Tesla owners cannot seem to catch a break, and now, Model S owners are facing a recall due to severe issues with the construction of the car. But his is not a normal situation in which a model faces a recall because of an issue, reports are stating that this electric vehicle model is subject to 37 separate recalls, which means 37 different issues. Since Elon Musk’s company stole the spotlight, these types of news are becoming a lot more common, and controversy seems to follow these vehicles around.
In all fairness, there are two main caveats to this story. Caveat number one is that most recalls on electric vehicles have something to do with software updates and upgrades that for whatever reason have not been automatically installed and need to be done so manually. This is not a Tesla issue, that is a “mostly electrified car” issue and affects most modern models.
Caveat number two is that the 37 recall number has not been confirmed anywhere, it was picked up by several news outlets like WIRED and repeated, which means that the actual number could be a lot lower. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are only nine official recalls for the Model S. While this number is still not great, it is nowhere near 37, as there is a big difference between a car that has had a few technical hiccups due to potential safety and quality control issues and a car that is about to explode.
And as we have explained with caveat number one, not all recalls mean that the car has some terrible issue, it might just mean that the company, in this case Tesla is urging their customers to reconnect the car to the internet so that a new patch or software upgrade can be installed. If they cannot do that themselves, a recall ensures that they will take it to a dealership to get the problem under control before there is a failure that requires more action.
The Tesla Model S recall controversy
If we add all reports including updates, minor tweaks, or early concerns that did not escalate into major issues along with the serious problems that the cars have faced, the total number could potentially accumulate to 37 total “recalls”, but that does not mean that these issues were all serious or confirmed. The real recall process for a vehicle is not quick, it involves investigations, reports from Tesla, and then decisions by regulators, and some issues get fixed before they ever become public while others take months to work through the system.
But the media is quick to report, especially on controversial companies, and Tesla is nothing if not controversial. So much so that these new headlines have even attracted the attention of politicians, especially given the fact that Musk has a position which is heavily intertwined with the current Administration.
While that could be a good thing for many companies, in the case of Tesla it did not give the desired outcome. People may have forgotten for a minute about the number of recalls, but it then became a political battle over whether Tesla is a reliable company or if it is only in the spotlight because of presidential support.
Many have even begun to wonder, although this might be a fair question, if the number of problems, even if they are minor, that modern luxury cars like Tesla’s are having are worth the investment, and if trusting them is a mistake. Whatever conclusion they reach, turning back time is not an option, and we now have a lot of technology that we would like to keep in our cars, so that might mean that we need to strengthen quality controls and maybe redefine what we consider a recall.