• Tesla has launched a refreshed Model Y in China as it fights off fierce competition from local rivals.
• The new Model Y is also available to order in Australia and parts of Asia, but there's no sign of a US release yet.
• Tesla is under pressure, with annual sales falling even as Chinese competitors like `BYD report booming demand.

Tesla has launched an updated version of its most successful car — but you can't order it in the US yet.

The Elon Musk-run automaker unveiled a long-rumored refresh of the Model Y on Friday, with deliveries set to begin in China in March as the company fights off fierce competition from local EV rivals.

The new Model Y will have a longer range than its predecessor and an updated design that includes a Cybertruck-style light bar, according to Tesla's Chinese website.

The updated EV is currently available to order in China, parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. There is currently no word on when it will come to the US or Europe.

In China, it will cost 263,500 yuan ($35,900), around $3,000 more expensive than the current starting price of the existing model.

The new Model Y's first appearance in China is no surprise, as Tesla is locked in a brutal price war with local EV companies in the world's largest auto market.

BYD, Nio, and Zeekr all reported big increases in annual electric vehicle sales earlier this month, with Tesla nemesis BYD announcing it had sold 1.76 million EVs in 2024 on the back of strong demand for its affordable models.

Tesla still leads the way, selling 1.79 million vehicles last year, but the carmaker reported its first-ever decline in annual sales in 2024, and is under pressure to meet Elon Musk's ambitious target of 20-30% sales growth this year.

Tesla will be hoping a refresh to the Model Y will help it hit that lofty target and refresh an increasingly stale product lineup.

The last new vehicle released by the company in 2023 was the Cybertruck, which isn't sold in China and has failed to significantly boost Tesla's sales figures.

Some workers on the Cybertruck line in the US have been moved to Model Y production, employees at Tesla's Austin factory told Business Insider.

The automaker has said it will release new, affordable EV models in the first half of this year but is yet to share any details, with Musk focusing instead on the steering wheel-less Cybercab he unveiled in October.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.

• My mom had me when she was 32, and I'm an only child.
• My dad died when I was 19, and it was just the two of us with my mom.
• I'm 32 now and don't have kids, but I have two cats that my mom calls grandcats.

Last month, I turned 32.

My mom gave birth to her only child at 32, and my grandma had my mom, the last of her seven children, at 32.

As an only child, I'm confronting pressure to bring a child into our increasingly thorny world.

When I was 19, on a rare vacation without my dad, my mom and I got a call. My dad had died of a brain aneurysm. Losing a parent prematurely sends you reeling. The missing parent, the remaining parent, your family, and genetics all become more precious.

Before that, I'd lived in an insulated, attended world. Both parents were the proverbial "helicopters" that circle many only children. In our little unit, my mom (then a nurse practitioner) was the breadwinner. My dad, a writer, was able and willing to handle childcare.

Because of rising costs and maternal health risks in the US, I probably won't have children. My parents never overtly pressured me to do anything I didn't want to do. Still, as their only child, I feel guilty for depriving them.

My parents encouraged me to achieve my goals

By definition, my family structure (with a breadwinner mom and stay-at-home dad) was quietly defiant, leaving me pretty unfazed by social gender norms.

But societal norms aren't the only source of pressure to reproduce. My parents' priorities were selfless: They prioritized my happiness and career and supported me far beyond the legally required 18 years. Neither demanded that I start my own family or carry on theirs.

Falling short of my parents' deepest inner hopes, though, or depriving my mom of some fulfillment she'd never ask of me — that's a different form of guilt altogether.

Being an only child means I bear sole responsibility for our family's grandchildren. It's dizzying when my only childhood fostered high expectations about parenthood's depth and lifespan.

It's all the more melancholy when I see how my mom delights in her two "grand-cats." Over Thanksgiving, as we devised food combinations and presentations they'd find palatable, I could feel the joy a grandchild would bring.

My parents elevated my wants for decades. Am I failing them by not reciprocating with my own child?

My mom has helped me financially

As I've transitioned out of law practice, I've taken only reproductive justice cases in Arizona. I've seen the costs and crises parents must navigate, from health and safety to education and employment. When systems fail or children fall through the cracks, it's hard not to imagine my potential kids in that position.

My mom has supported me as I've started a new career in media. Both public interest law and media are career paths equated with austerity. I worry that I'll never be able to afford the same financial support for my own child. As my mom nears retirement, would we have to choose between elder care and childcare? Neither my parent nor my child would deserve that existential threat.

