News

• A lack of panoramic glass roof and rear screen help cut costs
• Chinese automotive blogger snapped the disguised vehicles
• Cheaper Model Y is expected to go on sale in China later this year

Elon Musk let the cat out of the bag when he revealed that the company was readying a cheaper alternative to the Model Y during Tesla’s quarterly earnings call, putting an end to the rumors that the company was working on a standalone 'affordable' Tesla.

Instead, the upcoming, simplified Model Y was touted to hold back on some of the additional niceties in pursuit of a cheaper sticker price.

It appears that a popular Chinese blogger, dubbed Garage 42, has photographed some of the first budget Model Ys, with images and videos surfacing on Chinese social media site Weibo.

Although heavily disguised under black cloth, the images show that these cars lack the large panoramic sunroof that makes the current generation Model Y feel so bright and airy. There’s also a lack of infotainment display for rear passengers and the mammoth, full-width LED light bar has been removed from the front and rear.

Currently, the cheapest Model Y in China starts at 250,000 yuan (around $34,750) but it is facing increasingly stiff competition from home-grown talent, with the Xiaomi SU7 and YU7 proving runaway sales successes.

Car News China also points out that Xpeng, Li Auto, and Nio are all readying keenly-priced Model Y rivals in China for the second half of this year, which will continue to eat into potential Tesla sales.

It is not known whether this trimmed-down Model Y will be sold in other markets in this form, but Tesla’s sales are suffering on a global scale, so we’d expect to see a Model Y slot in somewhere between the current cheapest Model Y and the most expensive Model 3.

Despite stripping back the Model Y in an attempt to boost sales, Elon Musk announced that Tesla recently signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung, which will see the Korean tech giant provide chip technology for upcoming generations of Tesla’s hardware array.

With the latest cars running Tesla’s Hardware 4 (or HW4, for short), this deal will ensure the company has the latest and fastest chipset when its vehicles move to HW6 – seeing as HW5 is already contractually covered by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

With each new generation of semiconductor, Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) become more intelligent and more capable, boasting the sort of processing power required for advanced levels of autonomous driving.

However, the news has irked many long-standing Tesla owners, as Elon Musk promised back in 2016 that even on version 2 of its hardware, all vehicles would be capable of full unsupervised self-driving – something the brand has yet to crack.

There have been multiple attempts by owners to demand refunds for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems over false advertising claims, which cost up to $15,000 on top of a car’s list price at points.

Tesla continues to promise more from its FSD systems, recently stating that "unsupervised" versions will come later this year. But with the company still investing so heavily in the next generation of computing, it has a number of critics skeptical about the true capabilities of Tesla’s technology.

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• More bad news for Tesla – Xiaomi's new Model Y rival beats it on price and just smashed pre-order records

• A new Marvel fan theory about Avengers: Doomsday is circulating online
• Fans think Robert Downey Jr is hinting that he'll play two characters in the MCU film
• A recent Instagram post from Downey Jr is to blame

Robert Downey Jr has sparked a new – and potentially huge – theory among Marvel fans about Avengers: Doomsday.

Last Saturday (July 26), the superstar actor, who'll portray Doctor Victor von Doom in the forthcoming movie, posted a seemingly innocuous video on Instagram.

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

A photo posted by on

For the most part, the footage shows Downey Jr hitting play on one of his son's (Indio Downey) songs on Spotify. Then, the A-lister briefly hovers his phone camera over a couple of Marvel comics, before turning it on himself to mouth along to the aforementioned tune.

It's those comics that have whipped Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans into a frenzy.

Well, one of them, anyway. The first comic we see is a copy of 'Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars', aka the 12-issue run created by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, and Bob Layton that ran from May 1984 to April 1985. That's one of two 'Secret Wars' comic series – the second one coming from Jonathan Hickman and Esad Rebic from May 2015 to January 2016 – that Joe and Anthony Russo told me they're taking inspiration from for Doomsday and its sequel film Avengers: Secret Wars. The fact that Downey Jr is reading said comic series for research purposes, then, is no great surprise.

It's the other literary work, titled 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom', that's sent MCU devotees into a tailspin, though.

Considering Downey Jr played Tony Stark and his superhero alter-ego Iron Man in the MCU between 2008 and 2019, some observers might think this is just a nod to the two iconic Marvel characters he'll have played by the time Avengers: Secret Wars arrives in December 2027.

However, long-time Marvel fans are reading much more into it and have even crafted a new fan theory about Downey Jr's casting in the Marvel Phase 6 film – a hypothesis that I most certainly hope is wrong. Potentially big spoilers immediately follow for the next two Avengers movies. Turn back now unless you really want to know what fans are theorizing about.

