A media report says that Elon Musk-owned electric vehicle company Tesla is issuing a safety recall of more than 817,000 vehicles over faulty seatbelt chimes.
According to The Washington Post, the electric automaker will remotely update 817,143 vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said, after an issue where its seat-belt chimes go quiet on subsequent drives after having previously been interrupted.
The audible chime may not activate when the vehicle starts and the driver has not buckled their seat belt, – NHTSA wrote in an issue summary.
The agency said the issue puts Tesla out of compliance with “occupant crash protection” requirements of federal auto safety regulations.
“The driver may be unaware that their seat belt is not fastened, increasing the risk of injury during a crash,” wrote NHTSA official Alex Ansley, in a letter to Tesla describing the issue.
Meanwhile, a recent report said that Tesla is disabling a self-driving feature in nearly 54,000 vehicles that can prompt cars to autonomously perform a “rolling stop” — a maneuver in which the vehicle moves slowly through a stop sign without coming to a full stop.
As per a safety recall notice issued by the NHTSA, the consequence of this feature is that “failing to stop at a stop sign can increase the risk of a crash”.
The change will be made as an over-the-air software update to Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles using the beta version of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” driver-assist feature, release 2020.40.4.10 or newer.
