Tesla has issued a recall of 321,628 vehicles as a result of an issue that affects the Model 3 and the Model Y’s taillights. A firmware issue, the company writes, may prevent the lights from illuminating.
The fault was first brought to Tesla’s attention in October, largely in foreign markets, where customers complained that their taillights were not illuminating. Naturally, that’s a regulatory and a safety problem, as a vehicle driving at night without its taillights on could be missed by following traffic, increasing the risk of an accident.
Following the complaints, Tesla looked at the log data and firmware release details of the affected Model 3s and Ys. Its investigation found that, in rare cases, a firmware anomaly may cause false fault detections during the vehicle wake up process that could cause one or both tail lamps to fail to illuminate.
Read: Tesla Recalls 30,000 Model X SUVs For Airbag That’s Improperly Set Up For Children
Fortunately, the issue is limited to the taillights, and only they are affected. The brake lights, the turn signals, and the back-up lights all continue to work, despite this fault in Tesla’s firmware.
Tesla’s largest recall this month, it impacts Model 3s made between October 19 and November 5, 2022, as well as Model Ys made between May 24, 2020, and November 9, 2022.
In addition to this recall, errors in Tesla’s code have also caused the power steering on 40,000 Models X and S models to potentially fail. Another large scale fault from a recall issued this month caused the airbags on 30,000 Model Xs to potentially operate incorrectly when small children are in the front seat.
Fortunately, the solution to this fault should be relatively simple. The automaker will push an over-the-air update to its customers that corrects the firmware anomaly. Vehicles built after November 6, 2022, were shipped with the new software, and should not, therefore, be at risk of demonstrating this issue.
