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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has officially requested Tesla to recall approximately 158,000 Model S / X vehicles. This applies to car bodies produced before March 2018.
The reason for the recall is used by the infotainment system (Media Control Unit: MCU) of the target Tesla vehicle.8GB eMMC reaches overwrite limit and becomes unusableThis will cause the touch screen to stop working. Tesla announced in July 2020 that it would reduce the Model S / X’s touchscreen warranty period from the original four years to two years due to this “eMMC lifespan” issue.
However, NHTSA is safe because if the touch screen of a Tesla car becomes unavailable, important driving functions such as defogger, back camera, blinker, and even some driving assist functions will operate via this system. I was considering requesting a recall because it could cause problems and accidents.
According to a report submitted by Tesla to NHTSA, the Model S / X MCUs “inevitably failed”, and the trend analysis of sold vehicles shows that the failure forecast from 2020 to 2028 is the highest in 2022. It was said that many failures would occur. In addition, the failure rate will reach 30% or more in a specific manufacturing month. In addition, NHTSA received complaints and requests for recalls from owners who were excluded from the replacement and repair of the MCU due to Tesla’s revision of the warranty period.
In response to this situation, NHTSA formally requested Tesla to recall all 158,000 units that would eventually have problems. According to NHTSA, other automakers are recalling if there is a similar loss of functionality, and Tesla’s software update at the time the problem surfaced is “procedurally It is evaluated as “substantially insufficient”. Tesla points out that it should be known that all MCUs will eventually fail.
Even though it is an EV, the design of adopting eMMC for the MCU of a car, which will continue to be used for 5 to 10 years if you ride it normally, is a mistake. Even if you think in common sense, it would be better for Tesla to accept the recall and repair or replace the MCU because it is clearly known to be defective.
Until now, Tesla has been reluctant to respond, shortening the warranty period as mentioned above, making the owner wait until the MCU does not work even within the warranty period, and even if a failure occurs, replace it. Electrek reports that there have been some reports of attempts to avoid it.
Despite the fact that Corona struck the world in 2020, Tesla’s market capitalization surpassed Toyota to become the number one in the world, and CEO Elon Musk became the number one in the world with a ranking of chiefs. It was a year with a lot of talk. However, if the response that disregards customer safety becomes a norm, I must think that someday it will be a painful return.
source：NHTSA (PDF)
via：Electrek
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