, if faced with a truck coming up behind, you might be more distracted by the alerts than the traffic itself. That’s to say, this is clearly a valuable feature, but the outcome of it is hard to quantify at this time.

James Trew / Engadget

Something much easier to evaluate is the onboard navigation. Or rather, the ability to punch a destination into the app, and then have visual and audio turn instructions via the speaker and display on the handlebars. There are, of course, other ways to do this - either with a phone in a mount or maybe just in your pocket with audio instructions via headphones. But having it here right in the handlebars feels a lot more futuristic and means you don’t have to expose your phone to the elements/thieves.

The dot-matrix screen does have a bit of a retro vibe to it, and makes it feel a bit more like KITT (especially when it speaks to you). For the navigation, this works well enough as the arrows/directions are shown clearly enough that you can glance at them without being distracted.

Urtopia calls this screen and speaker combo the “smart bar” and it has other plans for it beyond serving up data and other visual feedback. One example is using the bike’s speaker as a Bluetooth speaker for music. This may have accidentally been my idea. I suggested it to them the first time we tested it, and now it’s part of the app. It’s kinda fun, though I have never felt quite so self conscious as I did riding through a busy park with phonecall-quality Drum & Bass playing from my bike. Podcasts might be a bit more its speed, but happy to see the feature here nonetheless.

James Trew / Engadget

There is… more. Another addition that was conceived after our initial testing is “game” mode. It’s not quite what you’re likely imagining. Or at least, what I was imagining. I assumed it might be some sort of virtual race where you have to “catch” up with a ghost rider like in a Mario Kart time trial. Or maybe some sort of way of making training/intervals fun? But no, it’s actually a game of Snake you can play on the display using the control buttons which, to be fair, are basically a D-pad. Obviously, not to be played while moving.

Perhaps the biggest chance since we last looked at the bike is the price. Now that the crowd-funding campaign is complete and the bikes are made and ready to ship, the $2,000 early-bird price has given way to the regular $2,799 retail price. That puts it in a similar category to something like the Cowboy C4 which has fewer high-tech features, but does have the important theft detection and locating capabilities.

All to say that, the Urtopia definitely has a lot of tech appeal, but it still feels like the software and features are settling into themselves. If they can continue to make that side of the experience as comfortable and as exciting as it is to ride, this will be a solid choice for those that want a capital-E e-bike.

After nearly three weeks of escalating rhetoric, The Wire is retracting its reporting on Meta. On Sunday, the nonprofit publication said it had discovered “certain discrepancies” with the material that had informed its reporting on the social media giant since October 6th. “The Wire believes it is appropriate to retract the stories,” the outlet said, pointing to the fact it could not authenticate two emails that were critical to its previous coverage of Meta. One of the emails The Wire said it could not verify includes a message the outlet had attributed to Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.

“Our investigation, which is ongoing, does not as yet allow us to take a conclusive view about the authenticity and bona fides of the sources with whom a member of our reporting team says he has been in touch over an extended period of time,” The Wire said. “We are still reviewing the entire matter, including the possibility that it was deliberately sought to misinform or deceive The Wire.”

Before Sunday’s retraction, The Wire claimed Meta gave Amit Malviya, an information technology official with India’s ruling BJP party, the power to remove posts from Instagram, an assertation Meta has consistently disputed. Rather than backing down after the company shared a comprehensive rebuttal on October 12th, The Wire kept publishing stories that claimed Meta was misleading the public, culminating in an October 15th article that featured a screen recording the outlet claimed showed proof of the original takedown request that kicked off the entire saga. One day later, Meta said an internal investigation found the video showed a Workspace account created on October 13th, suggesting someone made the account to back up The Wire’s reporting.

Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. Amid all the back and forth, Instagram eventually reinstated the post that prompted The Wire’s investigation in the first place.

