Ford EV and hybrid sales surge 65% in May (CNBC, June 4, 2024)

Ford recently announced an increase of about 65% in sales of both hybrids and EVs.  While that number sounds astounding, let’s put it in perspective.  While there has been an increase, the total number of vehicles sold in that segment was about 26,000.  Ford sold just over 190,000 cars last month, so approximately 14% of those sales were accounted for by hybrids and EVs. 

As recently reported, the Model E electric vehicle unit has taken enormous losses this year, but sales of its all-electric F-150 Lightening pickups and Mustang Mach-E EV have been growing.  The automaker is focusing on offering hybrid options across its entire North American lineup by 2030.

Tesla plans to use cabin radar, ditching seat sensors for safety (Teslarati, June 3, 2024)

In a new software update, Software Version 2024.14.3, Tesla reportedly plans to incorporate cabin radar instead of seat sensors to show which seats are occupied, as well as detecting that a person is sitting in the driver’s seat when Full Self-Driving or Autopilot are engaged. According to a Tesla hacker, “greentheonly,” the use of cabin radar will be used to detect a human driver before the vehicle can move. This change is likely due to driver complaints regarding malfunctions of the seat sensors, as well as “cheat devices” that can trick the vehicle into detecting a human driver who is not there.

The report of the cabin radar comes shortly after a NHTSA recall for Tesla’s malfunctioning seat belt warning system. According to Reuters, the remedy to this issue will “remove dependency on the driver seat occupancy sensor from the software and only rely on driver seat belt buckle and ignition status to activate the seat belt reminder signals.”

Tesla Settles Fatal Crash Suit Ahead of California Trial (Transport Topics, May 28, 2024)

Only a few months after Tesla settled a high-profile case involving the fatality of a former Apple engineer, Tesla has settled another fatal crash lawsuit only days before the trial was scheduled to begin. The crash, which took place in downtown Indianapolis nearly 8 years ago, involved the driver Casey Speckman, who lost control of a 2015 Tesla Model S, which plaintiffs claimed accelerated on its own, causing the vehicle to hit a tree and burst into flames. The passenger, Kevin McCarthy, allegedly survived the impact, but died in the fire, unable to open the vehicle doors due to “the defective design of the door latch system entrapping him in the vehicle,” according to the lawsuit.

Tesla has claimed that the vehicle was free from defects, with EDR data showing that Ms. Speckman had her foot on the accelerator pedal at the time of the collision. Additionally, police reports indicated a blood alcohol level that was more than double the legal limit. The “conditional” settlement between parties occurred on May 24, but no details were provided in court filings.

Activists gather in Chinatown to demand immediate ban on self-driving taxis in California (The San Francisco Standard, February 19, 2024)

An activist group in California called the Network for Safety in Our Streets & for Working People is calling for Governor Newsom to ban self-driving taxis after a Waymo robotaxi was set ablaze following two recent robotaxi incidents that occurred in San Francisco: first, when a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian, and more recently when a Waymo robotaxi struck a cyclist. The group believes that robotaxis are endangering public safety, and that they should all be removed from the streets of San Francisco. “We demand that Governor Newsom remove all Waymo self-driving taxis from the streets of San Francisco and California immediately,” said Edward Escobar, a coalition organizer, in a statement on Sunday.

According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, self-driving vehicles have been involved in over 2,000 collisions in California alone since 2014, most of which were reported by Waymo and Cruise.  Mark Gruberg, a board member of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, stated, “We don’t run into fire trucks. We don’t drive into wet concrete. We don’t run over people and then drag them for 20 feet…So the [California Utilities Commission] really has to get its act together.”

Carmakers pumped the brakes on hybrid cars too soon (Vox, February 14, 2024)

As barriers to adoption of electric vehicles continue to mount, the hybrid vehicle space, which was left for dead in the not-too-distant past, seems to be making a formidable comeback. Despite proposed rules by the EPA aimed at reducing reliance on carbon-spewing vehicles, drivers still seem to be reluctant to give up gasoline entirely due to factors such as range anxiety, reliability, and charging infrastructure. As a possible short-term compromise, hybrid cars— models that blend electric and gasoline power —are experiencing a bit of a renaissance.

