Tesla Recalls Over 321K Model 3 And Model Y EV Cars Due To This Safety Issue

In a second recall announced within almost a 24-hour period, Tesla Motors is recalling more than 321,000 of their cars. The issue at hand is a possible failure of the rear tail light(s) to illuminate, and affects 2020-2023 Model Y and 2023 Model 3 models. The filing published on Saturday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) applies to vehicles in the United States only.

The document describes the problem as follows: "In rare instances, taillamps on one or both sides of affected vehicles may intermittently illuminate due to a firmware anomaly that may cause false fault detections during the vehicle wake up process. Brake lamps, backup lamps and turn signal lamps are not affected by this condition and continue to operate as designed."

This recall follows another announcement on Friday when the electric vehicle manufacturer recalled about 30,000 Model Xs stateside due to an issue that could cause the front passenger airbag to incorrectly deploy. Coincidentally, the Friday recall also caused the Tesla shares to plunge 3% to their lowest in two years.

Currently there have been no reports of injuries or crashes occurring from these issues; the tail light issue was in response to international market customer complaints. Nonetheless, Tesla intends on releasing over-the-air (OTA) updates to address them both, with customers being notified beginning in January 2023. It is unclear if there will be similar fixes for foreign market Teslas.

While some finger-pointers will take these announcements (there has been 19 recalls this year) as proof of the ongoing quality issues at the firm, it is also a positive sign that safety issues are dealt quickly. We do not just mean in terms of publicly addressing them, but also the means of fixing several of these problems just as quickly through OTA updates.