Tesla Cybertruck recalled for 5th time within a year, the latest due to rearview display

another one

Tesla has released a free software upgrade to address the issue. Photo via tesla.com

Tesla is recalling more than 27,000 Cybertrucks because the rearview camera image may not activate immediately after shifting into reverse, the fifth recall for the vehicle since it went on sale late last year.

Tesla has released a free software upgrade to address the issue and owner notification letters are expected to be mailed Nov. 25.

Cybertruck owners have had to deal with a series of recalls since the vehicle went on sale in November. In June, there was a recall to fix problems with trim pieces that can come loose and front windshield wipers that can fail. Two months before that, some Cybertrucks were recalled because the accelerator pedal could stick.

In the most recent recall, the company notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the display screens in the trucks may remain blank for up to 8 seconds after a driver shifts to reverse. The U.S. requires those screens to activate with a rearview within 2 seconds of shifting into reverse.

The Cybertruck was recalled twice in June to fix problems with trim pieces that can come loose and front windshield wipers that can fail. It has been recalled four times since its introduction. In August in the Baytown area of Chambers County, a Cybertruck was heading down a parkway when it left the road for an unknown reason, hit a concrete culvert and went up in flames. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into the crash.

Elon Musk's Tesla delivered the first dozen or so of its futuristic Cybertruck pickups to customers in November, two years behind the original schedule.

Owners may contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752 or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 or go to www.nhtsa.gov.

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Shares of Tesla Inc. dropped sharply in morning trading yesterday. Photo via Tesla Motors/Instagram

Texas-based Tesla posts first quarterly increase in deliveries, but shares slump

mixed feelings

Low interest financing, sweet lease deals, price cuts and free charging boosted Tesla’s global deliveries in the third quarter, the first increase this year for the electric vehicle maker.

The Austin, Texas, company said Wednesday that it delivered 462,890 vehicles from July through September, bolstered by loans as low as 1.99%, and $299 monthly leases on the Model 3, its least expensive vehicle. It delivered 435,059 vehicles during the same period last year.

The figures for July through September came in slightly higher than analyst estimates of 462,000 for the period, according to data provider FactSet.

However, shares of Tesla Inc. dropped sharply in morning trading, down nearly 4%.

The deliveries were “good and a step in the right direction,” wrote Dan Ives of Wedbush, but that there would be pressure on the company's stock because investors had been hoping for even better.

“Overall, this is a clear improvement from the first half and we believe getting in the range of 1.8 million for the year is still the key and important bogey,” Ives said.

Tesla has struggled much of the year to sell its aging model lineup as growth in electric vehicle sales in the U.S. and Europe slowed due to concerns with range, price and the ability to charge on trips.

Falling sales early in the year led to once-unheard of discounts for the automaker, cutting into its industry leading profit margins. Analysts estimated that Tesla’s average vehicle sales price was $42,500 for the third quarter, the lowest price in four years.

The sales decline likely will pull down third quarter earnings when they are announced on Oct. 23.

Tesla’s sales decline comes as competition is increasing from legacy and startup automakers, which are trying to nibble away at the company’s market share.

Nearly all of Tesla’s sales came from the smaller and less-expensive Models 3 and Y, with the company selling only 22,915 of its more expensive models that include X and S, as well as the new Cybertruck.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to investors Tuesday that third-quarter sales would bring a rebound as China sales continue to increase and price and demand stabilizes.” As China continues to heat up on the demand story for Tesla with favorable leasing/financing terms and pent-up demand in the region, we are confident that we will see a significant growth figure in the region,” he wrote.

Europe will continue to be slow with macroeconomic pressures, and U.S. demand should stabilize, Ives wrote.

But BNP Paribas Exane said in an investor note that long term expectations of the market are somewhat high for Tesla. The company said its sales estimates for 2026 and 2027 “remain 10% to 15% below the street, respectively.”

Tesla is scheduled to unveil a purpose built robotaxi at an event next week.

The death apparently is the first involving the angular stainless steel-clad truck. Photo via Tesla Motors/Instagram

Houston-area Tesla fire, fatal crash raises questions from US auto safety agency

ongoing investigation

Federal safety authorities say they are seeking information on a crash and fire involving a Tesla Cybertruck that killed a driver of the futuristic new pickup.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Wednesday it is gathering information from Tesla. The agency did not send crash investigators, nor has it opened a formal investigation into the crash. It did not say if it is investigating the cause of the fire or whether the driver was using a partially automated driving system.

Messages were left Wednesday seeking comment from Tesla and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The death apparently is the first involving the angular stainless steel-clad truck, which went on sale Nov. 30.

KHOU-TV reported that state troopers are investigating the crash, which occurred in the Baytown area of Chambers County early Monday. The truck was heading down a parkway when it left the road for an unknown reason, hit a concrete culvert and went up in flames, the station reported.

