Tesla recalls 3.5 million cars in five years due to awful builds and dangerous software

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla has often been criticised for poor construction and dangerous unfinished self-driving tech. In the past half-decade, Musk’s major money maker has had to recall almost three and a half million cars.

A new Tesla recall order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has forced 362,000 “self-driving” vehicles to be returned to factory. Via Gizmodo, this has led Tesla recalls to hit 3.4 million units in just five years.

As pointed out in the report, 2018 saw the electric car company recall 123,000 Tesla Model S vehicles. Recalled due to an issue with the cheap bolts used in the cars’ construction, the company recalled half of its total number of sold vehicles in one fell swoop.

This was followed by recalls for fault cruise control, boots randomly opening, cars passing stop signs automatically, broken safety alerts, faulty windows, broken airbags, power steering not working and bugged taillights. This is alongside the constant issues with Full Self-Driving that is still allowed to be used on roads.

In recent years, Tesla cars have been the subject of countless roadside accidents. These have ranged from dangerous incidents causing bodily hard and property damage to numerous deaths.

Just recently, one Tesla driver was trapped in their vehicle as it set on fire. Due the the car’s electronic doors, the driver was stuck, unable to open the car in order to escape.

The company’s failures to create safe self-driving technology has not only led to numerous Tesla recalls but also lawsuits. Since 2015, the vehicle company has promised full autonomous driving every two years, causing some to accuse it of fraudulent behaviour.

In September 2021, a lawsuit was filed against CEO Elon Musk for promises surrounding full self-driving. For example, the CEO claimed that the technology would be able to drive itself across America.

During a statement, Tesla legal officials claimed that the company’s failure to fulfil its CEO’s claims are not fraudulent. They said: “Mere failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud.”

Nevertheless, Full Self-Driving is still a huge issue for the company. Due to the sheer amount of issues with the software, safety investigations are still ongoing with vehicles, often resulting in Tesla recalls. When will they hit 5 million recalls? This year?

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