Tesla Recalls 1.6 Million Cars In China Over Autopilot Safety Issues

Good morning! It’s Friday, January 5, 2024, 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: Tesla Recalls Every Car It Has Sold In China

Safety issues with Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system means the Austin, Texas-based automaker is recalling just about every single car it has ever sold in China. An over-the-air software fix will be deployed to over 1.6 million Teslas that were produced between August 2014 and December 2023. That includes locally built Model 3s and Model Ys as well as imported Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. From Bloomberg:

Tesla drivers may misuse Autopilot functions, increasing the risk of collisions and posing safety risk, the regulator said. The recall closely mirrors the carmaker’s response last month to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determining that it wasn’t doing enough to ensure drivers were using Autopilot correctly. NHTSA said it would keep open a years-long defect investigation to monitor the efficacy of the company’s fixes to 2 million cars.

[…]

Tesla’s automated-driving systems have been subject to growing scrutiny after hundreds of collisions, some of which resulted in fatalities. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has repeatedly predicted that the world is on the cusp of completely autonomous cars, only to continue require fully attentive drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road while using features that Tesla markets as Full Self-Driving.

Tesla also recalled 7,538 Model S sedans and Model X sport utility vehicles in China to prevent door latches from disengaging during a collision. This fix to vehicles produces between October 2022 and November 2023 also will be carried out via an over-the-air software update.

This news comes just a few weeks after Tesla issued a similar recall in the U.S. that impacted over 2 million vehicles. The remedy for the issue also came in the form of an over-the-air update.

It’s not every day that a major automaker recalls every single car they’ve ever sold in a country, but it’s starting to feel that way for Tesla.

2nd Gear: Senators Wants Automakers To Stay Out Of Unionization Efforts

A group of 33 senators (which is one-third of the Senate, if you’re keeping track at home) have urged Tesla and 12 other automakers to “remain neutral” in ongoing unionization efforts by the United Auto Workers union at their U.S. production facilities. From Reuters:

The letter, signed by Democrats Gary Peters, Ron Wyden, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Alex Padilla, Sherrod Brown Debbie Stabenow and others, went to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and top executives at Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, BMW and others, urging them to pledge not to interfere in any organizing activities.

“We believe a neutrality agreement is the bare minimum standard manufacturers should meet in respecting workers’ rights, especially as companies receive and benefit from federal funds related to the electric vehicle transition,” the letter first reported by Reuters said.

The letter raised concerns about reports that management of numerous automakers has acted illegally to block unionization efforts. It also cited National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) findings that Tesla employed “multiple illegal tactics aimed at stopping organizing efforts including online harassment, employee interrogations, and retaliatory firings.”

Volkswagen refuted claims of union-busting and intimidation, saying claims it destroyed pro-union materials in a break room in the company’s Tennessee plant weren’t true and that the maintenance staff had simply cleaned the room.

Hyundai has also pushed back, saying it was up to its workers whether they joined a union, but those workers benefit from dealing directly with the automaker.

“The UAW’s recent accusations regarding Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama are not accurate, and we remain in compliance with the rules of the National Labor Relations Board,” the South Korean automaker said in a statement. “Hyundai provides excellent wages and benefits.”

You might not remember, but Hyundai has been dinged multiple times for using child labor in the U.S. That’s a tough look.

In late November, the UAW said it was launching a first-of-its-kind push to publicly organize the entire nonunion auto sector in the U.S. after winning record new contracts with the Detroit Three automakers.

The Detroit-based UAW announced simultaneous campaigns by workers at 13 nonunion automakers to join the union. Those automakers employ nearly 150,000 workers at their U.S. assembly plants, about the same number as those employed by the Detroit Three companies that signed new labor agreements with the UAW.

“Every autoworker in this country deserves their fair share of the auto industry’s record profits,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “We applaud these U.S. senators for standing with workers who are standing up for economic justice on the job. It’s time for the auto companies to stop breaking the law.”

Since the UAW ratified deals with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, many non-union automakers responded by hiking pay for U.S. factory workers. For decades, the UAW has unsuccessfully tried to organize factories operated for foreign automakers, but maybe now the tides are turning in favor of organized labor.

3rd Gear: Soon Driverless Trucks Won’t Have Anyone Behind The Wheel

Driverless trucks with no humans on board to make to sure everything is okay will soon be rolling down Texas highways if three autonomous trucking startups get their way. The move may come despite the fact critics say financial pressure, not safety, is behind the push. From Bloomberg:

After years of testing, Aurora Innovation Inc., Kodiak Robotics Inc. and Gatik AI Inc. expect to remove safety drivers from trucks that are being guided by software and an array of sensors including cameras, radar and lidar, which sends pulses of light that bounces off objects. The companies have already hauled cargo for big names such as Walmart Inc., Kroger Co., FedEx Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc.

