The Tesla Autopilot issue leads to the “recall” of nearly 300,000 cars in China

Tesla will recall nearly 300,000 Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles delivered to China. According to Bloomberg and Nikkei Asia, the country’s state administration for Market Regulation announced the car manufacturer’s decision on its website. While the move is called “recall,” owners are not required to bring their own cars. As it is intended to address the risks associated with the assisted driving function of vehicles, Tesla will be able to correct the problem by launching an online software update to upgrade the company’s autopilot system.

Bloomberg says the recall is the result of an investigation the regulator did to examine product defects. Apparently, the Autopilot feature of the affected vehicles is too easily activated while driving, which means it could lead to accidents.

The record includes 211,256 Model 3 vehicles made in China between December 19, 2019 and June 7, 2021, as well as 35,665 imported Model 3s manufactured in 2019. A total of 38,599 Model Ys are also included, all made in China from the beginning of this year until June 7th. As the publication notes, Tesla has supplied 275,000 locally imported and manufactured Model 3s and Model Ys in China since 2019, so the recall covers almost all officially shipped vehicles in the country.

Tesla mandate its first vehicles made at Shanghai’s Gigafactory 3 plant in December 2019. Shortly afterwards, the carmaker was declared forced to equip its Model 3 vehicles with its old Hardware 2.5 instead of its new Silicon Hardware 3.0 due to the global chip shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. More recently, China prohibited Tesla vehicles from military structures fear that their cameras could carry a security risk. The company too announced which will save the data of cars sold in China to data centers located in the country.