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Rivian issues airbag sensor recall, covering over 12,000 vehicles

Credit: Rivian

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Rivian has recalled 12,716 vehicles produced with a faulty sensor that can cause issues with the R1T or R1S passenger airbag system.

Rivian has issued its second major recall in six months, this one relating to the passenger airbag system being affected by an “automatic locking retractor” (ALR) sensor. The recall affects 12,716 vehicles, including R1Ts and R1Ss, and plagues roughly 89% of the vehicles the automaker produced in September of 2022, says the Wall Street Journal.

According to the NHTSA, the faulty ALR sensor can potentially impact the passenger airbag system, suppressing the airbag from deploying during a crash. This stems from the sensor being incorrectly stuck in the ON or OFF state:

“Rivian Automotive, LLC (Rivian) is recalling certain 2022 R1T and R1S vehicles. A faulty automatic locking retractor (ALR) sensor in the front passenger seat belt system may incorrectly report as ON when it is actually OFF, causing the suppression or improper deployment of the airbag.”

The NHTSA’s recall site states that recall letters will be sent to owners at the beginning of April, and customers with questions can contact either Rivian or the NHTSA. No injuries or deaths have been reported in connection with the faulty sensor.

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The discovery of this recall follows Rivian’s sub-par earnings report from Q4 of 2022, which was revealed yesterday. Among the main concerns from Rivian investors was the company’s new goal of producing 50,000 trucks this year, which some criticize as being too low.

Following this one-two punch of bad news, Rivian stock has plummeted by 16% today after falling 8% in after-market trading yesterday.

Rivian is not out of the woods yet and will face an uphill battle in production and revenue generation this year. That isn’t to say there isn’t a silver lining. Customers can look forward to 2 new skews of Rivian trucks coming this year, including dual motor and max-pack variants, both of which promise to improve the range and efficiency of the truck. Hopefully, this can end Rivian’s long stock price slide, especially as it heads toward profitability in less than two years.

Disclosure: William is not invested in Rivian.

What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

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Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo

“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class,” the Nvidia CEO said.

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Credit: Grok Imagine

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has offered high praise for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system during a Q&A at CES 2026, calling it “world-class” and “state-of-the-art” in design, training, and performance. 

More importantly, he also shared some insights about the key differences between FSD and Nvidia’s recently announced Alpamayo system. 

Jensen Huang’s praise for Tesla FSD

Nvidia made headlines at CES following its announcement of Alpamayo, which uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of autonomous driving solutions. Due to its focus on AI, many started speculating that Alpamayo would be a direct rival to FSD. This was somewhat addressed by Elon Musk, who predicted that “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.”

During his Q&A, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked about the difference between FSD and Alpamayo. His response was extensive:

“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class. They’ve been working on it for quite some time. It’s world-class not only in the number of miles it’s accumulated, but in the way it’s designed, the way they do training, data collection, curation, synthetic data generation, and all of their simulation technologies. 

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“Of course, the latest generation is end-to-end Full Self-Driving—meaning it’s one large model trained end to end. And so… Elon’s AD system is, in every way, 100% state-of-the-art. I’m really quite impressed by the technology. I have it, and I drive it in our house, and it works incredibly well,” the Nvidia CEO said. 

Nvidia’s platform approach vs Tesla’s integration

Huang also stated that Nvidia’s Alpamayo system was built around a fundamentally different philosophy from Tesla’s. Rather than developing self-driving cars itself, Nvidia supplies the full autonomous technology stack for other companies to use.

“Nvidia doesn’t build self-driving cars. We build the full stack so others can,” Huang said, explaining that Nvidia provides separate systems for training, simulation, and in-vehicle computing, all supported by shared software.

He added that customers can adopt as much or as little of the platform as they need, noting that Nvidia works across the industry, including with Tesla on training systems and companies like Waymo, XPeng, and Nuro on vehicle computing.

“So our system is really quite pervasive because we’re a technology platform provider. That’s the primary difference. There’s no question in our mind that, of the billion cars on the road today, in another 10 years’ time, hundreds of millions of them will have great autonomous capability. This is likely one of the largest, fastest-growing technology industries over the next decade.”

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He also emphasized Nvidia’s open approach, saying the company open-sources its models and helps partners train their own systems. “We’re not a self-driving car company. We’re enabling the autonomous industry,” Huang said.

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Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

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Credit: xAI/X

xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters. 

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

xAI’s turbine deal details

News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.

As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X. 

xAI’s ambitions 

Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”

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The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website. 

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Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

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Credit: xAI

xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. 

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

A $20 billion Series E round

As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. 

Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.

As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”

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xAI’s core mission

Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.

xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5. 

“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote. 

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