It may not be February, but in a way, it kind of feels like Groundhog Day because Tesla recently issued a new recall for a number of their famous and popular vehicles. This latest recall is another in a year where the company has already issued several other recalls for various issues with their vehicles.
The most notable of the recalls arguably would be for the much talked about Tesla Cybertruck. The vehicle, since it was first announced, has been a hot button topic with many talking about it both in a positive and negative light. The Cybertruck recall has garnered a lot of attention and you may read our previous coverage of it in our related content section.
Now recalls for vehicles, regardless of the make or model, are not fun to deal with. However, in regards to this recall objectively, it could be much worse. The issue at hand responsible for the recall is a technical problem with the hood of particular year Tesla models.
The affected vehicles are certain model year (MY) 2021-2024 Model 3 vehicles and all MY 2021-2024 Model S, MY 2021-2024 Model X, and MY 2020-2024 Model Y vehicles. The issue, for intensive purposes, is a technical glitch where the latch assembly may not detect that the vehicle’s hood is open.
Basically, the notification you would see that would indicate your vehicle’s hood is open would not activate, therefore not informing drivers that their hood is in an open condition while on the road. The thought of driving down any road only to see your vehicle’s hood pop up and obstruct your view causes potential danger and hazardous conditions not just for the Tesla drivers but for others as well.
Tesla voluntarily reported the issue itself once it was discovered to be a problem and have worked with the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration so that owners may use Tesla’s own website or the NHTSA website to search their vehicle VIN numbers to determine if their car is one of the affected.
Speaking of affected, this recall is estimated to impact just short of two million Tesla’s. An article by Reuters lists a more accurate estimate of 1.85 million vehicles. An interesting point Reuters also made is that this issue began appearing in Tesla vehicles overseas in China back in March.
Since that time, Tesla has spent time researching other regions and developing a fix for the problem. In their research, Tesla discovered the same hood issue affected fewer cars in both Europe and North America but a fix to the problem has been developed.
Normally when it comes to recalls, the biggest issue is that they are a pain to get taken care of. Usually that pain comes in the form of calling your local dealership, scheduling an appointment for the recalled issue to be fixed, being without your vehicle for an unspecified amount of time, and then hoping that fixing the problem won’t take more than a day.
This is where Tesla has a leg up on competitors. Tesla developed a solution to their vehicle hood issue and that solution is a firmware update. A simple firmware update is all that’s needed to correct the issue if your car is one of the millions affected. No service appointments are required at a dealership, no handing your key over to anyone so they can bring your car to the garage, and most importantly, the update is free of charge.
Tesla began rolling out the update labeled 2024.20.3 back in mid-June and also began contacting owners of potentially affected vehicles. The update is a simple and efficient solution to a potentially dangerous problem.