Tesla's recall-filled 2021 isn't over quite yet. Bloombergreports Tesla has issued recalls for just over 475,000 vehicles to fix defects in camera systems and trunks. To start, the automaker has recalled all Model 3 cars in the 2017 to 2020 model years over a concern repeated use of the trunk may wear down a coaxial cable for the rearview camera — too much use and you may lose the signal entirely.

The other recall covers 119,009 Model S sedans in the 2014 to 2021 model years. A factory misalignment of the front trunk (aka frunk) latch assembly can prevent a secondary latch from working properly, increasing the chances the trunk will pop open mid-drive.

The Model 3 flaw doesn't exist in 2021 and newer production runs, while Model S drivers are safe if their EVs were built after December 23rd, 2020. You'll have to visit Tesla to get a fix, but the company will compensate anyone who paid for relevant repairs before the recalls took effect.

None of the defects led to crashes or injuries, Tesla said. However, the recalls cap a series of issues that include an NHTSA investigation over Autopilot safety, recalls for components like touchscreens, and complaints about build quality problems like panel gaps. Simply speaking, the company developed more of a reputation for less-than-stellar reliability in 2021, and it's not clear when that situation might improve.

New York City has purchased 184 all-electric Mustang Mach-Es, and they're all going to be used for law enforcement and emergency response purposes. As Electrek noted, the move is part of the city's plans to buy over 1,250 electric vehicles in 2022. That, in turn, is part of a larger endeavor to "drastically cut citywide climate emissions" with the help of a $420 million investment. 

In its announcement, the local NYC government said the Mach-Es will be used by the New York Police Department (NYPD), the New York City Sheriff's Office, the Department of Correction, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Environmental Protection, NYC Emergency Management, DCAS Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. They'll be replacing those agencies' gas-powered vehicles after the city receives them by June 30th, 2022.

NYC also said that its Mach-E purchase is part of its biggest EV purchase to date, though that may not be the case for long. The city has also approved the option to buy up to 250 Tesla Model 3 vehicles any time over the next five years. 

Earlier this month, Ford announced that it's increasing the production of the Mach-E to 200,000 vehicles per year in the US starting in 2022 and in Europe by 2023. Company CEO Jim Farley said there's a huge demand for the electric vehicle, and Ford is reportedly delaying its Explorer and Aviator EVs to ensure that it can manufacture enough Mach-Es to keep up with the demand.

In the future, Waymo's robotaxi fleet in the US will feature electric vehicles build specifically for the service by Chinese automaker Geely. The Alphabet company has teamed up with Geely to create a version of its recently launched all-electric Zeekr vehicle that's custom-built for autonomous ride-hailing. Waymo has detailed and shown renders of the modified EV, which was designed in Sweden, in a blog post. 

It has no steering wheel or pedals, as you'd probably expect by now from a purely autonomous vehicle — where the traditional cockpit would be is a tablet that most likely serves as the navigation and infotainment system. Waymo said they modified the vehicle and gave it a flat floor for more accessible entry, generous head and legroom, reclining seats and chargers all around. The company will then incorporate its Driver technology, which includes its software and hardware components like cameras and sensors, into the vehicles.

Waymo's current ride-hailing fleet consists mostly of Jaguar I-Paces and Chrysler Pacifica hybrids also modified with its technology. While it didn't specifically mention its vehicles, a spokesperson told TechCrunch that its team-up with Geely will not affect its current partnerships. The company also didn't mention when passengers will be able to ride the Geely vehicles, only that they will be added to its fleet in the US over the coming years.

Electric transport startup Rivian is delaying deliveries of its 400-mile R1T pickup truck to 2023. In an email to customers obtained by Electrek, CEO RJ Scaringe said the company is prioritizing the production of R1T vehicles equipped with its 314-mile “Large pack” battery. Once those orders are fulfilled, it will then turn its attention to the more affordable “Explorer Package” trim and “Max pack” battery.

“In setting our delivery timing, we optimized our build sequence around the build combination that would support us ramping as quickly as possible and therefore have the largest possible positive climate impact,” RJ Scaringe writes in the email. We’ve reached out to Rivian for more information.

