The news Friday was almost all Tesla, all the time. CEO Elon Musk granted an exclusive interview to The New York Times in which he said his tweet about taking the company private was not vetted by others. Meanwhile, one whistleblower came forward with drug-dealing allegations at the Gigafactory and another tweeted a trove of damning photos.

In other news, a report from the University of California, Irvine, may settle the dispute about whether electric cars or fuel cells are cleaner. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

A new whistleblower who worked in security at Tesla's battery Gigafactory in Nevada, alleges that the company covered up an investigation into drug dealing at the factory linked to a Mexican drug cartel. Martin Tripp, the original whistleblower tweeted and subsequently deleted a cache of pictures that he said back up his claims that Tesla installed defective batteries in some Model 3s.

CEO Musk granted a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, in which he called 2018 the worst year of his career and got choked up talking about missing family events. The Securities and Exchange Commission will be most interested in his acknowledgement that his market-moving Tweet about taking Tesla private was not reviewed by the board or anyone else before he fired it off.

That tweet, and shrill attacks on Tesla's critics, may indicate the need for someone else to take the company's reins. Even Musk may think so. 

Supermarket chain Kroger is launching a self-driving grocery-delivery service in Scottsdale, Arizona. The service will start with Toyota Prius hybrids using backup drivers, but the long-term plan is to transition to driverless Nuro autonomous delivery vehicles as soon as this fall.

Finally, an electric recreation of the single-door BMW Isetta microcar in Switzerland already has 7,200 orders.

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