Tesla is recalling 1.85 million vehicles in the United States due to risk of software failure to detect an unlatched bonnet. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an unlatched bonnet could fully open and obstruct the driver’s view, which raises the risk of a crash.
It added that Tesla began rolling out an over-the-air (OTA) software update in mid-June this year to fix the issue. With the updated software, the car will be able to alert the driver is the bonnet is not latched.
The recall affects 2021-2024 Model 3, Model S and Model X as well as 2020-2024 Model Y, with these vehicles reportedly equipped with a bonnet latch produced in China by Magna Closures. The issue was first investigated following customer complaints of unprompted bonnet opening instances in certain Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in China in March, which saw the company initiate a latch hardware recovery and in-service vehicle inspection.
Reuters reports that fewer such events occurred in Europe and North America, but the electric vehicle (EV) maker decided to issue a recall after carrying engineering studies in the regions to inspect bonnet latch assemblies last month.
This is Tesla’s biggest recall since December last year when it recalled over two million vehicles in the US – nearly all of its cars in the country – to add new safeguards in its Autopilot system to prevent driver misuse of the SAE Level 2 advanced driver-assistance feature.
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I found this news so confusing. So is it a problem with the latch or problem with Tesla software? Is it a recall that involves car going back to service centre or just OTA update to software. Is it the latch just unlatch by itself?
What’s confusing?
1) It’s clearly written as software failure to detect an unlatched bonnet. Crisp and clear to me.
2) It added that Tesla began rolling out an over-the-air (OTA) software update in mid-June this year to fix the issue. Please spend some effort in reading.
3) The latch won’t unlatch by itself. It is caused by drivers who failed to close the bonnet fully.
Both. The latch has a problem, then the software fail to detect the latch is opened.
If you can’t understand this, then you shouldn’t be driving a Tesla. Get something simpler and traditional.
so advance yet the basic thing like this failed!
when you leave everything to software with minimum hardware engineering…
There is really no need to replace latches opening (bonnet, glove box…) with software.