According to the latest reports from China, there is a safety issue related to Tesla's assisted driving feature. As we understand, the cruise control can be activated accidentally, "causing sudden acceleration."
The Chinese regulators require Tesla to 'recall' nearly 300,000 Made-in-China (MIC) and imported Model 3 and Model Y cars, although it's expected that an over-the-air software update will solve the issue. This is why it's not an ordinary recall that would require a visit to a service center, but it's also not a voluntary software update either.
"The cars’ autopilot systems can be activated automatically, potentially leading to crashes from sudden acceleration, the Chinese agency said." - Bloomberg
Reuters and Bloomberg say that the number of affected cars stand at about 285,000 including:
- 249,855 MIC Model 3/Model Y - 211,256 Model 3 and 38,599 Model Y
- 35,665 imported Model 3.
That gives us some clue about how many Tesla Model 3 and Model Y were sold in China so far.
We don't know whether the software in the exported MIC Model 3 and Model 3/Model Y produced in California are exactly the same as in China, but if yes, then they also might need an update.
At this point, it's difficult to say whether this problem is in any way related to some of the "unintended sudden acceleration" crashes.
Info about the 'recall' was posted also by Moneyball:
The safety issue in China is not good news for Tesla, even if it will be easy to patch, because the company has already been under fire for a couple of months in the media. Some of these topics were related to "unintended sudden acceleration" crashes, some to data centers (Tesla decided to build a Chinese data center for China).
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