Tesla has issued a recall order for about 579,000 cars – some of every model it builds – over a problem with the sounds they make.
Electric vehicles are nearly silent. People are used to hearing cars approach. This can create a safety risk, as pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers might not hear an electric car. So federal law requires them to emit a certain level of external sound.
Tesla vehicles do this in ordinary operation. But the automaker added a playful function, called boombox, in a software update two years ago. Boombox allows drivers to play other sounds on an external speaker. Sounds played through the boombox feature could obscure the mandatory Pedestrian Warning Sound. Owners could also play a sound too quiet for pedestrians to hear.
The recall applies to 2017-2022 Model 3 sedans and 2020-2022 Model S sedans, Model X SUVs, and Model Y SUVs operating firmware release 2020.48.25 and later releases.
Over-The-Air Repair
Owners don’t need to bring their cars in for repair. Tesla will fix the problem with an over-the-air software update. And they won’t lose boombox functionality entirely. After the update, it will no longer work while the vehicle is in motion. Owners can still play external sounds with the car parked.
Why There Seems to be a String of Tesla Recalls
You may have noticed an increasing number of Tesla recalls in recent weeks — this is at least the fourth in under a month, all involving the automaker’s entire fleet of cars. It begs an explanation, and we have one.
Almost every car on the market today is software-heavy, but no other automaker builds as many software features into its cars as Tesla. The company frequently pushes out updates that add small tweaks and playful new features. Many owners delight in the way that keeps their ownership experience new.
But, as with all complex software, it introduces regular bugs. For most of its history, the company corrected these problems quietly, without a formal recall campaign. But Tesla has come under regulatory scrutiny for that practice.
Automakers have faced legal troubles before over so-called “silent recalls,” in which a company fixes a problem without telling owners or the federal government.
Tesla doesn’t operate a public relations department or answer questions from the press. So we’re forced to speculate. Tesla may have concluded that sending out a software patch without a formal recall notice to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could be interpreted as a silent recall. The company is now notifying NHTSA of many software fixes it might have done silently in the past.
They are correcting genuine safety issues — an electric car moving in silence is illegal for good reasons. But so far, none of them have required owners to bring their cars in for repair.
It’s not unusual for a car to be recalled several times during its useful life. Automakers try to reach every owner to ask them to bring the car in. But they don’t always reach everyone. Check whether your car needs any free repairs with the easy VIN tool at our recall center.
