Tesla has issued two over-the-air (OTA) recalls in China to improve Autopilot safeguards and to correct an issue with door locks in the Model S and Model X. The OTA recalls come a few weeks after the same recalls were issued in Canada and the United States.
According to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the Autopilot update will be deployed to 1,610,105 Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y cars across the country. As with the recall in North America, which covered over 2 million cars, SAMR say the update does not reduce the abilities of Autopilot but “further encourages drivers to perform their driving duties and comply with driving regulations when this function is enabled, so as to reduce the risk of collision caused by misuse of the assisted steering function.”
The OTA Autopilot recall was initiated after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into Autopilot and suspected collisions with parked emergency vehicles. Despite the investigation lasting more than two years, the only changes Tesla was required to implement were improvements to the driver monitoring features to further prevent drivers from abusing the system.
The second OTA recall impacts 7,538 Model S and Model X vehicles produced between October 26, 2022 and November 16, 2023. In these vehicles the the doors may open during a collision, posing a potential safety hazard. The cause of the issue is missing lockout functionality, which was found to have been inadvertently left out of the 2021.36 and later software releases. Installing the latest software update will add the lockout functionality back to the impacted vehicles.
Unlike traditional recalls, both of these can be fixed by installing a simple OTA software update, which can be done at your home without the need to visit a Service Center.
You can read the full recall notices from SAMR here.