In the same message, Scaringe notes Max battery variants account for approximately 20 percent of the 71,000 R1T and R1S preorders the automaker has secured as of December 15th of this year. That suggests the delay involves about 14,200 vehicles. Rivian is allowing people to change their orders if they want to get their R1T earlier. It also promised to share more information on delivery timings in early 2022.

Rivian has delayed deliveries of the R1T several times over the last few years. The truck was originally scheduled to debut in 2020, but the company eventually pushed that date back to September 2021. The pandemic and chip shortages have played a part in that, but Rivian also doesn’t have a lot of manufacturing capacity at the moment. It plans to break ground on a new factory in Georgia next summer. However, that won’t be complete until sometime in 2024. In the meantime, the company also has a 100,000 vehicle order it needs to fulfill for minority owner Amazon.

The desire to make or at least market an electric vehicle as a performance vehicle is strong. The benefit of EV torque makes anything with some wheels and a little bit of power an off-the-line joy. But sometimes the performance vehicle in a lineup is best used at lower speeds. For example, the Arcimoto Roadster.

The companion vehicle to the Arcimoto FUV, the Roadster is the more performance-oriented vehicle from the automotive startup. Instead of a car sitting position, you ride it like a motorcycle. In our tests we realized, that likes its roofed sibling, the Roadster is more fun around town taking care of errands and turning heads.

The modern electric vehicle renaissance has been hampered from day one by the physical limitations imposed by the current state of battery technology. Inefficiencies in the form of heavy battery packs and low power densities have long limited not just the range and performance of EVs but the very forms they can take — there’s a reason Tesla started with a Roadster and not a Cybertruck. But steady advancements in power systems over the past few years — alongside skyrocketing demand for larger, electrified vehicles which cater to the US market — has led to a watershed moment in 2021: the emergence of EV pickups and SUVs.

Yes, we all know the Model X exists and Tesla “did it first” — spare me your tweets — however, the sheer number and variety of new, pure EV pickup and SUV models either ready to hit the showroom floor or in active development is staggering compared to just a few years ago. Let’s take a look at some of this year’s standouts.

GM is betting big on its proprietary Ultium battery technology, investing $35 billion in self-driving and EV technologies through 2025. The company has also announced that it intends to sell 30 EV models by the end of 2025 and EVs exclusively after 2035 with the 1,000 horsepower GMC Hummer EV serving as its vanguard offering.

Jonathan Ernst / reuters

The Hummer EV has been a surefire hit since its debut last October. More than 10,000 potential buyers had placed down payments on the $112,000 Hummer Edition 1 by last December. Similarly, the Hummer’s EV SUV variant revealed in April had its pre-orders sell out in minutes — not bad for a vehicle that won’t actually hit the streets until Fall 2023. Deliveries for the Hummer EV pickup are slated to begin this month. There have even been rumblings about adapting the Hummer EV frame and power system to military applications, though no firm decisions on that proposal have yet been made.

Hummers are only the start. In April, GM confirmed that its second EV model will be an electrified Silverado. We still don’t know a whole lot about the Silverado beyond that it will leverage GM’s Ultium battery tech, that the company is aiming for a 400-plus mile range, and that the EV pickup will offer four-wheel steering, which shortens turn radius’ at low speeds and increases cornering stability at high speeds — especially when towing loads. 

We’ll have a full accounting of the Silverado’s capabilities once it makes its official debut during GM’s CES 2022 keynote address. What’s more, GM teased its third upcoming EV in July — a full-size GMC pickup, according to CNBC. Virtually nothing else is known about it at this time, not even if it will use the existing GMC Sierra branding. Hopefully, we’ll get some more hints in the new year.