“At the end of the year, we anticipate getting to the point where we begin operating those trucks without drivers on board,” Chris Urmson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based Aurora, said in an interview.

All of the companies say they’re ready to deploy the technology, though they know there’s little-to-no margin for error. The risk is worth it, they say, because the technology promises to improve highway safety and lower transportation costs.

Detractors say the companies have incentive to reduce the losses that investors have been financing during the development and testing phase.

“We are concerned about the lack of regulation, the lack of transparency, the lack of comprehensive data collection,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. The list of opponents also includes the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the 1.3 million member union that represents drivers and warehouse workers.

Trucks, if you haven’t noticed, are very big. Because of that, they pose “severe dangers” according to opponents. They’ll be traveling at highway speed and weigh as much as 80,000 pounds. That works out to be over 15 times as heavy as General Motors’ Cruise robotaxis, which have no problem hurting people.

The federal government for now has left regulation of driverless large trucks mostly up to states, creating a patchwork of rules. California suspended Cruise operations in October after several incidents in San Francisco. California’s lack of rules for allowing trucks to be tested on public roads encouraged the three driverless truck firms and others to turn to Texas for testing and deployment.

The difficulties that Cruise’s robotaxis faced on the streets of San Francisco — unpredictable pedestrians, sudden road closures and emergency vehicles — are less of a problem for driverless trucks, according to the companies. Trucks largely move cargo on fixed routes and mostly on highways that require much less interaction with passenger vehicles and pedestrians.

Besides saving on trucker pay, the trucks can travel longer than the 11-hour limit now on human drivers. The sensors scan in all directions several times a second to identify objects, speeding up reaction time. There are even estimated savings on emissions of 10% or more because the vehicles will stay just below the speed limit and travel at a steady cadence, the companies say.

And human drivers don’t guarantee safe operations. In 2021, 5,700 large trucks, which weigh 10,001 pounds or more, were involved in fatal crashes, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. A majority of those incidents came from trucks with a gross weight of 33,001 pounds or more. These so-called Class 8 trucks are similar in size to those in Kodiak and Aurora fleets.

Right now, driverless trucks haven’t had any at-fault incidents with outer vehicles in testing with safety drivers, but they still may not be immune to accidents, according to the FMCSA report.

Nearly two-thirds of fatal accidents occur when a person, object, animal or other vehicle veers into a truck’s lane. Data collected by a self-driving truck’s computer system will be key to determining what caused an accident.

“They can’t just say we’re better than humans,” said Brian Ossenbeck, a transportation industry analyst with JPMorgan Chase, of the companies planning to go driverless this year. “They have to reach that superhuman level, at least initially, until there’s broader acceptance. And who knows how long that would take.”

I don’t know, guys. Was paying truck drivers really that big a deal for companies? It can’t be. Anyway, I know that if I ever find myself in Texas (which I will try to avoid), I’ll definitely be leaving a little extra room for these driverless trucks.

4th Gear: Mobileye Is Having A Bad Time

Self-driving technology company Mobileye, which is majority-owned by Intel, warned that it expects customer orders to drop dramatically in the first quarter of 2024. Do you know what else dropped dramatically? It’s stock price. From CNBC:

Shares plunged as much as 25% on the news during Thursday morning trading.

“We have become aware of excess inventory at our customers,” Mobileye said in a preliminary full-year outlook.

Automakers stocked up on Mobileye’s chips in the aftermath of global supply chain issues that hampered manufacturing, seeking to avoid future part shortages, the company said.

“As supply chain concerns have eased, we expect that our customers will use the vast majority of this excess inventory in the first quarter of the year,” Mobileye said in its outlook. That means customers will not be placing orders for new chips at the same level as they did in the year-ago quarter.

Intel first announced it would take Mobileye private in 2017 for more than $15 billion, then took the company public again in October 2022.

Until recently, Mobileye’s stock traded “well above” its initial public offering price, according to CNBC. The announcement from the company cut back some of those gains, but IPO buyers are still up about 12 percent. Not too shabby.

In 2023, Intel sold off $1.5 billion of its Mobileye stake, but it still retains an 88 percent stake in the company. I guess they’re Back to the Future fans over at Intel.

Reverse: I Guess Nixon Did One Cool Thing