General Motors has been in business for more than a century, but in its 112 years, the company has never faced such challenges as it does in today's rapidly electrifying and automating industry. The assembly line jobs from Detroit's heyday have been replaced by legions of automated industrial arms, almost as quickly as the era of internal combustion engines has been supplanted by EVs. Since 2014, it's been Mary Barra's job as CEO of GM to help guide America's largest automaker into the 21st century. 

In Charging Ahead: GM, Mary Barra, and the Reinvention of an American Icon, author and Bloomberg automotive journalist, David Welch, recounts Barra's Herculean efforts to reinvent a company that has been around since horses still pulled buggies, reimagine the brand's most iconic models and bring EVs to the masses — all while being a woman in the highest echelons of a male dominated industry. In the excerpt below, Welch examines some of GM's earliest electric initiatives, like the popular but short-lived EV1 or the loss leader Bolt, without which we likely wouldn't have many of Ultium-based vehicle offerings. 

HarperCollins

Taken from Charging Ahead by David Welch. Copyright © 2022 by David Welch. Used by permission of HarperCollins Leadership, a division of HarperCollins Focus, LLC.

Battery-powered cars had captured the imagination of wealthy, tech-minded drivers. Tesla was the first to tap into that, becoming a hot brand in the process. Its cars began stealing customers away from the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW. But in 2017, when Barra was weighing up her own plug-in play, EVs were still only about 1 percent of car sales. They were still too expensive for most consumers and even at fat prices, they lost money. EVs sold by Tesla, GM, and Nissan could take hours to charge and only Tesla models could go more than 300 miles on a charge.

GM had been working on electric batteries and developing vehicles that would run on them. In no way was Barra flat-footed. But spending billions on cars with an uncertain group of buyers was seen as speculative and risky. Internally at major car companies, there were still voices saying that EVs were a costly science project. They assumed Tesla would run out of cash one day and carmakers could carry on as they always had.

Internally, GM was weighing uncertain demand for EV sales against the risk that Tesla and Germany’s Volkswagen group and even Ford would capture the buyers who made the switch. That threatened to completely reset customer loyalties and shake up the industry. Tesla already sold most of the electric vehicles on the market. Elon Musk threatened to upend the auto industry the way Apple’s iPhone did to ’90s mobile phone kingpins Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, and Siemens. GM’s future hinged not only on Barra’s courage to make a move, but also on her being wise enough to get the timing right.

Caution was understandable. At the time, Tesla was by far the top seller of electric vehicles with 100,000 sold globally and losses of about $2 billion on sales of its Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. Those Teslas typically sold for more than $100,000 apiece, which is triple the price of the average gasburning family SUV. With Tesla’s $100,000 cars losing money the challenge for companies to make a buck selling EVs was daunting.

GM knew it all too well. In the 1990s, the company had sold the famous EV1, an aerodynamic two-seater priced at $34,000 that was leased to EV enthusiasts from 1996 to 1999. That was an expensive car back then. GM spent $1 billion developing it and would lose more money selling the vehicles, said [then-GM CEO G. Richard] Wagoner in an interview. I remember seeing a presentation for the car at the Detroit Auto Show in 1997. GM’s then vice chairman, Harry Pearce, talked about electric cars like the EV1 and also about hybrids that ran on gasoline engines and electric motors. For GM, it was a display of what the company’s engineers could do and a glimpse of the future, he told me. But it would be decades before it would be a real business.

The EV1 would bring GM serious credibility with environmentalists, but after leasing 1,100 of them, the company lost a lot of money. A few Hollywood actors like Ed Begley Jr. leased one and promoted it as often as he could. Francis Ford Coppola had one, and when GM ended the program and demanded that lessees return the cars, he refused to give it up and kept it. The company crushed all the cars that it had leased after retrieving them, which then made GM a pariah with the same environmentalists who loved the car.

The economics of electric cars weren’t very good twenty years later. Chevrolet started selling the Bolt in 2016 and lost a whopping $9,000 on every one of the $38,000 plug-in cars it sold. Before that, GM sold the Volt plug-in hybrid, which uses a gasoline engine and an electric motor in tandem to get forty-two miles per gallon. The Volt lost even more. Those nasty numbers would drive serious resistance to electric cars inside GM and at other major carmakers, too.

