The Tesla Cybertruck is unveiled at Tesla’s design studio on Nov. 21, 2019, in Hawthorne, Calif.
Ringo H.W. Chiu | AP
Tesla has issued two more recalls for its Cybertruck pickups in the U.S., as the automaker continues to face challenges with its newest electric vehicle about six months after beginning deliveries.
The latest recalls — the third and fourth for the Cybertruck — involve physical repairs that would typically require booking an appointment with Tesla service. One is to fix problems with trim pieces, which can loosen and fall off the trunk, and the other is to address faulty motor controllers in the front windshield wipers.
A recall report dated June 19, and posted on the website for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says that if a trim piece “separates from the vehicle while in drive, it could create a road hazard for following motorists and increase their risk of injury or a collision.”Tesla plans to “replace or rework” that trim piece, to ensure “sufficient adhesion,” the report said.
According to a second safety recall report on the NHTSA site, on some vehicles, “the front windshield wiper motor controller may stop functioning due to electrical overstress to the gate driver component.” The report said a “non-functioning windshield wiper may reduce visibility in certain operating conditions, which may increase the risk of a collision.” Tesla plans to replace the motor controller in the Cybertruck windshield wipers for customers.
The electric vehicle maker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four years after CEO Elon Musk first unveiled the Cybertruck and two years after production was supposed to begin, the vehicle hit the market — with limited deliveries — in November at a launch event in Austin, Texas.
Musk described it at the time as a “better truck than a truck, while also being a better sports car than a sports car in the same package.” He frequently touts the truck as a vehicle that “looks like the future.”
An earlier Cybertruck recall was issued to repair an accelerator pedal issue. The pedal could come loose and get trapped in the interior trim of the vehicle, causing “unintended acceleration,” a problem seen in a viral TikTok video made by a Cybertruck owner.
The recall disclosures for the windshield wiper issue said that from Nov. 13, 2023, to June 6, 2024, there was a “vehicle population” of 11,688 Cybertrucks. The number suggests an initially slow start for the Cybertruck, Tesla’s first entry in the U.S. pickup market, where it’s going up against the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T.
In its first-quarter shareholder update, Tesla said Cybertruck production capacity exceeded 125,000 per year. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said the company hit a record of 1,300 Cybertruck shipments in a week.
Beyond the Cybertruck troubles, it’s been a tough first half of the year for Tesla. The stock price is down 25% year to date, and sales have been declining due to an aging lineup, increased competition in China and brand deterioration that a recent survey attributed partly to Musk’s “antics” and “political rants.” The company is undergoing a broad restructuring that’s included cutting headcount by at least 14%.
Tesla is expected to report second-quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers as soon as early July.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.
The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.
Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.
The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.
Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.
Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”
Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.
Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.
Reuters
Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.
Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.
Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.
The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.
Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.
To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
“They made a blunder — it should’ve happened months before, and it didn’t, and that’s the issue with it,” Diller said.
Diller is chairperson of both online travel company Expedia and IAC, which owns media platforms and websites like Dotdash Meredith and Care.com. He and Bezos appear to have been close friends for years, with Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, hosting Bezos’s engagement party to fiancee Lauren Sanchez.
The decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race or for future presidential races came directly from Bezos, the paper’s owner, according to an article published by two of the Post’s own reporters.
The move prompted public condemnation from several staff writers, a flood of at least 250,000 digital subscription cancellations and the resignations of at least three editorial board members.
Bezos defended his position in his own op-ed late last month, calling the move a “meaningful step in the right direction” to restore low public trust in media and journalism.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote, emphasizing that the decision to not endorse a candidate was made “entirely internally” and without consulting either campaign. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.”
Diller said he spoke to Bezos following the decision.
“I think it was absolutely principled,” Diller said. “The mistake they made — and it was a mistake admitted by him — was timing.”