The Cybertruck was recalled twice in June to fix problems with trim pieces that can come loose and front windshield wipers that can fail. It has been recalled four times since its introduction.

The Austin, Texas, company said Tuesday that it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8 percent from 466,140 sold the same period a year ago. Photo courtesy of Tesla

Tesla sales fall for second straight quarter despite price cuts, but decline not as bad as expected

by the numbers

Tesla's global sales fell for the second straight quarter despite price cuts and low-interest financing offers, another sign of weakening demand for the company's products and electric vehicles overall.

The Austin, Texas, company said Tuesday that it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8 percent from 466,140 sold the same period a year ago. But the sales were better than the 436,000 that analysts had expected.

The better-than-expected deliveries pushed Tesla's stock up 10 percent Tuesday. The stock is down about 7 percent so far this year, but it has nearly erased larger losses from prior months. Tesla shares had been down more than 40 percent earlier in the year, but are up more than 60 percent since hitting a 52-week low in April.

Demand for EVs worldwide is slowing, but they're still growing for most automakers. Tesla, with an aging model lineup and relatively high average selling prices, has struggled more than other manufacturers. Still it retained the title of the world's top-selling electric vehicle maker.

For the first half of the year, Tesla sold 830,766 electric vehicles worldwide, handily beating China's BYD, which sold 726,153 EVs.

Tesla also sold over 33,000 more vehicles during the second quarter than it produced, which should reduce the company's inventory on hand at its stores.

Tesla's sales decline comes as competition is increasing from legacy and startup automakers, which are trying to nibble away at the company's market share. Most other automakers will report U.S. sales figures later Tuesday.

Tesla gave no explanation for the sales decline, which is a harbinger of what to expect when it posts second-quarter earnings on July 23.

Nearly all of Tesla’s sales came from the smaller and less-expensive Models 3 and Y, with the company selling only 21,551 of its more expensive models that include X and S, as well as the new Cybertruck.

The sales decline came despite Tesla knocking $2,000 off the prices of three of its five models in the United States in April. The company cut the prices of the Model Y, Tesla’s most popular model and the top-selling electric vehicle in the U.S., and also of the Models X and S.

The April cuts reduced the starting price for a Model Y to $42,990 and to $72,990 for a Model S and $77,990 for a Model X. Last week, Tesla lopped $2,340 off the $38,990 base price of some newly revamped Model 3s that were in the inventory shipped to its stores.

In addition, Tesla in May offered 0.99 percent financing for up to six years on the Model Y. In June, it offered interest as low as 1.99 percent for three years on the rear-wheel-drive Model 3. Typical new-vehicle interest rates average just over 7 percent, according to Edmunds.com.

Also during the quarter, Tesla knocked roughly a third off the price of its “Full Self Driving” system — which can’t drive itself and so drivers must remain alert and be ready to intervene — to $8,000 from $12,000, according to the company website.

Jessica Caldwell, head of insights for Edmunds.com, said Tesla is having trouble in a market where most early adopters already have EVs, and mainstream buyers are more skeptical that electric cars can meet their needs.

Tesla's “haphazard” price cuts don't work as well as they once did because consumers now expect them, she said. “We’ve seen the automaker exhaust its bag of tricks by lowering prices and increasing incentives to spur demand without much success in the U.S. market,” Caldwell said.

Also, Tesla's aging model lineup doesn’t look much different than it did years ago she said. And with price cuts, used Tesla prices tumbled. Anyone wanting a Tesla can get a far better deal buying a used one, Caldwell said.

Caldwell doesn’t see any big catalyst this year that would boost Tesla sales unless gasoline prices spike, and she said Musk's shift to the right since taking over Twitter has hurt the brand's image.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to investors Tuesday that second-quarter sales were a “huge comeback performance” for Tesla. “In a nutshell, the worst is in the rearview mirror for Tesla,” he wrote. The company, he wrote, cut 10 percent to 15 percent of its workforce to reduce costs and preserve profitability. “It appears better days are now ahead as the growth story returns,” Ives wrote.

In its letter to investors in January, Tesla predicted “notably lower” sales growth this year. The letter said Tesla is between two big growth waves, one from global expansion of the Models 3 and Y, and a second coming from the Model 2, a new, smaller and less expensive vehicle with an unknown release date.

Tesla is scheduled to unveil a purpose built robotaxi at an event on Aug. 8.

Tesla has recalled the stainless steel-clad Cybertruck four times since it went on sale Nov. 30. Tesla Motors/Instagram

Tesla again recalls futuristic new Cybertruck

tapping the breaks

Tesla is recalling its futuristic new Cybertruck pickup for the fourth time in the U.S. to fix problems with trim pieces that can come loose and front windshield wipers that can fail.