One big reason GM sold the Bolt was to meet government regulations. In California and a dozen coastal states that followed its lead, automakers had to sell electric vehicles or other super-efficient cars like hybrids to be able to sell their profitable gas guzzlers. Selling green vehicles earned ZEV credits. GM could also buy ZEV credits from Tesla, which many automakers did. But that just meant that they were helping fund Musk’s effort to eat their lunch.

In the EV race, Tesla already had the advantage of a tremendous amount of investor patience for Musk’s losses. Even though Tesla lost $2 billion that year, his company’s market capitalization ended 2017 with a total value of $52 billion. That was just $4 billion less than GM’s even though Barra brought in near record profits that year. In other words, the market would continue to fund Musk’s money-losing operation, but Barra had to fund her own vehicle development with profits from the very gas guzzlers she was seeking to replace.

That put GM and the mainstream car companies under pressure from three sides. Shareholders wanted profits from pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. But in the car market, Tesla was stealing buyers, gaining a technological advantage in battery development, and building an Apple-like brand for making the cars of tomorrow. Meanwhile, governments were putting the squeeze on with new clean-air rules.

It was a breezy three-kilometer ride on VanMoof’s A5 e-bike around Battersea Park in London. Starting from VanMoof’s flagship London store, the company’s CEO, Ties Carlier, took the lead. He shot off on the more typically framed S5 ($3,498), while I got to grips with the boost and controls on the VanMoof’s new, shorter A5 (also $3,498). A few seconds later, I caught up. I hadn’t broken a sweat. My brief test ride around the neighborhood was almost too easy.

I had briefly ridden VanMoof’s e-bikes before, but its latest generation of e-bikes usher in changes across the board. The company has tried to make most of the parts on its newest e-bikes itself. The most significant change might be the removal of the tube-based display of the S3 and X3 bikes, swapping it for a duo of Halo Rings near the buttons on each side. (One rings the digital cute bell, while the other controls boost.) In addition to indicating battery life, it also shows how much the bike’s motor is working, along with the bike’s lock status.

Anti-theft technology (and a team of bike hunters)

E-bike security is a significant selling point for VanMoof’s bikes. Carlier explains that deterring theft is one of the biggest challenges to making “the perfect city bike," which has been the company’s aim long before it even started designing its first electric bike.

“A good bike – a good ride – requires more money,” he said. “With an e-bike, that’s even more true.” He added that whatever solution companies like VanMoof come up with, thieves will get smarter. The threat of it getting stolen has put me off from investing substantial money into bikes, and has deterred me from e-bikes entirely.

The anti-theft technology in the S5 and A5 (both priced at $3,498) includes an improved kick lock on the rear wheel. In addition, the bikes will automatically unlock if they detect the user’s phone nearby, and riders can otherwise unlock it with a numerical code that you can tap into the left handlebar – another instance where the new Halo Rings come into use.

Mat Smith/Engadget

If someone does manage to steal the S5/A5, tampering (or breaking) – which is integrated into the e-bike’s computer within the tube – the lock will first sound an alarm and, a short while later, immobilize the e-bike functions. For the thieves, then, it’s just a heavier push bike with a mildly distinctive frame and built-in lights that won’t work.

And if you’re willing to pay an extra $398 for three years of coverage (and that’s a fraction of the cost of replacing these $3,000-plus bikes), your VanMoof ride will come with support from a retinue of bike hunters – which still sounds cool. The e-bike transmits its location over 3G and the hunters are equipped with more fine-grain Bluetooth signal detectors to sniff out stolen bikes. If your bike goes missing, you can mark it as stolen on the VanMoof app, and if the hunters can’t find it within two weeks, the company will replace the bike for you.

It’s peace of mind, for sure, but it’s also yet another subscription. The S5 and A5 are even more expensive than their predecessors, which cost just less than $2,500. VanMoof’s latest rides each cost $3,498 – a $500 increase since they were first revealed. The company has also added support for Apple’s Find My network, but that’s more likely to help you locate your bike in a parking lot, not track down a thief.

