Tesla initiates sixth Cybertruck recall in a year
New Tesla Cybertruck vehicles parked at a logistics drop zone in Seattle on Aug. 22, 2024.
M. Scott Brauer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla is recalling 2,431 Cybertrucks to replace defective drive inverters, according to notices made public by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday.
It’s the sixth recall of the Cybertruck since the angular steel pickup went on sale about a year ago. The Cybertruck sells in the U.S. for a base price of around $80,000.
Tesla addressed the previous Cybertruck recall with an over-the-air software update to fix an issue that caused images from the truck’s backup cameras to not display correctly after the driver shifted into reverse. The latest Cybertruck recall requires the replacement of a part called a drive inverter, which provides power to the wheels of the vehicle.
“If the inverter stops producing torque, the driver loses the ability to apply torque to the vehicle using the accelerator pedal resulting in a loss of propulsion, which may increase the risk of a collision,” Tesla wrote in a statement.
The Cybertruck became the third-best-selling fully electric vehicle in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2024, behind Telsa’s Model Y and Model 3 EVs.
Tesla is currently facing four known NHTSA investigations looking into possible safety defects in its vehicles. The most serious investigation concerns whether the company’s premium driver assistance system, marketed as “Full Self-Driving Supervised,” is safe to use in reduced visibility conditions such as glaring sunlight and fog.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has clashed with NHTSA and other federal regulators for years. That tension is now in the spotlight following the election victory last week of President-elect Donald Trump.
As the principal backer of Trump’s campaign, Musk has been granted a role in a new office Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency. While the office hasn’t yet been formed or funded by Congress, Musk has said he intends to use his influence to cut federal spending and regulations, and to change federal motor vehicle safety standards that are implemented and enforced, in part, by NHTSA.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Technology
British regulators will soon announce competition remedies for the multibillion-pound cloud industry
Ofcom said it received evidence showing Microsoft makes it less attractive for customers to run its Office productivity apps on cloud infrastructure other than Microsoft Azure.
Igor Golovniov | Sopa Images | Lightrocket via Getty Images
LONDON — Britain’s competition regulator is preparing remedies aimed at solving competition issues in the multibillion-pound cloud computing industry.
The Competition and Markets Authority is set to unveil its provisional decision detailing “behavioral” remedies addressing anti-competitive practices in the sector following a months-long investigation into the market, two sources familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The sources, who preferred to remain anonymous given the investigation’s sensitive nature, said that the cloud market remedies could be announced within the next two weeks. The regulator previously set itself a deadline of November to December 2024 to publish its provisional decision.
A CMA spokesperson declined to comment on the timing of its provisional decision when asked by CNBC.
Cloud infrastructure services is a market that’s dominated by U.S. technology giants Amazon and Microsoft. Amazon is the largest player in the market, offering cloud services via its Amazon Web Services (AWS) arm. Microsoft is the second-largest provider, selling cloud products under its Microsoft Azure unit.
The CMA probe traces its history back to 2022, when U.K. telecoms regulator Ofcom kicked off a market study examining the dominance of cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Ofcom subsequently referred its cloud review to the CMA to address competition issues in the market.
Why is the CMA concerned?
Among the key issues the CMA is expected to address with recommended behavioral remedies, are so-called “egress” fees charging companies for transferring data from one cloud to another, licensing fees viewed as unfair, volume discounts, and interoperability issues that make it harder to switch vendor.
According to one of the sources, there’s a chance Google may be excluded from the scope of the competition remedies given it is smaller in size compared to market leaders AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Amazon and Microsoft declined to comment on this story when contacted by CNBC. Google did not immediately return a request for comment.
What could the remedies look like?
The CMA has said previously in June that it was more minded toward considering behavioral remedies to resolve its concerns as opposed to “structural” remedies, such as ordering divestments or operational separations.
The watchdog said in a working paper in June that it was “at an early stage” of considering potential remedies.
Solutions floated at the time included imposing price controls restricting the level of egress fees, lowering technical barriers to switching cloud providers, and banning agreements encouraging firms to commit more spend in return for discounts.
One contentious measure the regulator said it was considering was requiring Microsoft to apply the same pricing for its productivity software products regardless of which cloud they’re hosted on — a move that would have a significant impact on Microsoft’s pricing structures.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell is set to hold a speech on Thursday at Chatham House, a U.K. policy institute. In an interview with the Financial Times, she defended the regulator’s track record on competition enforcement amid criticisms from Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the agency was holding back growth.
She is expected to outline plans for a review in 2025 into whether the CMA should more frequently use behavioral remedies when approving deals, the FT reported.
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Bitcoin breached the $95,000 level for the first time Wednesday evening as investors continued pricing in a second Donald Trump presidency.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by more than 3% at $97,646.68, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose as high as $97,788.00.
Shares of MicroStrategy, a bitcoin proxy, gained 3% in extended trading. Mining stocks rose as well, with Mara Holdings up 4%.
Bitcoin continues its march toward $100,000
Bitcoin has been regularly hitting fresh records this month on hopes that Trump will usher in a golden age of crypto, which would include more supportive regulation for the industry and a potential national strategic bitcoin reserve or stockpile.
It is widely expected to reach $100,000 this year and double by the end of 2025.
“Bitcoin’s price continues to be driven by a number of factors including improved liquidity conditions, increased institutional adoption, and a regulatory environment that has flipped from a headwind to a tailwind,” said Sam Callahan, an analyst at Swan Bitcoin.
Another Trump term also implies larger budget deficits, potentially more inflation and changes to the international role of the dollar – all things that would have a positive impact on the price of bitcoin.
Bitcoin has gained more than 127% in 2024.
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