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Tesla is ending the year with a massive recall. The electric vehicle maker has issued a recall for nearly all of the cars it has sold in the Untied States due to Autopilot safety fears. That’s 2,031,220 vehicles, according to the official recall report. The report states that 100% of the vehicles have the defect.
The recall follows a multi-year investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) into crashes that are suspected to have happened while the Autopilot feature of Tesla vehicles was engaged. Some of those crashes resulted in deaths.
At issue, according to the recall report, is that a Tesla vehicle cannot adequately monitor if a driver is behaving responsibly while Autopilot is engaged. Despite its name, Autopilot is not a full self-driving feature. While Autopilot is engaged, the driver is still the operator of the car and “is responsible for the vehicle’s movement with their hands on the steering wheel at all times, remaining attentive to surrounding road conditions, and intervening (e.g., steer, brake, accelerate or apply the stalk) as needed to maintain safe operation,” according to the report.
Tesla will issue a software update to all the affected vehicles. The software update will include “incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged, which includes keeping their hands on the steering wheel and paying attention to the roadway.”
The additional controls and alerts may include, depending on the vehicle, “increasing the prominence of visual alerts on the user interface, simplifying engagement and disengagement of Autosteer, additional checks upon engaging Autosteer and while using the feature outside controlled access highways and when approaching traffic controls, and eventual suspension from Autosteer use if the driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility while the feature is engaged,” according to the report.
The Tesla vehicles included in the recall are the following models that were equipped with Autosteer:
- 2012-2023 Tesla Model S
- 2016-2023 Tesal Model X
- 2017-2023 Tesla Model 3
- 2020-2023 Tesla Model Y
The software update should begin rolling out to some Tesla vehicles over the air shortly, with the remaining vehicles receiving the update “at a later date.” A timeframe for when that later date may be was not given in the report.
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