News
Former Ford CEO hammers Tesla’s Autopilot probe: ‘It’s half the vehicles Tesla has ever built’
Former Ford CEO Mark Fields hammered Tesla’s Autopilot probe from the NHTSA earlier today on an episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box, stating that over half of the cars the automaker has ever built are involved in the investigation.
Earlier this week, it was announced the NHTSA was launching a probe into the Autopilot system Tesla has equipped on its vehicles. The investigation involves all four of Tesla’s models from year 2014 to 2021, as it aligns with the specifications that the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation listed in its preliminary report. In total, some 765,000 vehicles are going to be a part of the investigation, although only 11 crashes are listed on the document, which the agency shared with Teslarati.
“The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has identified eleven crashes in which Tesla models of various configurations have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes,” it says.
Fmr. Ford CEO Fields: “It’s literally over half of the vehicles Tesla has ever built.”
Mark Fields, who was CEO of Ford Motor Company from 2014 to 2017, appeared on CNBC this morning to talk about the probe. “This is a significant investigation,” he said. However, Fields misidentifies which Tesla semi-autonomous driving suite is actually under investigation, as he claims it is the Full Self-Driving package. FSD is significantly different than Autopilot based on features and functionality alone, and the NHTSA never mentions the Full Self-Driving suite at any point in its document.
Fields points toward the population density of the investigation as a telltale sign that this could be bad news for Tesla, as over half of its produced vehicles could be subjected to a massive recall that could cost the automaker billions of dollars. Tesla surpassed the 1 million production mark in 2020 and is nearing the 2 million vehicle mark this year.
“If you look at the model years, this is a very large time period they’re investigating: 2014-2021. If you look at the number of potentially affected vehicles, it’s …. literally over half of the vehicles $TSLA has ever built,” auto exec Mark Fields on the NHTSA investigation. pic.twitter.com/kwcUT5Jd47
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) August 17, 2021
The investigation does focus on a larger than half portion of Tesla’s production population in its short history. However, it is worth noting that the company did not mass produce vehicles until 2017 with the introduction of the Model 3. Additionally, Autopilot is available on all Tesla vehicles and was included as a standard feature in March 2019. Full Self-Driving is not a part of this investigation, and is a separate $10,000 charge on top of the vehicle’s purchase price but is completely optional.
Fields said that the investigation could take between a year and a year and a half based on his knowledge of the NHTSA investigation process. If the NHTSA concludes the Autopilot functionality is not up to its standards, it can issue a recall, Fields added.
The 11 Accidents: a Breakdown
According to the NHTSA documents, the 11 incidents involving a Tesla occurred when the vehicles collided with first responders. However, several investigations have already shown that drivers operating the vehicles in some of the incidents were under the influence of drugs or alcohol (2), had suspended licenses (1), were not following instructions that Tesla outlines for Autopilot use, or was caused by driver inattention (4).
In February 2021, a Tesla driver injured five deputy constables when the vehicle collided with a police cruiser, causing a chain collision. The driver was arrested on suspicion of DWI.
In March 2021, a driver in Lansing, Michigan, with a suspended license, crashed into a police cruiser. The vehicle was operating on Autopilot, but the driver was illegally operating the vehicle.
These are just two examples of what the accidents were caused by, and drivers could be blamed for several instances that the NHTSA lists. Autopilot has been one of the safest ways to operate a motor vehicle, according to statistics from Tesla that showed there was one accident every 4.19 million miles in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. The national average was one crash every 484,000 miles.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
News
How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners
Tesla’s Roadster uses fans, active wings and cold gas thrusters to create grip at any speed.
Tesla’s new Roadster is best known for flipping through the air in Texas, but the technology that matters most for a race track is the stuff that keeps it on the ground. Tesla’s Roadster page describes a multi-mode fan and ground sealing system that acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the car. Tesla says it provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.
That is the key difference from the wings and diffusers on a normal supercar. Conventional aero only makes downforce when the car is moving, and it grows with speed, so a car has the least grip in the slow corners and under hard braking. A fan system makes downforce at any speed. Tesla’s patent, which we covered last year, describes fans and deployable skirts that create sealed or partially sealed regions under the car, with the fans extracting air to lower the pressure and increase grip and stability.
Still processing this … the most unreal thing I’ve seen. https://t.co/HtEuvnkZjY
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 16, 2026
Tesla pairs that with active wings, a next generation steer by wire system and a Track Mode that lowers the car and changes the suspension, with high downforce and low drag settings for the circuit. To keep weight down, Tesla points to magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, manual controls and a fixed seat position, which it says lets the car respond to driver inputs almost instantly.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
The cold gas thrusters are the other half. On the Thrust version they sit at the rear and Tesla says they take the car from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.9 seconds, while the Rocket version adds perimeter thrusters for forward, upward and lateral rotational movement. Tesla says the all electric actuators make micro adjustments within a fraction of a second.
Roadster transforms in Track Mode
These aero features aren’t just for looks: they provide the best passive downforce package of any road car (approaching F1 levels!) with wing actuation driven by the @Tesla_Optimus actuator system https://t.co/AqrC4qUga9
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
Musk has been talking about records for years. In June 2019 he said, “We’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars.” That September, when a follower asked whether the Roadster would beat the Nürburgring production car record, he replied with one word, “Absolutely,” as we reported at the time. In February 2024 he said Tesla had “radically increased the design goals” for the car and that its sub one second 0 to 60 time would be “the least interesting part.”
There are caveats. Tesla has not published a lap time or a verified cornering figure, so the record talk is still a promise rather than a result. Tesla also says the car is not approved for public road use, and the thruster features are limited to the Rocket trim, which is invite only. Fan cars have also been banned or withdrawn before, and getting a sealed underbody to work on a rough public road is a harder problem than on a smooth track. The first real test will be an official lap at a circuit.