Tech Digest daily roundup: Tesla Model 3 becomes best-selling European car

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Tesla Model 3
The Tesla Model 3 was Europe’s best selling car in September. Image: Tesla

Tesla’s Model 3 has become Europe’s bestselling car – the first time an electric vehicle has overtaken its conventional rivals. JATO Dynamics said 2.6pc of new cars sold in September were the Model 3, accounting for about 24,600 sales in 26 countries including the UK. Sales were almost 60pc higher than the same month last year. The Model 3 starts at £42,500 in Britain. About 18,270 Renault Clios were sold last month, down almost a quarter on last year, putting it in second place. Felipe Munoz at JATO attributed Tesla’s strong showing to its “intensive end of quarter sales push” and other car makers cutting production because of the ongoing chip crisis that is skewing the overall market. Tesla has Europe’s biggest share of the electric vehicle market at 24pc, with Volkswagen on 22pc and Vauxhall and Peugeot owner Stellantis on 13pc. Telegraph 

Tesla has withdrawn its latest “full self-driving” car software update after drivers complained of problems. Some drivers reported intermittent issues such as safety alerts sounding, despite no danger being present. The latest version was rolled back on Sunday afternoon, less than a day after it was released. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said there were “some issues” with this version, but it was “to be expected with beta software”. A few hours earlier, Mr Musk said the launch would be delayed because the company’s quality assurance team had found “regression in some left turns at traffic lights”. BBC

 

A Facebook whistleblower whose claims have rocked the social media giant has launched a fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of not being willing to protect public safety. The latest broadside by former employee Frances Haugen comes as she prepares to give evidence to MPs at Westminster. Her intervention ramps up the pressure on the embattled $1trn (£750bn) company, which has been plunged into a crisis since she released thousands of pages of internal research documents secretly copied before leaving her job in the firm’s civic integrity unit. Sky News

Image: Tesco

Last time I walked out of a shop without paying, I had to make a red-faced trip back to Boots. This time — at a Tesco Express by Chancery Lane — I find myself being congratulated. “How did you find it?” asks an excited staff member standing by the barriers. “Keep walking and you’ll get the receipt in a couple of minutes,” another tells me encouragingly as I clutch my brown paper bag. Seconds after walking through the exit doors, a Monzo notification tells me I’ve spent £15.52 on my supermarket haul, quickly followed by the Tesco app announcing I’ve saved £1.89. I won’t be done for shop-lifting after all. Evening Standard 

Microsoft says the same Russia-backed hackers responsible for the 2020 SolarWinds breach continue to attack the global technology supply chain and are have been relentlessly targeting cloud service companies and others since summer. The group, which Microsoft calls Nobelium, has employed a new strategy to piggyback on the direct access that cloud service resellers have to their customers’ IT systems, hoping to “more easily impersonate an organization’s trusted technology partner to gain access to their downstream customers.” Resellers act as intermediaries between software and hardware makers and product users. “Fortunately, we have discovered this campaign during its early stages, and we are sharing these developments to help cloud service resellers, technology providers, and their customers take timely steps to help ensure Nobelium is not more successful,” the company said in a blog post. Independent 

Chris Price
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