Tesla Recalls 2 Million Vehicles—Nearly Every Car They've Sold in the U.S.
Tesla car
Tesla just announced a huge recall of more than 2 million vehicles in the U.S. after an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of around 1,000 accidents involving the Autopilot system that highlighted some issues.
The recall will reportedly update and fix the system and its features designed to make sure drivers stay aware and present while using Autopilot, as reported by the Associated Press.
A letter from the NHTSA to Tesla, via CNN, stated that the recall includes 2012-2023 Model S, 2016-2023 Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles, and it will mainly involve the Autopilot system feature Autosteer.
The letter said that when Autosteer is engaged, it falls short in its goal of keeping the driver engaged and paying attention, saying, "the prominence and scope of the feature's controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse."
According to a report from The Washington Post about the Autopilot issue, "at least eight fatal or serious Tesla crashes" happened in situations when the driver shouldn't have been using the feature.
The first fatal crash reportedly occurred in 2016, leading the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to call for limitations. But NTSB can not enforce regulations, only NHTSA can. The latter organization was called out for their lack of action at the time, with Jennifer Homendy, the chair of NTSB saying in a 2016 interview that it was “a real failure of the system.”
Many experts of auto safety call the December 2023 recall update a "compromise" and believe that it doesn't address the true problem of the Autopilot system.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, told the Associated Press, "It’s not digging at the root of what the investigation is looking at. It’s not answering the question of why are Teslas on Autopilot not detecting and responding to emergency activity?”
NHTSA also stated that their investigation remains open as they monitor the effect of the recall and Tesla's actions. Tesla has had many recent recalls for various issues, but few that affect this number of vehicles.
