A seemingly trivial malfunction can become a source of serious danger when it comes to the possibility of the car’s hood lid spontaneously lifting while driving. A wide metal part simply blocks almost the entire field of vision of the driver and can provoke an accident. Tesla will have to recall approximately 1.85 million electric vehicles in the United States due to such a defect.
Image Source: Tesla
This became known from a report on the website of NHTSA – the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency. According to the published document, on June 18, Tesla began remotely distributing an on-board software update, which is traditional for most such cases, which was designed to eliminate a defect that prevents the driver from receiving a notification about an unlocked hood. The recall includes all Tesla Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S electric vehicles sold in the United States from January 2020 to the present.
According to the automaker, deformation of the hood lock microswitches on some electric vehicles made it impossible for the driver to receive notification of an unlocked lid, which, under vibration conditions when driving at high speed, could spontaneously open under the oncoming air flow and cause an accident. Fortunately, no one was harmed by such incidents, and in general, a similar problem manifested itself more on Tesla electric vehicles operated in China rather than in the USA or Europe. The first complaints from car owners about this problem began to come from China at the end of March this year. By July 20, the company was aware of only three customer complaints about this problem in the United States. Tesla estimates that only 1% of the EVs subject to recall are likely to exhibit such a defect. In any case, there is no need to visit the service, and the company compensates for the loss of sensitivity of the sensors programmatically as planned.