“The number of hybrid model offerings declined in 2023, but sales increased significantly across existing models,” according to the Energy Information Administration. In fact, new car purchasers are now buying around as many hybrid cars as fully electric vehicles, and demand is growing. Whether the return to hybrids will serve as a bridge to greater electrification or merely slow ultimate transition remains to be seen.

Elon Musk claims fatal crash was not on ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ after Tesla said logs were lost (Electrek, February 14, 2024)

In response to an article in The Washington Post earlier this week regarding a fatal accident involving a Tesla employee in 2022, Elon Musk is claiming that the involved Tesla was not on “Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta” when the accident occurred. Although the Tesla employee was legally intoxicated at the time of the accident, subsequent investigation revealed that the Tesla may have been using FSD at the time of the accident. Investigating authorities, however, were unable to recover data from the vehicle due to fire damage, and Tesla said it could not confirm that FSD had been in use because it “did not receive data over-the-air for this incident.”

Musk is now publicly claiming that the Tesla was not even equipped with FSD, notwithstanding reports to NHTSA that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.” It will be interesting to find out why, if true, this information did not surface until now. 

Cruise reveals DOJ, SEC probes as it releases internal report on pedestrian crash (TechCrunch, January 25, 2024)

Just when it seemed the dust may finally be settling on the fallout from Cruise’s handling of an  October 2 incident where a robotaxi struck and then dragged a pedestrian, new probes by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission were revealed this week. According to an internal report released by law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a lack of judgement, missteps by leadership, an “us versus them” relationship with regulators and a fixation on correcting the inaccurate media narrative that the Cruise AV, not the human-driven Nissan, had caused the accident were all contributing factors to Cruise’s problems.

“This myopic focus led Cruise to convey the information about the Nissan hit-and-run driver having caused the Accident to the media, regulators, and other government officials, but to omit other important information about the Accident. Even after obtaining the Full Video, Cruise did not correct the public narrative but continued instead to share incomplete facts and video about the Accident with the media and the public. This conduct has caused both regulators and the media to accuse Cruise of misleading them.”

The report further notes that “the three senior leaders of the company — the CEO, CLO, and COO — were not actively engaged in the regulatory response for the worst accident in Cruise’s history. Instead, they were trying to piece together what happened after the fact.”

GM to release plug-in hybrid vehicles, backtracking on product plans (CNBC, January 30, 2024)

In what appears to be one of the first pivots from a major automaker previously committed to full electrification transition, General Motors announced this week that its new product lineup strategy will prominently feature plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Although details of the new strategy were not disclosed, it appears that GM is reconsidering the viability of ICE vehicles supplemented with battery technologies — a concept previously abandoned by most major players in the EV landscape.

“Let me be clear, GM remains committed to eliminating tailpipe emissions from our light-duty vehicles by 2035, but, in the interim, deploying plug-in technology in strategic segments will deliver some of the environment or environmental benefits of EVs as the nation continues to build this charging infrastructure,” CEO Mary Barra said during the automaker’s quarterly and 2023 earnings call.

GM’s shifting strategy appears somewhat inconsistent with recent industry messaging and significant capital investment in electrification infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether other automakers will similarly pump the brakes on achieving full electrification as soon as practically feasible.

Ford will provide free adapters to access Tesla’s Supercharger network (Electrek, January 31, 2024)

Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, announced on Twitter today that the carmaker will provide free adapters for Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners in order to use Tesla’s Superchargers. After Ford signed a deal with Tesla to access its charging network, nearly all carmakers in North America joined the network, making Tesla’s Supercharging network the new standard.

“When we announced Ford EVs would et access to Tesla Superchargers, I said we’d send customers a Fast Charging Adapter. I’m please to confirm that eligible #MustangMachE & #F150Lightning owners in the U.S. + Canada can reserve a complimentary adapter starting soon,” announced Farley. Eligible owners can receive the free adapters as early as Spring 2024.

“Ford wants to make charging more convenient for our customers, and we are adding Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada to our growing BlueOval Charge Network, which more than doubles the numbers of fast chargers available to Ford EV drivers,” the automaker said.