Tesla recalling more than 125,000 vehicles to fix seat belt warning system

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN
AP Business Writer

Tesla is recalling more than 125,000 vehicles to fix a seat belt warning system that may increase the risk of an injury in a collision.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that the recall includes certain 2012-2024 Model S, 2015-2024 Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles.

The seat belt warning system is supposed to provide audible and visual seat belt reminder signals to drivers to alert them that their seat belt isn’t fastened. The NHTSA said that on certain vehicles, the audible and visual seat belt reminder signals were not going off at the time they were supposed to, which doesn’t comply with federal safety requirements.

The NHTSA said that as of Tuesday, Tesla had identified 104 warranty claims that may be related to the condition. The company isn’t aware of any collisions, fatalities or injuries that may be related to the condition.

Tesla, which is headed by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to start deploying an over-the-air software update to the affected vehicles free of charge in June. The software update will remove dependency on the driver seat occupancy switch from the software and only rely on driver seat belt buckle and ignition status to activate the seat belt reminder signals.

Last month Tesla recalled 3,878 of its 2024 Cybertrucks after it discovered that the accelerator pedal can become stuck, potentially causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally and increase the risk of a crash.

In February the NHTSA announced the recall of nearly 2.2 million Tesla vehicles sold in the United States because some warning lights on the instrument panel are too small. The agency also said at the time that it had upgraded a 2023 investigation into Tesla steering problems to an engineering analysis, a step closer to a recall.

In April the NHTSA said that it was investigating whether last year’s recall of Tesla’s Autopilot driving system did enough to make sure drivers pay attention to the road.