I can't afford to be the only parent either

My parents' roles sheltered me from the reality of many heterosexual parents. My dad was often the only male parent in sight after school or supervising playdates. He was reliable and attentive to non-verbal communication. He even French-braided my hair.

I knew then that we were unusual (and frankly, I heard my dad get disproportionate praise for parenting his own child), but I didn't realize the extent until I began dating. My male partners — across states, schools, families of origin, and on-paper beliefs — brought baffling paradigms into our relationships.

My experiences represent a larger trend of labor division for heterosexual couples. Many women like me aren't seeking partnership with any man who's tacitly accepted this culture.

That's a challenge. Without a partner and without a large network of siblings and grandparents, I can't afford parental costs of living on one income.

It's me and my cats

I want to honor the family that reared (only) me with children, but looking at 32 and 2025, it's unrealistic.

My parents are the main reason I feel guilty for not having my own child. Ironically, it's also their intentionality and support that made me reticent to parent if I can't offer the same.

When Mom and I wrangle her grand cats to an annual check-up — one carrier each — our hearts break at their anxiety, and we ask the vet excessive questions. We laugh about how my dad would delight in these fuzzy freaks. I'm grateful for what we have and what we could give if cost were no object.

Beyond guilt as a childless only child, I lament timing. Ultimately, this moment's political greed took this from my parents, who put all their love and time into one basket.

Mackenzie Joy Brennan is a writer, commentator, and lawyer. Find her work at MkzJoyBrennan.com or @MkzJoyBrennan on social media.

President-elect Donald Trump said the failure to contain the Los Angeles wildfires was "all" Governor Newsom's fault.

Utility giant Southern California Edison received "evidence preservation notices" from attorneys representing insurers.

Military Police from the California National Guard arrived at Ontario International Airport on Thursday evening, according to reports on footage.

An estimated 1 million Americans are set to receive previously unpaid Economic Impact Payments.

Chase Briscoe confirms he is parting ways with Mahindra Tractors, his sponsor at Stewart-Haas Racing, as he joins Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2025 season.

By inviting audiences to reconsider the harms of punitive justice, "Sing Sing" offers an alternative path toward lasting accountability, healing, and redemption.

There is a big red bag that sits in Valerie's attic and contains a lasting reminder of the childhood she lost, frozen in time.

The mayor of Los Angeles has faced sharp criticism over the handling of huge wildfires ravaging the city.

It is unclear why Timur Praliev, an ex-member of Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group, was carrying a drone in a backpack as he tried to enter the U.S. illegally.

• Airbus said it delivered 766 commercial aircraft last year.
• That was four short of its target, which had been reduced from 800 over supply-chain constraints.
• It's likely that Airbus delivered about twice as many planes as struggling US rival Boeing.

Airbus delivered 766 aircraft last year, or four short of its target, the European planemaker said on Thursday.

Despite facing its own challenges, the total shows its 2024 was much brighter than Boeing's year. The American planemaker is yet to announce full-year figures, but by the end of November it had delivered 318 jets.

That means Airbus is likely to have delivered about twice as many planes as its rival — matching predictions from Deutsche Bank analysts in a report last week.

The Airbus share price was marginally higher on Friday. The stock rose 14% in 2024, while Boeing stock fell 31% — leaving it the biggest loser in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Delivery figures are a useful measurement of a planemaker's financial success given that both companies are facing huge backlogs. Any delays can also reduce airlines' confidence in placing future orders since they would disrupt their fleet planning.

Airbus said it finished the year with a backlog of 8,658 aircraft, while Boeing's was 5,499 as of the end of November.

Airlines order planes years in advance, but recent supply-chain issues have exacerbated the figures.

In June, Airbus cut its 2024 delivery target from 800 planes to 770, citing "persistent specific supply chain issues mainly in engines, aerostructures, and cabin equipment."

It also delayed plans to increase production of the A320neo family. The following day, its stock dropped as much as 11%.

Like in 2023, Airbus managed to reach its delivery target with a big end-of-year push.

It delivered 123 planes in December, compared to an average of 58 in the preceding 11 months.

"Given the complex and fast-changing environment we continue to operate in, we consider 2024 a good year," said Christian Scherer, CEO of Airbus' commercial aircraft division. "It has been a massive team effort to deliver this 2024 result."

