Tesla was one of the many car brands to have record breaking sales in 2021, despite global chip shortages.
But some are now questioning whether the profits were the result of compromises that could involve vehicle and passenger safety.
According to a report from CNBC, two Tesla employees and internal correspondence reveal Tesla allegedly removed a redundant electronic control unit from the steering racks of some Model 3 and Model Y vehicles so the company could reach production targets near the end Q4 for 2021.
The part that was reportedly removed from the vehicles was a redundant controller which interprets the steering wheel movements of the driver into usable commands that can be understood by the vehicle's electric power steering rack.
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Tesla vehicles that are on the road today are not steer-by-wire, which means there is still a physical link between the steering wheel and the rack. So, controlling the vehicle manually is not said to be an issue.
But what we don't know, is whether it could affect the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), like Tesla's Autopilot.
This change was not communicated with Tesla customers, reports say, which is similar to how Tesla removed passenger-side lumbar support in early 2021 and shipped vehicles without some USB ports just recently.
According to the two Tesla employees who spoke with CNBC anonymously, there was at least one internal discussion about whether or not Tesla should inform customers of the change. The decision: to keep quiet.
The employees were unsure whether or not the change would affect the use of Tesla's "Full-Self Driving" features, or whether the automaker would have to retrofit any missing hardware to restore the functions lost by the change when it comes to Tesla's Autopilot becoming a more advanced partial-autonomy system.
"My personal guess is that we’ll achieve Full Self-Driving this year at a safety level significantly greater than a person," said CEO Elon Musk during the company's year-end earnings call. "So the cars in the fleet essentially becoming self-driving via software update, I think, might end up being the biggest increase in asset value of any asset class in history."
The decision might have saved the company some money and allowed it to reach its financial goals for 2021, but it's not yet apparent how this might affect these vehicles in the future.
Tesla could end up needing to retrofit the missing hardware, which could prove to be rather costly and time-consuming in the long run.