Tesla grabbed the headlines for the wrong reasons yet again after the world's leading electric car maker issued a recall for 817,143 vehicles in the United States because of a flaw in seat belt chime functionality. Tesla ordered the recall after finding out that seat belt reminder chimes in its vehicles may not sound when the cars are started, and the driver has not buckled up.
Federal motor vehicle safety laws require the seat belt reminder chimes to sound when vehicles are started, and that sound will only stop when the front belts are buckled. According to the recall documents posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the problem only occurs when the driver leaves the vehicle in the previous drive cycle while the chime is sounding.
Among the Tesla vehicles affected by the recall are the 2017 through 2022 Model 3 sedan, 2020 through 2022 Model Y SUV, and the 2021 and 2022 Model S sedan and Model X SUV. The scope of the U.S. recall is massive, with this being the largest in the history of Tesla.
South Korea's Automobile Testing and Research Institute first discovered the seat belt reminder chime problem on January 6. According to the documents, Tesla investigated the South Korean body's findings and determined on January 25 that a recall was needed for its vehicles.
Tesla insists, however, that the chime still sounds if the cars go over 13.7 miles per hour (22 kilometers per hour) and the driver's belt is not buckled. Tesla is sending out an over-the-air software update to the affected vehicles early this month to fix the problem. Safety regulators say that the risk of injury during a crash increases without the chime as the driver may not know that their seat belt is unbuckled.
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According to the recall documents posted, Tesla said that it is not aware of any crashes or injuries related to the problem. The company also said that a visual seat belt reminder is still displayed to warn the driver if their seat belt is unbuckled.
The timing of this recall couldn't be much worse for the world's most valuable carmaker as it comes just a few days after Tesla recalled around 54,000 of its vehicles due to a bug in its Full Self-Driving software. The said bug allows Tesla vehicles to roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt.
Tesla decided to disable the "rolling stop" feature, allowing vehicles to go through intersections with all-way stop signs at up to 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) per hour. The "Full Self-Driving" software is being tested by selected Tesla owners on public roads with the company stern on its warning that drivers must be ready to intervene at any time.
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