Tesla is recalling more than 1.8 million vehicles in the United States owing to a software failure to detect an unlatched hood, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Tuesday.
According to the national auto safety authority, the problem implies that an unlatched hood might fully open and block the driver’s view, increasing the likelihood of a collision. According to the NHTSA, Tesla has begun to distribute an over-the-air (OTA) software upgrade to address the problem.
The recall concerns a subset of Model S, Model X, Model Y, and 2021–2024 Model 3 vehicles – whose hood latches were made by Magna Closures Co Ltd. in China.
Tesla claimed to have started looking into consumer reports of unintentional hood openings in some Model 3 and Model Y cars in China in March. It also started an in-service vehicle inspection and latch hardware recovery. The company admittedly started engineering investigations in the areas last month to evaluate hood latch assemblies and decided to initiate a recall earlier this month, despite the fact that fewer such incidents happened in North America and Europe.
The latest recall is the largest that Tesla has carried out since December, when it announced a recall for 2.03 million American cars, or almost all of its vehicles on American roads at the time, to install additional security measures in its Autopilot system.
