The fire took place February 4th at a holding lot in Michigan during a pre-delivery quality inspection and “spread to another vehicle,” a Ford spokesperson told Automotive News. The automaker recently extended its temporary halt on production and shipment until at least the end of next week.
[Automotive News]
Amazon’s driverless subsidiary Zoox claims that it doesn’t need an exemption from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to deploy vehicles without traditional controls like steering wheels (like GM’s Cruise) because it is using “self-certification” to ensure its vehicles are safe. That sounded kind of weird, so I reached out to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to see what they say. Here’s what they told me.
The agency is evaluating the basis for these self-certification claims and, as part of this effort, continues to review information provided by Zoox in response to questions previously posed by the agency.
If vehicles do not comply with all applicable FMVSS, they must generally receive an exemption from NHTSA to operate on public roads.
[Insert monocle emoji.]
We don’t know what’s wrong with the battery, but we do know that Ford has put a temporary halt on production and shipment of its popular electric pickup. There’s no recall, no reported incidents, and no stop-sale order to dealers, so it’s a bit of a mystery at the moment. Ford CEO Jim Farley is reportedly cracking down on quality issues at the automaker, so this could be an example of Ford trying to get ahead of the problem before it gets worse.
Ross Gerber, a Tesla investor and, as of a late, a critic of Elon Musk’s management, is gearing up to run for a board seat at the EV maker, according to Bloomberg. You might remember Gerber as the guy who thinks Musk is “over his skis” after acquiring Twitter and pretty much running it into the ground.
“I think it is crucially important to take criticism and this is something that I have realized over the years with Elon, you know, he’s very thin skinned,” Gerber said. “I’ve kind of had enough.”
Does Gerber have the votes, though? He says he has the support of another big Tesla investor Leo KoGuan, so this could be interesting. Pop some popcorn, bust out the Tesla tequila (or don’t), and let’s watch this unfold. I’m sure it will go great.