Not to be outdone, the Stellantis Group (formerly FCA and umbrella company to Chrysler, Jeep Dodge, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and a host of others) announced in July that it, too, will be investing $35 billion towards its electrification efforts through 2025 and will have 55 electrified vehicles (40 BEVs, 15 PHEVs) available in the US and European markets by the end of that year. What’s more, Stellantis is working on an all-electric Ram EV to compete with the Silverado and Ford F-150 Lightning, though the Ram isn’t expected to be released until 2024. For its part in 2021, Jeep showed off a slick-looking Wrangler BEV concept in March, released its “light hybrid” Wrangler Sahara 4XE in May and debuted its PHEV Cherokee 4XE in September ahead of the vehicle’s 2022 release.

Ford also had a year worthy of honking its own horn about, starting with the February release of the Mustang Mach-E. The EV was met with a bit of trepidation to start but cemented its position with the release of the performance-focused GT edition. In all, Ford had sold more 21,000 Mach-E units through this past October, despite a handful of recalls for loose bolts and “deep sleeping” software bugs. That’s not bad for a first-year crossover SUV working to get past deeply ingrained customer nostalgia, but the Mach-E’s numbers are nothing compared to the hype Ford’s upcoming F-150 Lightning EV has garnered.

The company’s F-150 electrification efforts have hardly been an industry secret but when Ford debuted the Lightning on May 19th (or May 18th if you were watching President Biden’s speech), America’s car-buying public just about lost its mind with nearly 45,000 people signing up to preorder the EV pickup within the first 48 hours.

Interest in Ford’s upcoming light hybrid Maverick pickup has been no less rampant. The Detroit News reported in August that more than 100,000 people had allegedly signed up to preorder the mini-truck, a large portion of which were California residents. Granted, those folks weren’t obligated to place a down payment so whether all those pre-orders translate into actual sales — or folks just decide to restomod their existing ICE Fords with the eluminator system instead — remains to be seen.

Some of the biggest headlines in the 2021 EV truck space came from stellar startup, Rivian. While competitors like Lordstown Motors found themselves critically low on cash and the subject of Justice Department fraud investigations, Rivian has already hit its first production milestone: actually producing vehicles (despite having to push its initial delivery window from July to September). But that’s not the half of it. 

This year, the company also announced plans to install 10,000 charging stations across North America by 2023, unveiled a membership plan for owners offering both Roadside and off-Roadside Assistance as well as exclusive OTA software updates, and outlined its Remote Care program which would offer remote diagnoses and on-site repairs for the electric trucks. The startup has big plans for the future as well. It announced plans to invest $5 billion in a second US-based production plant and is reportedly eyeing the UK as the site for its first international battery facility.

Some of those future plans will involve partnerships with other companies such as Amazon — which owns a 20 percent stake in Rivian, purchased 100,000 vehicles from the startup in 2019 and has already begun making deliveries in San Francisco and Los Angeles with them — but they won’t include Ford. Despite investing half a billion dollars in the EV startup two years ago, Ford announced in November that the two companies will no longer collaborate on an upcoming EV. Looks like that rumored electric Lincoln will likely stay dead for the time being.

FREDERIC J. BROWN via Getty Images

On the other end of the headline spectrum is, surprisingly, Tesla. Despite the company’s massively profitable year, the development of its Cybertruck has been slow going. While CEO Elon Musk announced in January that “volume production” of the EV SUV will begin in 2022, it’s increasingly looking like that will happen later in the year — after Ford’s F-150 Lightning and GMC’s Hummer EV hit the roads, both of which debuted well after the Cybertruck did.

Of course, American automakers are far from the only ones getting in on the EV game. Mercedes announced in April that its EQB compact SUV is nearly ready for production and will go on sale in the US next year. Its “Sustainer” delivery van concept, however, might take a bit longer to reach the market. Hyundai, on the other hand, unveiled its Ioniq 5 SUV in February with plans to release it this winter alongside promises that its Genesis line of vehicles will go entirely electric by the middle of this decade. Meanwhile, Kia’s Niro EV continues to be a low-key sleeper hit.

