Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Electric Vehicles

The Cybertruck Recall Is Different

Tesla has dealt with quality control issues before — but never with a robotaxi on the horizon.

The Tesla logo.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

You have to give TikTok user el.chapito1985 credit for not panicking. In a video posted a few days ago, he explained how the cover on his Tesla Cybertruck accelerator pedal came loose and then wedged itself in just the right spot to leave the pedal stuck in floor-it position.

The poster said he managed to stop the truck by slamming the brake, which overrode the accelerator, and putting the vehicle in park. But his experience certainly explains Tesla’s newest predicament: It will recall all the Cybertrucks currently on the road to fix the sticky accelerator issue.

Today’s mess feels like it’s adding insult to self-injury for Tesla. The company seems to be adrift after spending so much energy on the roundly mocked Cybertruck and canceling its planned $25,000 electric vehicle; now, its long-standing problems with build quality are coming back to bite it in the bumper.

During Tesla’s rise to EV dominance, some of the loudest objectors to its cars have been reviewers (and then owners) griping about manufacturing defects. YouTube abounds with videos pointing out uneven panel gaps and thin paint jobs and decrying the use of cheap plastics in such an expensive vehicle.

The thing is, none of this prevented the company from becoming the world’s most valuable automaker. Tesla may have developed a reputation among automotive insiders for shoddy or rushed workmanship, but millions of people who wanted a Tesla bought one nonetheless.

Tesla is the most-recalled vehicle brand, according to Autoweek, but many of those issues could be solved via over-the-air software updates. For instance: Earlier this year, the automaker had to recall millions of cars because fonts on the braking system software were too small. It solved this with a software patch, so owners did not have to deal with the hassle of bringing in their car and driving a rental in the interim. Because of this dynamic, the company downplayed a lot of technical issues, suggesting it’s not really a “recall” if you can fix it with a little bit of code.

A stuck pedal is a different story. There are few things scarier to a driver than “sudden unintended acceleration,” the stoic name for that feeling when your car seems to have developed a death wish.

If you’re old enough to remember the first decade of this century, you probably recall alarmed TV news segments about this problem in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, which killed a reported 89 people during from 2000 to 2010. The giant carmaker initially denied any manufacturing problem, attributing the issues instead to “pedal misapplication” — a polite euphemism for times when the driver hits the gas thinking it’s the brake. In the end, Toyota had to recall millions of cars when it determined that floor mats could have caused the pedal stuckness. That still didn’t cover all the stuck pedal issues, though, according to news reports, and the federal government ultimately issued more than a billion dollars in fines.

Tesla's problem with the Cybertruck pedal is nowhere near that scale, simply because, well, they’ve sold so few of them — just 3,878, according to the recall documentation. Tesla had already slowed the vehicle’s production, perhaps because it knew from early reports that this manufacturing problem was on the horizon, which gives the company a chance to correct things before the Cybertruck starts selling in bigger numbers (presuming it ever does).

Still, the news bodes ill for the future Elon Musk envisions for the company. Thousands of Tesla employees lost their jobs earlier this week, just as Musk appears to be going all-in on the “robotaxi” that would entirely drive itself.

It’s an appealing vision, sure. I would much rather put my feet up, read a book, play with my phone, do anything other than pilot a car through another frustrating, traffic-clogged trip down the highway. But turning over control to the robotaxi would mean trusting Tesla’s hardware and software not to fail mid-journey. A driver in the driver’s seat can do what el.chapito1985 did: slam on the brakes if the accelerator pedal gets stuck and pray that frantic stomping stops the car. A robotaxi owner would be just a passenger, with little recourse if a part suddenly got stuck or the AI suddenly misunderstood its environment. The robotaxi won’t even have a steering wheel — or, at least, that’s the plan.

There may come a day when autonomous vehicles are safer than those piloted by distracted, tired, angry, or indifferent humans, and car accident deaths drop because we turned over the chore of daily transportation to the machines. But with every software bug that calls for an over-the-air fix, and every defect that requires a recall, Tesla gets further from the consumer confidence it would need for a robotaxi to steer the company back on track.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Electric Vehicles

The Chevy Bolt Is the Cheap EV We’ve Needed All Along

It’s not perfect, but pretty soon, it’ll be available for under $30,000.

The Chevy Bolt.
Heatmap Illustration/Chevrolet, Getty Images

Here’s what you need to know about the rejuvenated Chevrolet Bolt: It’s back, it’s better, and it starts at under $30,000.

Although the revived 2027 Bolt doesn’t officially hit the market until January 2026, GM revealed the new version of the iconic affordable EV at a Wednesday evening event at the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. The assembled Bolt owners and media members drove the new cars past Amity Island from Jaws and around the Old West and New York sets that have served as the backdrops of so many television shows and movies. It was star treatment for a car that, like its predecessor, isn’t the fanciest EV around. But given the giveaway patches that read “Chevy Bolt: Back by popular demand,” it’s clear that GM heard the cries of people who missed having the plucky electric hatchback on the market.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Energy

Data Centers Have Solved Their Speed-to-Power Problem — With Natural Gas

“Old economy” companies like Caterpillar and Williams are cashing in by selling smaller, less-efficient turbines to impatient developers.

Pipelines and a turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

From the perspective of the stock market, you’re either in the AI business or you’re not. If you build the large language models pushing out the frontiers of artificial intelligence, investors love it. If you rent out the chips the large language models train on, investors love it. If you supply the servers that go in the data centers that power the large language models, investors love it. And, of course, if you design the chips themselves, investors love it.

But companies far from the software and semiconductor industry are profiting from this boom as well. One example that’s caught the market’s fancy is Caterpillar, better known for its scale-defying mining and construction equipment, which has become a “secular winner” in the AI boom, writes Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
AM Briefing

Geothermal Chill

On billions for clean energy, Orsted layoffs, and public housing heat pumps

Gavin Newsom.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A tropical rainstorm is forming in the Atlantic that’s forecast to barrel along the East Coast through early next week, threatening major coastal flooding and power outages • Hurricane Priscilla is weakening as it tracks northward toward California • The Caucasus region is sweltering in summer-like heat, with the nation of Georgia enduring temperatures of up to 93 degrees Fahrenheit in October.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Two deals worth billions highlight a bright spot for clean energy

Base Power, the Texas power company that leases batteries to homeowners and taps the energy for the grid, on Tuesday announced a $1 billion financing round. The Series C funding is set to supercharge the Austin-based company’s meteoric growth. Since starting just two years ago, Base has deployed more than 100 megawatts of residential battery capacity, making it one of the fastest growing distributed energy companies in the nation. The company now plans to build a factory in the old headquarters of the Austin American-Statesman, the leading daily newspaper in the Texan capital. The funding round included major investors who are increasing their stakes, including Valor Equity Partners, Thrive Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, and at least nine new venture capital investors, including Lowercarbon, Avenir, and Positive Sum. “The chance to reinvent our power system comes once in a generation,” Zach Dell, chief executive and co-founder of Base Power, said in a statement. “The challenge ahead requires the best engineers and operators to solve it and we’re scaling the team to make our abundant energy future a reality.”

Keep reading...Show less
Green