The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has officially asked Tesla to recall158,000 Model S and Model X electric vehicles due to an onboard computer problem. The NHTSA sent a letter to Tesla requesting that the company issue a recall.
The letter states:
The Office of Defects Investigation (“ODI”) of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) is investigating a potential safety-related defect concerning incidents of media control unit (“MCU”) failures resulting in loss of rearview camera and other safety related vehicle functions in certain model year (“MY”) 2012 through 2018 Tesla Model S and MY 2016 through 2018 Tesla Model X vehicles.
Certain of these Model S and X vehicles were equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with an integrated 8GB eMMC NAND flash memory device (the “subject vehicles”). Part of this 8GB storage capacity is used each time the vehicle is started. The eMMC NAND cell hardware fails when the storage capacity is reached, resulting in failure of the MCU. The MCU is the vehicle’s display screen, which controls certain aspects of performance subject to Federal motor vehicle safety standards (“FMVSS”)1 and other safety-relevant functions. Specifically, failure of the MCU results in loss of the rearview/backup camera2 and loss of HVAC (defogging and defrosting setting controls (if the HVAC status was OFF status prior to failure). The failure also has an adverse impact on the Autopilot advanced driver assistance system (“ADAS”), as well as turn signal functionality due to the possible loss of audible chimes, driver sensing, and alerts associated with these vehicle functions.
To read the full statement recall, click here.
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