Airbus is set to give guidance for 2025 deliveries when it reports earnings next month. In a report last week, Bank of America analysts said they expect the guidance to be between 800 and 810 planes.

They think Airbus' primary focus will be its integration with Spirit AeroSystems, with the objective of stabilizing fuselage production. Boeing is paying $4.7 billion to buy back most of Spirit's assets.

BofA is bullish on Airbus, naming it one of its 25 stocks for 2025.

Despite its woes, Boeing is still worth about $128 billion — almost the same as Airbus' market cap.

Reality TV star Paris Hilton said that seeing her Malibu home "reduced to ashes" by the Palisades fire was "devastating beyond words."

Tensions with Russia continue to escalate as the Ukrainian president shifts tactics and asks allies for help on the ground.

As blazes continue to devastate huge areas of Los Angeles county, a number of celebrities have questioned the source.

• Natalia Grace Mans spoke about being diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder.
• RAD is a rare condition in which children fail to form healthy relationships with their caregivers.
• Natalia said in "The Curious Case of Natalia Grace" that she felt her diagnosis was "understandable."

In "The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter," Natalia Grace Mans speaks about being diagnosed with reactive detachment disorder.

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is a condition in which children do not form healthy relationships with their caregivers. Legal analyst Beth Karas said in episode six of "Natalia Speaks," the second installment of the series, that Natalia was diagnosed with RAD in 2010, while she was living with her then-adoptive parents Michael and Kristine Barnett.

Since then, Natalia — who was first adopted from a Ukrainian orphanage to the United States in 2008 — has lived with multiple families. In 2010, she was adopted by the Barnetts, who came to believe she was an adult and petitioned in court to change her birth year from 2003 to 1989. The Barnetts moved Natalia into an independent apartment in 2012, and in 2013, she met Cynthia Mans and moved in with her family. Antwon and Cynthia Mans adopted Natalia in 2023, but later that year, she left their home to live with Nicole and Vince DePaul, who attempted to adopt her when she was a child, in upstate New York.

In "Natalia Speaks," Natalia said that her diagnosis was "understandable."

"I still don't know the full length of reactive attachment disorder, but I know one thing for me is that I don't like being left," she said in episode four of "The Final Chapter." "I constantly feel like people are just going to walk out of my life."

RAD makes it very hard to connect with others

In episode four of "The Final Chapter," Nicole DePaul speaks to rehabilitation psychologist Melissa Misegadis about Grace's former RAD diagnosis.

"Reactive attachment disorder is what happens when children don't bond to their caregivers," Misegadis said in the show. It's recognized in the DSM-5, the standard classification of mental disorders in the US.

Symptoms include a failure to play with other kids, lack of eye contact, and unexplained fear.

While RAD can resemble a disorganized attachment style, attachment styles are more fluid and describe differences in how people connect in relationships. RAD qualifies as a disorder because of the severity of its symptoms, such as behavior problems.

Childhood abandonment is a huge risk factor

Misegadis wasn't surprised that Grace has RAD. "Individuals with unaddressed trauma like Natalia has, these are behaviors that are coming from years of rejection and trauma," she said in the show.

According to the Mayo Clinic, risk factors for developing RAD include losing a parent early in life (or having a severely neglectful parental figure), spending time in orphanages with no loving adult figures, and cycling through foster homes.

"I constantly feel like people are just going to walk out of my life," Grace said in the show. "I personally can't handle someone leaving me anymore. I can't handle caring about somebody and then they walk away."

Rita Soronen, president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, previously told Business Insider that international adoptions like Grace's often don't provide much background. As a result, parents who adopt or foster kids can be shocked by RAD symptoms, rehoming their kids in the end.

RAD treatment usually requires therapy

Left untreated, RAD can lead to long-term consequences, like substance abuse disorder, depression, and difficulty forming relationships.

Treatment usually involves therapy, social skills classes, or parenting classes to help caretakers effectively manage their kids' behaviors. Though Natalia declined mental health services during production, producer Shannon Evangelista told The Hollywood Reporter, she told People that started seeing a therapist after she had a panic attack in 2024.

So far, Natalia said she feels "free" living with the DePauls, who initially tried to adopt her in 2003. She says in episode four of "The Final Chapter" that she's "not really talking" to the Mans.

"Did she probably do weird things in the past? Yeah," Nicole DePaul told People. "[But] when you take in a child, you take that child as your own. You don't just get rid of them when they don't fit into your puzzle."

