According to a study conducted by iSeeCars, Teslas are most likely to be affected by recalls over a 30-year period. To provide these estimates, the firm relied on data from NHTSA, the US federal agency in charge of road safety. Explanations.
The automotive research firm iSeeCars has just published a rather astonishing report. Explanations: the iSeeCars teams have compiled and analyzed all safety recalls issued between 2014 and 2023 by NHTSAthe US federal agency in charge of road safety.
Using this data, iSeeCars has calculated the probabilities what the most popular vehicles of the moment will have to be subject to one or more recalls over a period of 30 years.
“Examination of NHTSA recall data confirmed the existence of a wide range of recall activity between the most recalled and least recalled models. A car like the Lexus NX 300h or Nissan 370Z should have less than one recall over a 30 year lifespan. Conversely, the most recalled cars, including all four Tesla models, a Porsche and two Volkswagens, are expected to see 20 to 62 recalls.“, writes chief analyst Karl Brauer.
62 recalls for the Tesla Model Y over 30 years
Thus, we therefore learn that the Tesla Model Y, a model affected by numerous recalls in 2022 and 2023, could therefore be subject to 62 recalls in three decades. We then find in the ranking of cars with the most safety recalls the Porsche Panamera, then the Tesla Model 3, Model X and Model S.
According to iSeeCars, the average number of recalls for a car would be 4 over this same 30-year period. Be careful however, this study does not mean that security at Tesla is catastrophic.
Tesla fixes most problems remotely
In the facts, Tesla issued around 20 recalls in 2022 which impacted just under 4 million vehicles. The vast majority of recalls decreed actually concerned technical problems, which were corrected by the manufacturer via a simple remote software update (OTA).
In other words, it is necessary to make the distinction between the reminders requiring a passage to the garage, much more handicapping for the user, and those which can be regulated via a patch. Still, for the NHTSA, a recall must be decreed from the moment when a technical problem, whether easily correctable or not, poses a security risk to users.
Contrary to what the study may suggest, Tesla does not have the palm of the number of recalls. Indeed, Ford is number 1. According to the NHTSA, the American brand carried out 67 recalls in 2022. These campaigns concerned more than 8,600,000 vehicles. Among them, 700,000 were forced to go to the garage for problems with the drive shaft breaking and oil leaks which could cause a fire.