Mat Smith/Engadget

VanMoof’s new stepover A5

The A5 model has a lowered step-in, meaning the bike is smaller and VanMoof believes it gives riders a feeling of being closer to the road. VanMoof’s premium-priced e-bikes don’t look like typical electric bikes – there’s no visible battery to begin with – but I like the unusually low-profile A5. When I use a bike, it’s multiple short trips, with several stops. This step-through model felt easier to ride. It was more of my thing.

The S5 and A5 come with 487 Wh and 463 Wh batteries, respectively. With the included charger, both take roughly six and a half hours to charge. VanMoof teased a fast charger too, but pricing is still TBC. On a full charge, the A5 can hit around 34 miles on full power, or 87 miles on economy power mode. Meanwhile, the S5 has a 37 mile-range on full power, which can be stretched to 93 miles on economy power mode. If VanMoof’s claims are accurate, both bikes should be able to handle plenty of short trips before needing to be plugged in overnight. The company also plans to offer a battery expansion pack that should double the bikes’ range.

A smoother ride

Mat Smith/Engadget

Both of the new bikes have upgraded gear shift tech as well. I tried a friend’s VanMoof S3 bike and could tell the newer rides had smoother gear transitioning. The motor has plenty of pep, but the A5 swaps around three gears incredibly gently. It’s hard to forget this was a premium e-bike.

While you can’t adjust gears yourself, it keeps the bike “interface” (can I call it that?) simple. That’s part of the plan. VanMoof’s Carlier says the company is targeting people who might not consider themselves bike people. The challenge is convincing them to invest in an e-bike. (At these prices, I’d call it an investment.) And if you’re waiting on the company’s even pricier high-speed e-bike, the VanMoof V, expect to wait a little longer. Due to supply issues, production has been delayed from fall 2022 to late 2023.

We plan to test out VanMoof’s latest bikes more extensively soon. Both the A5 and S5 are available to order directly from the company, with delivery dates currently estimated to be around January and February 2023.

Tesla faced increasing transportation costs paired with "raw material cost inflation," continued component shortages and a strengthening dollar in Q3, all of which which ate into its quarterly revenue ($21.45 billion vs $21.96 billion expected). Yet the EV automaker still managed to set production records at each of its factories. According to the company's quarterly production report published at the start of the month, Tesla built 365,923 vehicles in Q3 and delivered just 343,830. 

Revenue from automotive sales reached $18.69 billion this past quarter, a 55 percent increase year-over-year. Values in Tesla stock have dropped more than 17 percent since that report's publication, CNBC reports, and have fallen more than 5 percent since the close of market Wednesday when Tesla's earnings were released. Despite these most recent losses, Tesla did see its profits double over the past year to $3.29 billion and "it looks like we'll have an epic end of year," CEO Elon Musk said during the investor call.

Tesla had previously targeted a 50 percent annual vehicle sales growth over the next few years. In 2021, Tesla delivered some 936,000 vehicles and has delivered delivered 908,573 vehicle to date in 2022. So in order to meet the 50 percent growth goal, the company will need to sell roughly 1.4 million vehicles in total, this year, as Autoblog notes, with 490,000 of those coming in Q4. Tesla also recommitted to beginning deliveries of its Semi starting in December.  

Developing...

When a journalist at The Wire, an independent Indian publication, published a story on October 6th about a meme page’s claim that their Instagram post had been wrongfully removed, it hardly seemed like the kind of story that would draw much attention. The Instagram account, @cringearchivist, was a private account with fewer than 1,000 followers. The fact that their post, a satirical image depicting an Indian government official, was removed for breaking the app’s rules around sexual activity — despite showing nothing of the sort — was odd, but not the kind of thing that might draw international attention.

