Tesla Recalls More Than 800,000 Vehicles Over Safety Issue

Tesla has revealed it's recalling over 817,000 vehicles in the US due to a fault discovered in the car's safety system.

On Thursday, the 2021-2022 Model S and Model X, 2017-2022 Model 3, and 2020-2022 Model Y were revealed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to not comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard on 'Occupant Crash Protection'.

It was discovered that the audible alert which is meant to sound when the driver hasn't put on their seat belt properly didn't always activate in Elon Musk's vehicles.

Tesla (Alamy)

The recall was detailed in a safety recall report titled 'Part 573'.

The explanation to why the vehicles did not comply with regulations states: 'FMVSS 208, S7.3 (a) - (1), requires the audible seat belt reminder chime to activate upon vehicle start (i.e., driver presses the brake pedal after entering the vehicle) if the driver seat belt is not detected as buckled. On certain MY 2021-2022 Model S and Model X vehicles and on all MY Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, a software error may prevent the chime from activating upon vehicle start under certain circumstances.'

The report went on to note that 'the condition is limited to circumstances where the chime was interrupted in the preceding drive cycle and the seat belt was not buckled subsequent to that interruption,' and that the condition 'does not affect the audible seat belt reminder chime from activating when the vehicle exceeds 22km/h and the driver seat belt is not detected as buckled'.

Tesla (Alamy)

Tesla was first made aware of the issue on January 6 by the South Korea Automobile Testing and Research Institute (KATRI) in a document filed with the NHTSA, CNN reports.

As of January 31, Tesla reported to the NHTSA that it hadn't been made aware of any crashes or injuries which were caused by the lack of audible alert.

The vehicle manufacturing company detailed that the software error would be solved by an over-the-air (OTA) update.

It reassured that the visual seat belt reminder remains accurate despite the faults with the audible reminder chime.

Tesla (Alamy)

This isn't the first time Tesla has had to recall vehicles, after nearly half a million cars were recalled in 2017 over potential issues with their rear-view camera

Furthermore, on Tuesday, February 1, another safety risk was identified in 53,822 vehicles in the US. Some models were discovered to perform a 'rolling stop' rather than a complete stop at intersections as a result of the Full Self-Driving (Beta) software.

NHTSA confirmed that over-the-air software will also be used to solve this fault as well.

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