Tesla, which has its operations based in Texas, has recalled the stainless steel-clad Cybertruck four times since it went on sale Nov. 30.

The new recalls, announced in documents posted Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, each affect more than 11,000 trucks.

The company says in the documents that the front windshield wiper motor controller can stop working because it's getting too much electrical current. A wiper that fails can cut visibility, increasing the risk of a crash. The Austin, Texas, company says it knows of no crashes or injuries caused by the problem.

Tesla will replace the wiper motor at no cost to owners, who will be notified by letter on Aug. 18.

In the other recall, a trim piece along the truck bed can come loose and fly off, creating a hazard for other motorists.

Tesla says in documents that the trim piece is installed with adhesive, and that may not have been done properly at the factory.

The company will replace or rework the trim piece so it stays on. Owners will be notified by letter also on Aug. 18.

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Houston-led project earns $1 million in federal funding for flood research

team work

A team from Rice University, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant under the CHIRRP—or Confronting Hazards, Impacts and Risks for a Resilient Planet—program to combat flooding hazards in rural Texas.

The grant totals just under $1 million, according to a CHIRRP abstract.

The team is led by Avantika Gori, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice. Other members include Rice’s James Doss-Gollin, Andrew Juan at Texas A&M University and Keri Stephens at UT Austin.

Researchers from Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center and Ken Kennedy Institute, Texas A&M’s Institute for A Disaster Resilient Texas and the Technology & Information Policy Institute at UT Austin are part of the team as well.

Their proposal includes work that introduces a “stakeholder-centered framework” to help address rural flood management challenges with community input.

“Our goal is to create a flood management approach that truly serves rural communities — one that’s driven by science but centers around the people who are impacted the most,” Gori said in a news release.

The project plans to introduce a performance-based system dynamics framework that integrates hydroclimate variability, hydrology, machine learning, community knowledge, and feedback to give researchers a better understanding of flood risks in rural areas.

The research will be implemented in two rural Texas areas that struggle with constant challenges associated with flooding. The case studies aim to demonstrate how linking global and regional hydroclimate variability with local hazard dynamics can work toward solutions.

“By integrating understanding of the weather dynamics that cause extreme floods, physics-based models of flooding and AI or machine learning tools together with an understanding of each community’s needs and vulnerabilities, we can better predict how different interventions will reduce a community’s risk,” Doss-Gollin said in a news release.

At the same time, the project aims to help communities gain a better understanding of climate science in their terms. The framework will also consider “resilience indicators,” such as business continuity, transportation access and other features that the team says more adequately address the needs of rural communities.

“This work is about more than flood science — it’s also about identifying ways to help communities understand flooding using words that reflect their values and priorities,” said Stephens. “We’re creating tools that empower communities to not only recover from disasters but to thrive long term.”

Can the Texas grid handle extreme weather conditions across regions?

Guest Column

From raging wildfires to dangerous dust storms and fierce tornadoes, Texans are facing extreme weather conditions at every turn across the state. Recently, thousands in the Texas Panhandle-South Plains lost power as strong winds ranging from 35 to 45 mph with gusts upwards of 65 mph blew through. Meanwhile, many North Texas communities are still reeling from tornadoes, thunderstorms, and damaging winds that occurred earlier this month.

A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that Texas led the nation with the most billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2023, while a report from Texas A&M University researchers indicates Texas will experience twice as many 100-degree days, 30-50% more urban flooding and more intense droughts 15 years from now if present climate trends persist.

With the extreme weather conditions increasing in Texas and nationally, recovering from these disasters will only become harder and costlier. When it comes to examining the grid’s capacity to withstand these volatile changes, we’re past due. As of now, the grid likely isn’t resilient enough to make do, but there is hope.

Where does the grid stand now?

Investment from utility companies have resulted in significant improvements, but ongoing challenges remain, especially as extreme weather events become more frequent. While the immediate fixes have helped improve reliability for the time being, it won't be enough to withstand continuous extreme weather events. Grid resiliency will require ongoing efforts over one-time bandaid approaches.

What can be done?

Transmission and distribution infrastructure improvements must vary geographically because each region of Texas faces a different set of hazards. This makes a one-size-fits-all solution impossible. We’re already seeing planning and investment in various regions, but sweeping action needs to happen responsibly and quickly to protect our power needs.

After investigators determined that the 2024 Smokehouse Creek fire (the largest wildfire in Texas history) was caused by a decayed utility pole breaking, it raised the question of whether the Panhandle should invest more in wrapping poles with fire retardant material or covering wires so they are less likely to spark.

