Customers are looking at a Tesla Motors Inc. Model X electric vehicle. exhibited at the company’s showroom in Shanghai, China, on Tuesday, September 12, 2017.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday asked Tesla to recall 158,716 of its Model S and Model X vehicles manufactured before 2019, after owners complained about touch screen errors that led to the loss of more many safety features.
The affected cars, manufactured at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant include Tesla Model S sedans manufactured between 2012 and 2018 and Model X SUVs in the 2016-2018 model years.
Tesla may refuse the recall, but should provide a full explanation of the reason to the NHTSA, which may then propose further action. Recalling 158,716 vehicles would account for about 10% of Tesla’s reported lifetime production by the end of 2020. Tesla produced its million electric vehicles in March 2020, CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter at the time, and in the last three quarters of 2020 the company has produced more than 400,000 additional vehicles.
The news of the letter was previously reported by Reuters.
The memory devices in some Tesla MCUs have a limited “write cycle”, which means that they – and therefore the media control unit itself – will not work well or not at all after hitting a number of programs. or deleted cycles.
Affected Tesla vehicle owners have previously told CNBC that the display on their media control units (or MCUs) will sometimes remain blank, in part or in full. Problems with the touch screen have affected drivers’ ability to use heating, air conditioning, defrosting and demisting systems in their cars or to use rear view cameras and Tesla driver functions while parking and driving.
In a letter to Tesla Vice President Al Prescott, the federal vehicle safety authority wrote that Tesla’s MCU problems could increase the risk of drivers crashing due to “possible loss of bells, driver detection and warnings” that are part of Tesla Autopilot, the company’s advanced driver assistance system.
Failure rates of media control units were up to 17% for older Tesla Model S vehicles (manufactured from 2012 to 2015) and up to 4% for cars manufactured by Tesla from 2016 to 2018, it was said in letter. And MCU failures are expected to increase as cars age and remain in use, NHTSA said, citing Tesla projections.
“Considering Tesla’s MCU repair projects, even MEA’s [model year] The vehicles subjected in 2018 will have a 100% failure of the MCU in about 10 years, “NHTSA investigators wrote.
Tesla has previously offered a “warranty extension” to calm customers upset about the defect. As CNBC reported at the time, some owners who had paid out of pocket to replace the media control unit could recover their costs under the extended warranty.
Read the full letter from NHTSA to Tesla.