We’ve seen much hype and grandiose promises about EV pickup trucks and SUVs over the last few years but 2022 will be the year when everything comes out in the wash. Consumers will finally be able to see these vehicles on the streets, in their neighborhoods, and likely breathing down their necks while stuck in traffic, rather than just on a showroom floor or livestream presentation stage. This is a huge opportunity for automakers to further evangelize the benefits of battery electrics over their internal combustion predecessors — this time using America’s favorite type of vehicle.

Tesla is quickly responding to the NHTSA's investigation of in-dash gaming while cars are moving. The Guardian has learned Tesla will deliver an update disabling on-the-move Passenger Play. A spokeswoman for the regulator said Tesla promised the change after discussing the matter with officials. There was no mention of when the update might arrive, but it's safe to presume you'll have to park for future gaming sessions.

The representative stressed the investigation would continue despite the update. The NHTSA reiterated that the Vehicle Safety Act bars companies from selling cars that pose significant safety risks, including from distracted driving. The investigation covers roughly 580,000 Tesla EVs between the 2017 and 2022 model years.

Tesla no longer operates a public relations team and wasn't available for comment. The feature change isn't surprising, though. Inaction could worsen the consequences if the NHTSA finds Tesla was negligent. There's also the matter of competitive pressure. Mercedes-Benz recently fixed an error that allowed mid-drive video playback — it wouldn't look good if Tesla refused to follow suit.

Tesla came under fire earlier this month following reports that certain games are playable on dashboard infotainment systems while an EV is in motion. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating Tesla over the so-called "Passenger Play" function.

The preliminary evaluation from the agency's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) covers around 580,000 Model 3, S, X and Y vehicles sold since 2017. While the feature prompts players to acknowledge they're a passenger before they start a game, the NHTSA said Passenger Play "may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash."

A report from the New York Timesindicated that an update Tesla rolled out in the summer made three games playable while a car is moving. Before then, Passenger Play was only available when the EV was in park. The NHTSA told Engadget earlier in December that it was speaking to Tesla about the feature.

The ODI said the preliminary evaluation will assess the driver distraction potential of Passenger Play while the EV is moving. It will look into various aspects of Passenger Play, including use scenarios and how often it's used.

In announcing the investigation, the NHTSA cited a report that was filed with the agency in August. "Tesla is now making interactive video games and live internet web searching possible on the main front seat display while the car is driving," the complaint reads. "Why is a manufacturer allowed to create an inherently distracting live video which takes over 2/3 of the screen which the driver relies on for all vehicle information? Creating a dangerous distraction for the driver is recklessly negligent."

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The company no longer has a PR department.

The close of 2021 finds Tesla wealthier than ever — and, in CEO Elon Musk’s case, wealthier than everybody else. The electric vehicle manufacturer notched records for both deliveries and profits this year despite a global chip shortage that decimated supply chains worldwide, effectively kneecapping the rest of the automotive industry’s production capacity. However its financial successes were often overshadowed by Tesla’s continuing production quality issues, multiple NHTSA and SEC investigations, high profile failures of its vaunted “Full Self Driving” system, as well as numerous vehicle recalls and delays for upcoming models. And with existing industry stalwarts like Ford, GM, Honda and the Volkswagen Group making concerted efforts to electrify their own offerings, could 2022 be the year that Tesla’s reign as top EV automaker finally ends?

The Good

2021 was, without a doubt, a banner year for Tesla’s bottom line. The company entered this year having met its 2020 goal of producing a half-million vehicles (of which it delivered 499,550 to customers), a nearly 133,000 unit increase over 2019. By April, Tesla had produced a record 180,338 vehicles and delivered 184,800 of them. Demand remained strong throughout the first half of the year thanks, in part, to price cuts on both the Model 3 and Model Y.

The company then broke its same record in July, having built 200,000 vehicles over the past three months, earning Tesla $1.1 billion in net income during the same period. “Public sentiment towards EVs is at an inflexion point and, at this point, I think almost everyone agrees that electric vehicles are the only way forward,” Musk said during the Q2 earnings call.

