Tesla Autopilot Spurs Massive 2 Million Vehicle Recall

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, December 13, 2023, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

1st Gear: 2 Million Teslas Recalled For Autopilot Safety

Tesla has filed a recall that covers over 2 million vehicles after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determined Autopilot, one of the automaker’s driver-assistance systems, doesn’t do enough to stop drivers from misusing the program. A spokesperson for NHTSA said the probe found Tesla’s means for keeping drivers engaged were “inadequate.”

This move results from a years-long defect investigation by the administration, and it will remain open as the agency monitors if Tesla’s fixes actually work. Oh, and before you annoying people say anything, yes, I know this is an OTA update. That still counts. From Bloomberg:

“Automated technology holds great promise for improving safety, but only when it is deployed responsibly,” NHTSA said Wednesday. “Today’s action is an example of improving automated systems by prioritizing safety.”

Tesla said in its recall report that it expected to start deploying an over-the-air software to incorporate additional controls and alerts on or shortly after Dec. 12. The carmaker’s shares fell as much as 1.6% to $233.30 before the start of regular trading.

The recall is the second this year involving Tesla’s automated-driving systems, which have come under escalating scrutiny after hundreds of crashes — some of which resulted in fatalities. While Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has for years predicted the carmaker is on the verge of offering complete autonomy, both Autopilot and the beta features Tesla markets as Full Self-Driving require a fully attentive driver to keep their hands on the wheel.

Autopilot comes standard on every new Tesla. It uses cameras to match vehicle speed with surrounding traffic and assists drivers with steering within clearly marked lanes.

Tesla has marketed higher-level functionality it calls FSD Beta since late 2016. That suite of features was recalled in February, after NHTSA raised concerns about Teslas using the system traveling in unlawful or unpredictable ways, including exceeding speed limits and not coming to complete stops.

Last year, Musk suggested on X (or Twitter idc) that Tesla would update Full Self-Driving Beta to allow some drivers the option to disable alerts to put their hands on the steering wheel. Days later, NHTSA asked the automaker for more information.

NHTSA first conducted a defect investigation of Autopilot after a 2016 fatal crash, only to clear the system early the following year. Its two ongoing defect probes — initiated in August 2021 and February 2022 — were precipitated by Teslas crashing into first-responder vehicles and suddenly braking on highways.

The agency has opened more than 50 special crash investigations involving Tesla cars that are suspected to be linked to Autopilot, with the pace of probes picking up under the Biden administration.

Once again, please hush. I know it’s an over-the-air update. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a huge recall.

2nd Gear: Some Model 3s Lose $7,500 Consumer Credit

The Tesla Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive and Long Range will lose their $7,500 federal EV tax credit starting on January 1 because of new guidance under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury issued guidelines detailing new battery sourcing restrictions that take effect at the beginning of 2024 to slow the U.S.’s EV supply chain dependency on China. From Reuters:

“Tax credit will end for Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive and Model 3 Long Range on Dec. 31, 2023 based on current view of new IRA guidance. Take delivery by Dec. 31 for full tax credit,” the company said in a notice on its website.

[…]

In April, the Treasury said new guidelines will slash the credits for the EV maker’s Model 3 RWD by half to $3,750 but that other Tesla models will retain the entire benefit.

In July, Tesla said the $7,500 federal tax credits for its Model 3 electric vehicles are likely to be reduced after Dec. 31, without elaborating on the reason.

The U.S. EV credit currently requires 50% of the value of battery components to be produced or assembled in North America to qualify for $3,750 of the credit and 40% of the value of critical minerals sourced from the United States or a country with which it has a free trade agreement.

Other carmakers such as Ford (F.N) and GM (GM.N) expect to qualify for the entire tax credits for many of their EVs from next year, while Volkswagen remains ‘cautiously optimistic’.

Only time will tell what this latest bit of news will do for Tesla’s ping-pong pricing strategy.

3rd Gear: GM Extends Downtime At Assembly Plants

General Motors is extending downtime at a number of North American assembly plants due to maintenance and product changeovers. From Automotive News:

The automaker on Tuesday said all of its plants will be down the week of Dec. 25 for the contractual holiday break. Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana, Factory Zero in Detroit, Spring Hill Manufacturing in Tennessee and Oshawa Assembly in Ontario, Canada, will stay off-line the following week for maintenance, a GM spokesperson said. All four plants are expected to resume production Jan. 8.

GM’s Lansing Grand River assembly plant in Michigan will be down the week of Jan. 2 in conjunction with the end of the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro sports car. Chevy has said there is no immediate plan to replace the Camaro, which launched as a 2016 model, but that “this is not the end of Camaro’s story.” The Lansing plant will resume production Jan. 8, GM said.

Orion Assembly, north of Detroit, will remain idled for more than a year after it stops building the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV next week. The plant will then be retooled for electric pickups, but GM has pushed back the start of truck production at Orion until 2025.

Right now, Bolts are being built on GM’s older battery architecture, but they’re being redesigned and joining the automaker’s Ultium electric vehicle platform in 2025.

GM said its Wentzville Assembly plant in Missouri, which builds the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups, will be down the week of Dec. 18 because of a parts shortage. The automaker declined to reveal which part is affected but said the plant was expected to resume production Jan. 2.

The CAMI plant in Canada has been idled since October because of a battery module supply constraint. It’s expected to restart production of electric commercial vans for GM’s BrightDrop business in the spring.

It’s a time of change at GM, and what’s a better time to cram that in the last couple of weeks of the year? I do the same thing, to be honest.

4th Gear: Swedish Union Stops Collecting Tesla’s Waste

We’ve got another update in the whole Tesla vs. every worker in Sweden saga. The country’s Transport Workers’ Union said it will stop collecting trash at the Austin, Texas-based automaker’s workshop in Sweden starting on December 24 in a sympathy action with other workers on strike. From Reuters:

The electric vehicle producer faces a backlash in the Nordic region from unions and some pension funds over its refusal to accept a demand from Swedish mechanics for collective bargaining rights covering wages and other conditions.

“This type of sympathy action is very rare. We are using it now to protect the Swedish collective agreements and the safety of the Swedish labour market model,” President of the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union, Tommy Wreeth, said in a statement.

“Tesla can’t ignore the norm on the Swedish labour market,” he added.

The strike will begin unless Tesla signs a collective bargaining agreement with Swedish union IF Metall, the Transport Workers’ Union said.

Who knows if this latest action is going to change Tesla’s mild on the whole “workers rights” thing, but one thing is for sure: it’s about to get real stinky in there.

Reverse: Ladies and Gentlemen, We Got Him