But in an increasingly bizarre turn of events, the nonprofit newsroom began publishing stories with more explosive claims about what it alleged led up to the removal of @cringearchivist’s post. And, in an even more unusual move, Meta not only refuted the claims but said the publication’s reporting was based on “fabricated” evidence and likely the result of some kind of elaborate hoax.

What happened?

After the initial story on the Instagram takedown, The Wire then started looking more closely at what happened. After not getting a response from Meta, reporters started asking around with sources inside the company. According to what one reporter for The WiretoldNewsLaundry, sources within Meta told them the post had been removed not by Instagram’s moderators but at the behest of Amit Malviya, an official in India’s ruling BJP party who oversees its IT cell.

The Wire then published a followup to its original story on October 10th, with the headline “Exclusive: If BJP’s Amit Malviya Reports Your Post, Instagram Will Take it Down – No Questions Asked.” The story alleged that Malviya had the power to remove Instagram posts thanks to Meta’s controversial cross-check program, which has been credited with shielding high-profile celebrities and politicians from the company’s rules.

It was an explosive allegation. While cross-check has received plenty of scrutiny, no previous reporting had indicated that those privileges might extend to the ability for those outside the company to influence content takedowns.

Meta immediately refuted the story, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said that cross-check had “nothing to do with” the ability to report posts and that the original Instagram post was removed due to Instagram's automated tools. He also said that “the underlying documentation appears to be fabricated.”

Rather than backing down, though, The Wire published a new story the next day, this one featuring an email – supposedly sent by Stone — in which the comms official blasted staff for allowing the documents to “leak.” But the supposed email only raised more questions about The Wire’s reporting. Most glaringly, the grammar and syntax in the messages was… strange. It used phrases like “for the last one month” and “post which I will tweet about it.” Journalists who cover Meta and frequently interact with Stone pointed out that not only did it not sound like him, it didn’t sound as if it was written by a native English speaker.

Stone also denied sending the email, and again said The Wire seemed to be relying on faked documents. Meta also published its own rebuttal on October 12th. The screenshots, according to the company, were fabricated. The @cringearchivist posts in question were removed by the company’s automated systems, not a human, much less an Indian government official. “We hope that The Wire is the victim of this hoax, not the perpetrator,” the company wrote.

Once again, The Wire responded that it wasn’t backing down. On October 15th, it published yet another story, titled “Meta Said Damaging Internal Email is ‘Fake’, URL 'Not in Use', Here's Evidence They're Wrong.” The lengthy post included several technical explanations about how the alleged emails from Stone were analyzed and verified. It also cited emails from independent security researchers who allegedly backed up their analysis. And, crucially, it included a screen recording from Meta’s Workplace software that allegedly showed proof of the takedown requests.

But, again, The Wire’s supposed evidence only raised new questions about its sources. On October 16th, Meta weighed in again. This time, the company said that an internal investigation revealed the alleged Workplace video was created from a Workplace account created with a free trial of the software on October 13th.

“At this time, we can confirm that the video shared by The Wire that purports to show an internal Instagram system (and which the Wire claims is evidence that their false allegations are true) in fact depicts an externally-created Meta Workplace account that was deliberately set up with Instagram’s name and brand insignia in order to deceive people,” the company wrote. “It is not an internal account. Based on the timing of this account’s creation on October 13, it appears to have been set up specifically in order to manufacture evidence to support the Wire’s inaccurate reporting.”

And, once again, The Wire said it was standing by its reporting. In a statement on October 17th, the publication essentially said it would no longer engage with Meta on the topic. The publication accused the company of attempting to “goad” them into revealing its sources. “We are not prepared to play this game any further,” it said.

Meanwhile, the alleged proof provided by The Wire continued to fall apart. And one of the security researchers who The Wire said had backed up their verification said he had never sent the messages it cited in its reporting.

On October 18th, the publication reversed course, saying it would review its reporting, and would pull the stories from public view while it investigated. “This will include a review of all documents, source material and sources used for our stories on Meta,” The Wire wrote in a statement. “Based on our sources’ consent, we are also exploring the option of sharing original files with trusted and reputed domain experts as part of this process.”

