What could Tesla’s “recall” mean for the AV industry?

Tesla has been forced to “recall” all vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature by order of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). On 16 February 2023, NHTSA announced that Tesla had agreed to recall all 362,758 vehicles equipped with FSD in the US due to a “serious risk that it may cause crashes.” The Tesla Autopilot investigation first opened in August 2021 due to a history of automated driving crashes.

The watchdog stated that Tesla’s software allows a vehicle to “exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner,” increasing the risk of an incident. The recall covers 2016-2023 Model S and Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles.

However, Tesla’s Chief Executive, Elon Musk, was prompt to comment that it was not a recall so much as an over-the-air (OTA) software update that will be provided free of charge. “That explanation misses two key points,” says John Uustal, Founding Partner of US law firm Kelley. “First, the vehicles are defective as manufactured. Second, while the update may improve the system, it’s still not an autopilot system. The technology isn’t yet there for a full analysis of the dangerous ways the system sometimes operates.” Uustal has a history of taking on automotive, having won the longest trial in General Motors’ history, where a jury found GM guilty of negligently designing the fuel tank in a family station wagon that exploded after a low-speed crash.