- Tesla says an issue with a circuit board may cause certain Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to lose power steering assistance.
- The company is recalling 376,241 affected vehicles.
- Yet recall may be a strong term, as the issue has already been fixed via an over-the-air update, the federal filing shows.
Tesla is recalling 376,241 2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles due to an issue that could cause them to lose power steering assistance, the company said in a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Low-speed maneuevering can overstress a circuit board in the power steering system. It’ll continue working as the vehicle drives, but the filing says that it will stop providing steering assistance after you come to a stop, even if you start driving again. That could increase the likelihood of an accident, which is why it’s subject to a safety recall.
The good news is that if you own an affected vehicle, you don’t have to do anything. Tesla has already released an over-the-air update to solve the issue, the company said. That’s a common way the company addresses recalls, and a key advantage to a true software-defined vehicle.
Yet the company also sure seems to have a lot of recalls. That shows the double-edged sword in this approach: It can easily fix most software problems, which means the company tends to do less bug testing than competitors. This issue became relatively widespread before being addressed.
“As of January 10, 2025, Tesla has identified 3,012 warranty claims and 570 field reports for U.S. vehicles that are related to or may be related to the condition,” the filing says. Tesla also faced a probe by a foreign regulator over this issue. It also had to issue a recall for power steering software in the Model X and Model Y a few years ago, as the system could develop issues after drivers hit potholes or drove on rough roads.
That, too, was fixed via an update. It’s good that Tesla owners rarely have to visit a service center to address these issues. It’s a key reason why manufacturers see cost and experience benefits in true software-defined vehicles.
Yet as we see Tesla doing more and more recalls, Volvo experiencing major delays and bugs related to its software-defined vehicles and Rivian coming dead last in a recent reliability study, one thing is clear: fixing everything after the fact can only get you so far.
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