For the uninitiated, 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom' is a four-issue comic series that features another showdown between the eponymous armored superhero and Doom. Okay, the latter is more commonly associated as an archenemy of The Fantastic Four, but he's also engaged in a few tussles with Stark in Marvel Comics.

Indeed, 'Legacy of Doom' is he third time they lock horns on the page. The first came in a two-part Iron Man story called 'Doomquest', which landed on shelves in 1981, while the second occurred in 'The Doctor's Passion', another two-part narrative that was released in 1989.

Okay, but what's this got to do with Downey Jr possibly having a dual role in Avengers 5 and its sequel, which is already one of 2027's most anticipated new movies? Some fans believe Downey Jr is indicating that he's either playing Doom and an Iron Man variant, or confirms his Doom is a variant of Stark himself.

The latter is a theory that's circulated online ever since Downey Jr was revealed to be playing Doom in the MCU at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Indeed, some fans have queried why Marvel would hire Downey Jr to play Doom if he wasn't an alternate universe's Stark who hadn't seen the errors of his ways like the MCU's Stark did, and who might have found a way to master dark magic and combine it with his self-developed technology. Hey, Ironheart already proved magic and tech can mix, so it's not as if someone like an evil Stark couldn't work out how to blend the two.

Matt Shakman revealed details about the epic #FantasticFour credits scene.Spoilers in this video clip!Full Director Debrief: https://t.co/tZdVt74Gvm pic.twitter.com/98jeSUE4rTJuly 28, 2025

It's the other theory about Downey Jr potentially playing Doom and another version of Stark/Iron Man, though, that's got me worried.

If – and it's a big if – Doomsday adapts some aspect of 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom', we could have a situation where the aforementioned situation becomes reality. If it does, we could see Downey Jr's Doom and a Stark variant, who'd also be portrayed by the A-lister, fight it out to show how powerful Doom is and/or if Doom needs to acquire some tech that Stark has perfected.

The other possibility is that Downey Jr will reprise his role as Stark/Iron Man in Secret Wars. There have been murmurings that Chris Evans may return as Steve Rogers/Captain America in the sixth Avengers movie, which is reportedly being billed as a celebration of every Marvel comic book universe to ever exist before the MCU undergoes its soft reboot post-Secret Wars. That includes 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchises, Sony's three Spider-Man universes, and the MCU.

Should that prove to be the case, in Marvel's eyes, it wouldn't be a fitting commemoration without Downey Jr's Stark being a part of it. After all, he kickstarted the comic giant's cinematic universe.

Nevertheless, bringing back Downey Jr as Stark in any form would undo his heart-breaking yet heroic sacrifice in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. In my view, that was the fitting albeit bittersweet farewell that he deserved, and I'd be loathe to see him return as Iron Man in Doomsday and/or Secret Wars because of it. This is one fan theory, then, that I don't want to see materialize.

Avengers: Doomsday will be released in theaters on December 18, 2026.

• Here's how to watch the Marvel movies in order
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps ending and post-credit scenes explained: how does it set up Avengers: Doomsday and more big Marvel questions answered
• Marvel's next animated series gets new Disney+ launch date – and it'll arrive just one week after The Fantastic Four: First Steps' theatrical release

• Numerous law enforcement agencies banded together to disrupt BlackSuit
• The ransomware operators had multiple websites seized
• No arrests had been made

Notorious ransomware operator BlackSuit has had its infrastructure disrupted by a major law enforcement campaign.

As part of the action, BlackSuit’s main website, accessed through The Onion Router (TOR), was defaced and left with a banner usually propped up by law enforcement after domain seizure.

"This site has been seized by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations as part of a coordinated international law enforcement investigation," the banner said.

US Homeland Security, the US Department of Justic (DoJ), the FBI, and other agencies have not yet published an official announcement regarding the takedown, but the DoJ has confirmed the action was part of Operation Checkmate.

Besides the main site, other websites (including the leak site and negotiation site) were also shut down.

This was an international operation, conducted by the US Secret Service, the Dutch National Police, the German State Criminal Police Office, the UK National Crime Agency, the Frankfurt General Prosecutor's Office, the Justice Department, the Ukrainian Cyber Police, Europol, and others.

Bitdefender, a private cybersecurity company, also assisted, saying, "We commend our law enforcement partners for their coordination and determination. Operations like this reinforce the critical role of public-private partnerships in tracking, exposing, and ultimately dismantling ransomware groups that operate in the shadows."

A US Department of Health and Human Services report published in late November 2023 said BlackSuit was first spotted in May that year, showing “striking parallels with Royal, the direct successor of the former notorious Russian-linked Conti operation”.

Unfortunately, taking down websites and seizing infrastructure rarely stops ransomware attacks - it just slows them down a little bit. It usually takes a few weeks for threat actors to recover and continue where they left off, and usually won’t stop until they are arrested.

Via BleepingComputer

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