Unsurprisingly, Tesla’s record-breaking trend continued unabated through Q3 with the company rolling 237,823 vehicles off its production lines — nearly all of which were of the Model 3 and Model Y varieties — and delivering 241,300 of them. The company also began taking pre-orders for the UK version of the Model Y in October and announced that those Model Ys destined for the Chinese market would be receiving upgraded AMD Ryzen chipsets.

Tesla capped off its stellar financial year with announcements from Hertz that it plans to order 100,000 vehicles (though there remains uncertainty about how that deal will actually play out) and from Uber Eats that it intends to rent as many as 50,000 Tesla vehicles to its drivers.

The Bad

While Tesla enjoyed unabashed sales success with its core lineup, the company often struggled to meet release deadlines for a number of its yet-to-be-released models. Both the Cybertruck and Semi have both been pushed back to 2022 while the Tesla Roadster reportedly won’t be arriving until at least 2023. Tesla also took the strange tack of releasing an “entry-level” standard range Model Y for just a few weeks before discontinuing the trim level. Similarly, Tesla pushed back the release of its $130,000 Model S Plaid edition to June 10th, debuting it mere days after Musk unilaterally announced that the Model S Plaid+ was canceled outright,

The company was also beset by a wide array of production woes and vehicle recalls this year. In February, Tesla bowed to pressure from the NHTSA and recalled 135,000 Model X and S vehicles on account of faulty touchscreens. That same month, Tesla was forced to issue a recall for another 12,300 Model Xs on account of loose trim panels. In April, customers reported that the company had double-charged them for their vehicles, up to $71,000 in some cases, though Tesla was quick to reimburse the affected buyers and even threw in a $200 gift certificate for the company store.

June saw yet another recall, this time for 6,000 Model 3 and Ys over faulty brake caliper bolts, and in October, Tesla had to recall another set of Ys and 3s because their suspensions kept separating. Just last month, the company had to pull nearly 12,000 vehicles from across its product line on account of software issues — that’s not to be confused with the recent Tesla App outage that locked drivers around the world out of their own vehicles.

Tesla’s parade of crises also extended to the production lines themselves with the Fremont factory facing a sizeable COVID outbreak shortly after reopening in March. Musk complained often and loudly throughout 2020 over California’s quarantine lockdown laws and finally made good on threats to take his toys and go home, officially moving Tesla’s headquarters to Texas in October.

The company was also ordered to pay $137 million to former employee Owen Diaz after a San Francisco federal court jury found Tesla liable for the unconscionable racial bigotry Diaz faced while working at the Fremont plant. That lawsuit has been followed up by another, filed in November by Jessica Barraza who alleged “rampant sexual harassment” as well as continued verbal and physical abuse while she worked at the Fremont location.

Tesla’s Full Self Driving beta also turned out to be a mixed bag for the company in 2021. Following its debut in October of last year, beta 8.3 rolled out in May, doubling the size of the test program, before releasing beta 9 in July. Version 9’s rollout coincided with a new FSD subscription program charging customers $199 a month (or $99 a month if they’d previously purchased the now-discontinued Enhanced Autopilot feature) — assuming they already had the $1,500 FSD computer hardware installed in their vehicle.

However, Tesla’s decision to abandon radar-based autonomation sensors in favor of an optical-only setup in May led to a backlash from the NHTSA which subsequently forced the company to remove some of its driver-assist designations such as forward collision and lane departure warnings. In an effort to counter claims that the use of the Autopilot feature can cause drivers to become inattentive and less responsive once they resume control of the vehicle, Tesla activated its in-car driver monitoring cameras in late May.

FSD beta 10 arrived to great fanfare in September with owners noting smoother turns on city streets, improved display visuals and an overall improvement in the vehicle’s off-highway navigation. Those feelings were short-lived when, in October, the company was forced to revert its beta 10.3 implementation after becoming aware of "some issues," per Musk, including a "regression" with left turns. Users also reported phantom forward-collision warnings and auto-steering bugs.

The company’s FSD faults — which have been implicated in multiple crashes where Teslas inexplicably rammed into first responder vehicles and other civilian drivers as well as a widely-reported wreck in Houston with nobody behind the wheel — has led to calls for increased scrutiny from and by the NHTSA, NTSB, the US Senate, and even the California DMV.

