Welcome to a brand new week! It’s Monday, August 21, 2023 and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Tesla Data Leak Shares 75,735 People’s Personal Information
Earlier this year, electric car maker Tesla was at the center of a data leak that revealed more than 1,000 complaints about issues drivers were facing with its Autopilot advanced driver assist software. Now, the full extent of the leak has been revealed as more than 75,000 people had their personal data shared.
According to Business Insider, the massive data breach was “the result of insider wrongdoing,” Tesla claimed. As well as thousands of Autopilot incident reports, the leak also included names and contact details for thousands of Tesla employees, customer complaints about the company and even Elon Musk’s social security number. Business Insider reports:
In a notice to staff, the company shed light on the extent of the leak, revealing that 75,735 people were affected.
“The investigation revealed that two former Tesla employees misappropriated the information in violation of Tesla’s IT security and data protection policies and shared it with the media outlet,” the notice read.
Business Insider reports that following the leak, Tesla had filed a “series of lawsuits” that resulted in the seizure of the devices thought to have contained the leaked information. It also added that the automaker “obtained court orders” to prevent the former employee from further sharing or publishing any data.
The leak was first published by German outlet Handelsblatt, which said it had “spent months” examining more than 23,000 files from the breach.
2nd Gear: Cruise Will Half Its Self-Driving Fleet
It’s been a month of ups and downs for Cruise and San Francisco’s self-driving taxi services. While lawmakers in California voted to expand the hours in which self-driving cars can operate, Cruise saw its cars involved in some pretty embarrassing collisions — including one between a Cruise taxi and a mound of wet cement.
Now, the GM-backed tech company has announced that it’s taking steps to reduce its fleet of self-driving taxis while the California Department of Motor Vehicles investigates “incidents” its cars have been involved in. As CNBC news reports:
The reduction is a setback for Cruise, a General Motors subsidiary, which started offering a paid robotaxi service in San Francisco after it and Alphabet’s Waymo received permission to expand driverless operations and carry paying passengers 24 hours a day all over San Francisco. Cruise is currently operating with a waitlist.
It also highlights the growing debate in San Francisco over driverless cars. Opponents say they are dangerous and interfere with firefighters and other first responders, while defenders say they are innovative and will make getting around the city cheaper and easier.
As a result of the measures, Cruise will no longer be able to operate more than 50 of its autonomous vehicles during the day, and it will only be allowed to run 150 self-driving cars in the evening. This marks a considerable drop of 50 percent compared with the number of cars Cruise was operating in August.
The Cruise fleet will remain reduced while the California DMV investigates its role in the incidents and demonstrates that it has taken “appropriate corrective actions to improve road safety.”
3rd Gear: VinFast Founder Loses Billions
Last week, the world watched in amazement as Vietnamese automaker VinFast listed on the stock exchange and saw its value rapidly rise. By the close of trading on its first day on the market, stocks had skyrocketed and the company was the fourth most valuable carmaker out there, surpassing the likes of Ford, GM and Stellantis.
But in the days that followed, this growth was short-lived, and values began to dwindle. Now, it’s emerged that VinFast Chairman and founder Pham Nhat Vuong lost an eye-watering $21.2 billion while the company’s share price was fluctuating. Bloomberg reports:
The Vietnamese electric-vehicle maker’s shares closed at $15.40 Friday, ending a roller-coaster week that saw the stock spike 255% to $37.06 on Tuesday, its first day of trading on the Nasdaq after merging with a blank-check company. That was followed by three days of declines.
Chairman and founder Pham Nhat Vuong, who controls all but a few shares of the company, saw his net worth tumble roughly 52% to $21.2 billion over the same three-day stretch, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
However, you shouldn’t feel too much sympathy for Vuong just yet, as Bloomberg says the volatile VinFast sale made him “significantly richer” than he was before the company’s SPAC merger. According to the site, Vuong’s worth as calculated by Bloomberg doesn’t actually include the adjusted value of his 99 percent stake in Vinfast. In fact, the site predicts that he could have gained as much as $40 billion in his net worth over the first trading day, which Bloomberg says would be “one of the biggest wealth jumps ever recorded by the index.”
The jump came as VinFast reached a valuation of $85 billion on Tuesday last week. However, by the end of the week Bloomberg reports that the company was valued at around $36 billion, which puts its value ahead of rivals like Rivian, Nio and Lucid.
4th Gear: NHTSA Probes Ford’s Mustang Mach-E Recall
So far, 2023 is shaping up to be another bumper year for automotive recalls, with everyone from Vinfast to Nissan calling in cars for repairs. Now, Ford is facing an investigation over the handling of one of its recalls, which hit the all-electric Mustang Mach-E.
According to Reuters, U.S. safety regulators are investigating a 2022 recall of nearly 49,000 Ford Mustang Mach-Es, claiming that it might not have “adequately addressed concerns.” The recall was sparked when it was found that the Mach-E’s battery contactor could overheat during some DC fast-charging and “wide-open pedal events.” Reuters reports:
Following the recall, Ford issued a technical service bulletin to replace the High Voltage Battery Junction Box on recalled vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has opened a recall query after receiving 12 consumer complaints regarding Mach-E vehicles that received recall fixes.
The agency’s recall query investigation will assess the remedies Ford carried out following the recall, which included updating the car’s software to fix the issue. While the NHTSA has so far received 12 complaints about Ford’s handling of the recall, it has so far had no reports of injuries, fires, accidents or deaths as a result of the isse.