"The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter" is now streaming on Max.

President-elect Donald Trump's transition will be funded entirely by private donors. His unprecedented move to reject federal funds typically allocated to presidential transitions allows him to shield the identity of donors. We explore why this matters in a video collaboration between Politico and Business Insider.

• Tesla might be about to make a huge windfall off its rivals failing to sell enough EVs.
• The US automaker is banding together with rivals like Ford and Toyota to help them meet tough new European emissions rules.
• UBS analysts estimated the move could net Tesla $1 billion in compensation.

Tesla might be about to make a huge windfall on electric cars its rivals aren't selling.

The EV giant is banding together with major competitors, including Ford, Stellantis, and Toyota, to help them meet European emissions targets, in a deal UBS analysts estimated could net the company as much as $1 billion.

European manufacturers face tough emissions targets this year, and could be hit with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of penalties and fines if they fail to comply.

The strict new measures come even as electric vehicle sales across the continent have stagnated, with several countries rolling back subsidies for customers buying EVs.

Carmakers lagging behind on electric vehicle sales have the option to "pool" with rivals to average out their emissions, effectively buying carbon credits from EV heavyweights like Tesla.

Toyota, Ford, Stellantis, and Mazda were among the automakers who have "pooled" with Tesla, according to a European Union filing released on Wednesday, with Mercedes-Benz forming a separate pool with Volvo and EV brand Polestar.

A report from UBS analysts on Wednesday found that Tesla's total compensation for selling credits to its pooled rivals could exceed $1 billion, while Volvo and Polestar could be in line to bank $300 million.

Selling regulatory credits to rivals who are lagging behind on EV sales has been a highly lucrative business for Tesla in recent years, with the company making $739 million from the practice in the third quarter of 2024.

Tesla's regulatory credits business has long been expected to diminish as other automaker's EV efforts pick up speed, but it has remained strong as lacklustre demand for electric vehicles has left many of the company's rivals struggling to meet emission targets.

That could soon change, however.

Incoming US president — and Elon Musk's political ally — Donald Trump has promised to roll back emissions targets and EV regulations once in office. JP Morgan analysts recently warned that removing EV regulations and subsidies could cost Tesla as much as $3.2 billion.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Enterprise AI startup Cohere has launched a new platform called North.
• North allows users to quickly deploy AI agents to execute tasks across various business sectors.
• The company says the platform cuts the time it takes to complete a task by over five-fold.

2025 is shaping up to be the year that AI "agents" go mainstream.

Unlike AI-based chatbots that respond to user queries, agents are AI tools that work autonomously. They can execute tasks and make decisions, and companies are already using them for everything from creating marketing campaigns to recruiting new employees.

Cohere, an AI startup focused on enterprise technology, unveiled North on Thursday — an all-in-one platform combining large language models, multimodal search, and agents to help its customers work more efficiently with AI.

Through North, users can quickly customize and deploy AI agents to find relevant information, conduct research, and execute tasks across various business functions.

The platform could make it easier for a company's finance team, for example, to quickly search through internal data sources and create reports. Its multimodal search function could also help extract information from everything from images to slides to spreadsheets.

AI agents built with North integrate with a company's existing workplace tools and applications. The platform can run in private, allowing organizations to integrate all their sensitive data in one place securely.

"North allows employees to build AI agents tailored to their role to execute complex tasks without ever leaving the platform," a representative for Cohere told Business Insider by email.

The company is now deploying North to a small set of companies in finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure as it continues to refine the platform. There is no set date for when it will make the platform available more widely.

Cohere, launched in 2019 by Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, and Nick Frosst, has quickly grown to rival ChatGPT maker OpenAI and was valued at over $5.5 billion at its Series D funding round announced last July, Bloomberg reported. As of last March, the company had an annualized revenue of $35 million, up from $13 million at the end of 2023.

The company is one of a few AI startups that are building their own large language models from the ground up. Unlike its competitors, it has focused on creating customized solutions for businesses rather than consumer apps or the more nebulous goal of artificial general intelligence.

Its partners include major companies like software company Oracle, IT company Fujitsu, and consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

This year, however, its goal is to "move beyond generic LLMs towards tuned and highly optimized end-to-end solutions that address the specific objectives of a business," Gomez said in a post on LinkedIn outlining the company's objectives for 2025.

Brussels is reportedly assessing the potential impact of President-elect Donald Trump reversing Biden-era sanctions on Russia.