In response, Xcel Energy (the Panhandle’s version of CenterPoint) filed its initial System Resiliency Plan with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, with proposed investments to upgrade and strengthen the electric grid and ensure electricity for about 280,000 homes and businesses in Texas. Tailored to the needs of the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, the $539 million resiliency plan will upgrade equipment’s fire resistance to better stand up to extreme weather and wildfires.

Oncor, whose territories include Dallas-Fort Worth and Midland-Odessa, analyzed more than two decades of weather damage data and the impact on customers to identify the priorities and investments needed across its service area. In response, it proposed investing nearly $3 billion to harden poles, replace old cables, install underground wires, and expand the company's vegetation management program.

What about Houston?

While installing underground wires in a city like Dallas makes for a good investment in grid resiliency, this is not a practical option in the more flood-prone areas of Southeast Texas like Houston. Burying power lines is incredibly expensive, and extended exposure to water from flood surges can still cause damage. Flood surges are also likely to seriously damage substations and transformers. When those components fail, there’s no power to run through the lines, buried or otherwise.

As part of its resiliency plan for the Houston metro area, CenterPoint Energy plans to invest $5.75 billion to strengthen the power grid against extreme weather. It represents the largest single grid resiliency investment in CenterPoint’s history and is currently the most expensive resiliency plan filed by a Texas electric utility. The proposal calls for wooden transmission structures to be replaced with steel or concrete. It aims to replace or strengthen 5,000 wooden distribution poles per year until 2027.

While some of our neighboring regions focus on fire resistance, others must invest heavily in strengthening power lines and replacing wooden poles. These solutions aim to address the same critical and urgent goal: creating a resilient grid that is capable of withstanding the increasingly frequent and severe weather events that Texans are facing.

The immediate problem at hand? These solutions take time, meaning we’re likely to encounter further grid instability in the near future.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

The longest conveyer belt in the U.S. is moving sand in Texas

The Dune Express

It's longer than the width of Rhode Island, snakes across the oil fields of the southwest U.S. and crawls at 10 mph – too slow for a truck and too long for a train.

It's a new sight: the longest conveyer belt in America.

Atlas Energy Solutions, a Texas-based oil field company, has installed a 42-mile long conveyer belt to transport millions of tons of sand for hydraulic fracturing. The belt the company named “The Dune Express” runs from tiny Kermit, Texas, and across state borders into Lea County, New Mexico. Tall and lanky with lids that resemble solar modules, the steel structure could almost be mistaken for a roller coaster.

In remote West Texas, there are few people to marvel at the unusual machine in Kermit, a city with a population of less than 6,000, where the sand is typically hauled by tractor-trailers. During fracking, liquid is pumped into the ground at a high pressure to create holes, or fractures, that release oil. The sand helps keep the holes open as water, oil and gas flow through it.

But moving the sand by truck is usually a long and potentially dangerous process, according to CEO John Turner. He said massive trucks moving sand and other industrial goods are a common site in the oil-rich Permian Basin and pose a danger to other drivers.

“Pretty early on, the delivery of sand via truck was not only inefficient, it was dangerous,” he said.

The conveyor belt, with a freight capacity of 13 tons, was designed to bypass and trudge alongside traffic.

Innovation isn't new to the oil and gas industry, nor is the idea to use a conveyor belt to move materials around. Another conveyer belt believed to be the world’s longest conveyor — at 61 miles long — carries phosphorous from a mine in Western Sahara on the northwest coast of Africa, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

When moving sand by truck became a nuisance, an unprecedented and risky investment opportunity arose: constructing a $400 million machine to streamline the production of hydraulic fracturing. The company went public in March 2023, in part, to help pay for the conveyor belt and completed its first delivery in January, Turner said.

The sand sits in a tray-shaped pan with a lid that can be taken off at any point, but most of it gets offloaded into silos near the Texas and New Mexico border. Along its miles-long journey, the sand is sold and sent to fracking companies who move it by truck for the remainder of the trip.

Keeping the rollers on the belt aligned and making sure it runs smoothly are the biggest maintenance obstacles, according to Turner. The rollers are equipped with chips that signal when it's about to fail and need to be replaced. This helps prevent wear and tear and keep the machine running consistently, Turner said.

The belt cuts through a large oil patch where environmentalists have long raised concerns about the industry disturbing local habitats, including those of the sagebrush lizard, which was listed as an endangered species last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“In addition to that, we know that the sand will expedite further drilling nearby,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. “We could see more drilling than we otherwise would, which means more air pollution, more spills than we otherwise would.”

The Dune Express currently runs for about 12 to 14 hours a day at roughly half capacity but the company expects to it to be rolling along at all hours later this year.

In New Mexico, Lea County Commissioner Brad Weber said he hopes the belt alleviates traffic on a parallel highway where car crashes are frequent.

“I believe it’s going to make a very positive impact here,” he said.

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