Now what?

At this point, there are still more questions than answers about how and why The Wire’s reporting went so wrong. It’s clear there are serious issues with the “evidence'' it relied on, though it’s not clear whether it intentionally lied or if it was misled as part of some broader scheme. The publication has said numerous times it relied on two separate sources, which suggests the whole thing is more complex than one bad source.

More information is likely to come out in the coming days and weeks as The Wire and others now look more closely at how the story got so out of control. But there’s a reason why the stakes in this particular incident feel so high. India ranks 150 out of 180 in terms of press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders. And The Wire, a nonprofit publication, is one of a shrinking number of independent newsrooms in the country.

It’s also worth pointing out that some elements of this saga point to real and serious issues about Meta’s policies and how they impact its billions of users. For one, the entire situation began with something many people have experienced: a content moderation decision gone awry due to a mistake in the company’s automated systems. Amid all the back and forth, Instagram ended up reinstating the original Story post from @cringearchivist that had kicked off The Wire’s investigation.

There’s also the fact that Meta has been less than forthcoming about its cross-check rules for celebrities, politicians and other VIPs. Many details we now know about the program only came to light thanks to a company whistleblower and other investigative reporting into the company. The company’s own Oversight Board, which has been working on an advisory opinion for nearly a year about the program, even accused the company of misleading it about the program.

And while there continues to be no evidence that cross-check would enable a company outsider to initiate content takedowns, journalists and activists have long raised questions about whether Meta gives too much leeway to India’s BJP in other policy decisions.

Put all that together and it becomes clear why a publication like The Wire might be so invested in a story like this in the first place. “Our recent coverage of Meta began with an incident that reflected the lack of transparency at the social media giant and its various platforms,” The Wire wrote in its most recent statement. Unfortunately, its own reporting has so far only made things more opaque.

Cadillac has finally provided more details for the Celestiq, and it's evident the EV prioritizes luxury over raw power. The custom-built sedan is now known to include a dual-motor 600HP powertrain, all-wheel drive and a 111kWh Ultium battery pack. The combination delivers a 0-60MPH sprint in 3.8 seconds with an estimated 300-mile range. That makes it one of the quickest cars "in the segment," according to Cadillac, referencing cars like the Mercedes-Maybach S Class. It won't make Lucid Air or Tesla Model S Plaid owners seethe with envy. Instead, the focus is on comfort — this may be one of the gentler-riding electric cars you'll find.

The Celestiq combines the softness of adaptive air suspension (a familiar sight in luxury cars) with the fast-reacting Magnetic Ride Control borrowed from the CT5-V Blackwing. A "Cadillac-first" Active Roll Control system produces a more stable ride during turns, while special 23-inch wheels and tires promise both precise handling and less road noise. There are nods to performance, such as an active rear spoiler and "out-of-phase" rear steering that improves low-speed agility, but this machine isn't meant for track days.

As referenced in July, the interior is not-so-subtly meant to spoil drivers who'd otherwise spring for vehicles like the Mercedes EQS. The 55-inch dash display and variable-tint "smart glass" roof remain the signature features, but you can also expect a 38-speaker AKG sound system with spatial audio, three external speakers and active noise cancellation to hush the outside world. You can also expect the previously-touted Ultra Cruise hands-free driving, 12.6-inch seatback passenger displays, elaborate LED lighting and a new camera system that offers crash recording and theft detection. Google services like Assistant, Maps and the Play Store are built-in.

The Celestiq is now expected to enter production in December 2023, with a price "north" of $300,000. Even moreso than the Hummer EV, this is aimed squarely at very wealthy buyers who want to make a statement — including people who might have a chauffeur do the driving. You'll have to turn to the Lyriq if you want a relatively accessible electric Cadillac. GM is also making more affordable Ultium-based EVs like Chevy's upcoming Silverado pickup and Equinox SUV, so you're not left out if the Celestiq and other models are well beyond your budget.