The FSD feature also prompted a 300,000-unit recall at the behest of the Chinese government over the ease in which FSD can be activated, though that was far from the only issue Tesla faced with the nation. In April, China banned Tesla vehicles from its military bases and “key state-owned companies” over fears that the cars’ myriad cameras could be leveraged for espionage. After nearly a month of wrangling and appeals to social media, Tesla finally caved to China’s cybersecurity demands and established a local clearinghouse for that data.

The Musk

And what would a Year in Review of Tesla be without a look back at CEO Elon Musk’s unique brand of shenanigans? Last October, Musk unilaterally disbanded Tesla’s PR department, thereby making his personal Twitter account the first, last and only stop for confirmation of the company’s decisions. This January, Musk reversed course slightly and, instead of reforming the department, began hiring people to respond to customer complaints made toward him on the social media platform.

Speaking of tweets, Tesla was also sued this year for allegedly breaking a previously struck deal with the SEC by allowing Musk to continue sending unapproved, "erratic" tweets as well as for the company failing to obtain a neutral general counsel to reign in its CEO. The National Labor Relations Board also went after Tesla in 2021, finding that the company had illegally fired a union activist. The NLRB consequently demanded that the worker be rehired and Musk delete a 2018 union-busting tweet related to the case.

2021 was also the year that Musk leaned hard into crypto. Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of the stuff in February and briefly toyed with the idea of allowing customers to use the currency to purchase its vehicles, though those plans were quickly canned over concerns about Bitcoin mining’s environmental impacts. Musk also took time out of his Saturday Night Live hosting duties in May to crash the value of Bitcoin rival Dogecoin, though his later tweets helped the price of Dogecoin rebound, to a degree.

And then there was the whole Tesla “Robot” debacle, which I can’t even, I mean, it was literally just an actor in a spandex jumpsuit dancing around while Musk made a bunch of wildly unsubstantiated claims.

What’s Next

Looking ahead to 2022, Tesla appears to be on track for continued success. Its Berlin Gigafactory is nearly ready to start production and is expected to do so by the end of this month – barring any unforeseen setbacks. The company’s stockpile of chipsets and aggressive maneuvers to shore up supplies of battery precursor materials will insulate Tesla from many of the production bottlenecks that many other EV automakers are likely to struggle with throughout the new year.

However, even with Tesla’s record-breaking production figures from the past couple of years, the number of vehicles it delivers annually is still a small fraction of what more established automakers sell. BMW, for example, sold 2.3 million vehicles worldwide in 2020. In the same year, GM sold 2.5 million in the US alone. And as those companies increasingly turn their attention to the EV market while leveraging economies of scale that Tesla cannot match, Musk’s company could soon find itself relegated back to being a niche EV brand rather than an industry titan.

Google’s nascent Android Automotive operating system is not available on many cars yet, and the app selection can feel limited at times, but today it’s adding a web browser to its arsenal. And, no, we don’t mean Chrome. As of today, the privacy-focused Vivaldi browser is available on Polestar 2 vehicles. It’s a first for Android Automotive and the company, which had yet to offer its software on vehicles before today.

Vivaldi says safety was one of its top priorities when porting the browser over to Android Automotive. To that end, it’s only possible to start a session when your car is parked. If you start streaming something and then resume driving, Vivaldi will limit the video to audio-only. 

Naturally, privacy was also a priority for the team. The browser won’t store your browsing data on the car whenever you open a private tab. If you want to transfer your data between devices, you can do so by signing into your Vivaldi account. That information is something the company says Polestar won’t be able to access.

The Android Automotive version of Vivaldi is based on the company’s mobile release. You won’t find some functionality that is available in the desktop version – for instance, accordion tabs are missing – and Vivaldi has disabled a handful of other features. It’s not possible to download files and scan QR codes, for example. Otherwise, there aren’t many differences between the Android Automotive release and other versions of Vivaldi, and the company says updates will come at a regular cadence.