Tesla
Tesla has yet another federal headache to deal with. On March 4, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Defects Investigation Service launched a preliminary investigation following two reports of his Tesla Model Y steering wheel slipping out of a driver’s hand while driving. .
In both cases, the 2023 model year Y required repairs that involved removing the steering wheel on the production line, according to NHTSA’s ODI. The wheels were reinstalled, but only held in place by friction. Tesla employees never replaced the fixing bolt that holds the steering wheel to the steering column. In 2018, Ford had to recall more than 1.3 million of his vehicles due to a similar problem with improperly sized bolts.
ODI’s documents state that “sudden separation occurred when the force applied to the steering wheel while the vehicle was running overcame the resistance of frictional resistance,” and both accidents were caused by electric vehicles running. It is believed to have occurred while the distance was still small.
In one of the two cases, the wheel came off five days after the vehicle was delivered to a customer in New Jersey, according to an Associated Press report. I was telling someone I could fix a broken car for $103.96. Tesla later replaced the car for free.
In addition to this investigation, NHTSA has asked whether Tesla Autopilot can detect and avoid motorcycles, why Autopilot continues to crash into emergency vehicles, and whether removal of Tesla vehicles’ radar sensors caused hundreds of phantom braking events. are also investigating.
Tesla is also the subject of a Department of Justice investigation into whether it misled customers about how Autopilot works. This is also being pursued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
