'Today Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every geographic segment,' Cook said during Thursday's earnings call. 'iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.' Less rosily, Cook relayed that Apple spent more on memory chips in March than in previous quarters, though the company's costs were offset by its ability to sell stockpiled inventory. But, he warned, the expectation is 'significantly higher memory costs' in June and beyond ' the likes of which may 'drive an increasing impact' on the business. Cook was referencing what has commonly been called 'RAMageddon,' the trend of the AI industry guzzling up memory chips with such astonishing gusto it is spurring shortages. This is driving up the prices of hardware. Apple is primarily a hardware company, so that's obviously not great news for its core products. Most notably, the chip shortage has impacted the iPhone. Despite the strong sales figures touted by Apple on Thursday, it has previously been reported that RAM costs have quadrupled ' impacting phone production costs and putting John Ternus, Apple's incoming CEO, in a less-than-enviable position....

Tesla saw an uptick in revenue and profit year-over-year, figures buoyed by an increase in automotive revenue and other services, including active subscriptions to its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) advanced driver assistance system, which reached 1.28 million. Tesla shares rose 4% in after-hours trading following the release of its first-quarter earnings report, driven largely by a jump in its free cash flow, as well as increases in revenue and profit on a year-over-year basis. That share price bump was brief and ended up heading into negative territory during the company's earnings call. The company reported Wednesday revenue of $22.38 billion, a 16% increase from the $19.3 billion it generated in the first quarter of 2025. Its automotive revenue also rose to $16.2 billion, compared to $13.96 billion in the same year-ago period. Notably, the company reported positive free cash flow 'of $1.44 billion, more than double what it held in the first quarter of 2025. The figure surprised analysts who had expected the company to burn through more cash in the first quarter....

The most recent electric vehicle sales data provided a grim picture ' at least for new EVs. Sales of new electric vehicles took a beating in the first quarter, falling some 28% year-over-year after the Trump administration axed the $7,500 consumer tax credit, according to Cox Automotive. First-quarter used EV sales increased 12% compared with the same quarter last year, according to that same Cox Automotive report. There's a bit of momentum over a shorter term too; used EV sales popped 17% between the fourth and first quarters. The rising cost of gas ' the average price is above $4 a gallon ' has helped spur interest and sales of electric vehicles. But there's another factor at play here as consumers seek out affordable options: an abundance of expiring leases, the Financial Times reported. EV leases were a popular choice in the early 2020s, and now that they've expired, hundreds of thousands of pre-owned EVs are entering the marketplace. And consumers are ready for them. The ol' economic principle of supply and demand remained steadfast; the surge of pre-owned vehicles helped push prices lower, giving those sales a further boost. That's led to price parity ' or close to it ' with internal combustion vehicles. According to Cox Automotive, the average price of a used EV is $34,821 compared to $33,487 for the gas engine equivalent....

The company, which makes the Air sedan and Gravity SUV, reported Friday that it sold 3,093 vehicles in the first quarter, a 42% drop from the previous quarter and about 0.5% lower than the same period last year. It had built many more, about 5,500 in total. Lucid said the sales dip, and the gap between production and deliveries, is not a demand problem. Instead, the company blames a supplier quality issue with its second-row seats, which disrupted deliveries of the Lucid Gravity for 29 days. The supplier issue also prompted Lucid to recall more than 4,000 Gravity SUVs. Lucid told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it discovered some of the anchors for the SUV's second-row seat belts were not properly welded. Lucid spokesperson Nick Twork confirmed to TechCrunch that the decrease in sales was tied to problems with the supplier. He said that due to an unapproved change made by a supplier, the company issued a stop on Gravity sales that lasted most of February to ensure proper vehicle quality before restarting them. Twork made a point of noting Lucid's more recent success, saying that 'following eight record quarters, we showed strong results in both January and March which very nearly achieved year-over-year growth on their own.'...