On July 30th, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States, Tesla launched a large-scale recall, which involves Model 3, Model S, Model X from 2021 to 2024 and Model Y from 2020 to 2024, totaling 1.8496 million vehicles.
The reason for Tesla's large-scale recall this time is that the software may not be able to detect the engine hood being unlocked, and the unlocked engine hood may be completely opened, obstructing the driver's line of sight and increasing the risk of collision. This recall will be completed through remote upgrade (OTA).
As of the close of July 30th US time, Tesla's stock price fell more than 4% to $222.62, and its total market value shrank by over $30 billion overnight to $711.2 billion.
This is Tesla's largest recall since December last year. At that time, Tesla recalled 2.03 million vehicles in the United States, almost covering all Tesla cars on American roads at that time, because the autonomous driving control systems of these vehicles were insufficient to prevent misoperation.
This Tesla recall has not yet affected the Chinese market. However, within a month after the US market recall in December last year, on January 5th of this year, Tesla also launched the largest recall in the history of the Chinese market, involving vehicles including some imported Model S, Model X, Model 3 and domestically produced Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles with production dates between August 26, 2014 and December 20, 2023, totaling over 1.61 million units. The reason for the recall is also related to the possible misoperation of the driver during the process of enabling assisted driving of the vehicle.
And this year's recall has made Tesla the car brand with the largest number of recalls in the Chinese market in the first half of this year, surpassing Honda (excluding Acura) in second place by over 700000 vehicles.
For Tesla, large-scale car recalls of over a million vehicles are no longer a new phenomenon. Last May, Tesla launched a recall in China involving over 1.1 million vehicles, including some imported Model S, Model X, Model 3 and domestically produced Model 3 and Model Y cars produced between January 12, 2019 and April 24, 2023. This is basically equivalent to all of Tesla's electric vehicles sold in the Chinese market in the past four years. This Tesla recall is also conducted through OTA, allowing drivers to choose an energy recovery braking strategy.
The aforementioned large-scale recalls by Tesla were resolved through OTA push notifications of newly developed features. After OTA technology is widely used in the field of recalls, it has improved recall efficiency and reduced recall costs, but on the other hand, it has also blurred the boundary between "OTA" and "recall".
According to the "Regulations on the Management of Defective Automotive Product Recalls" and the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Supervision of Remote Upgrading Technology Recalls for Automobiles" issued by the General Office of the State Administration for Market Regulation, software issues are also quality issues. If automotive companies use OTA upgrades to eliminate product defects, they should be treated as "recalls".