(ORDO NEWS) — Tesla has another headache with the design of the Model Y electric car.
Tesla warns drivers that you should always keep your hands on the steering wheel, but it helps if the steering wheel is actually connected to the steering column.
On March 4, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Defect Investigation Office launched an investigation following two reports of Tesla Model Y steering wheels detaching in drivers’ hands while driving.
NHTSA reports that in both cases, the 2023 Y models required a repair on the production line, which also involved the removal of the steering wheels.
The wheels were retooled, but only held in place by friction Tesla workers never replaced the retaining bolt that secures the steering wheel to the steering column.
Ford had to recall more than 1.3 million vehicles in 2018 after an incorrectly sized bolt led to a similar problem.
The paper states that “the sudden separation occurred when the force applied to the steering wheel overcame frictional landing resistance while the vehicles were in motion” and that both incidents occurred when the electric vehicles had low mileage.
According to the Associated Press, in one of the two cases, the wheel came off five days after the car was delivered to a customer in New Jersey.
According to AP, Tesla initially told the aggrieved owner that he could fix the $103.96 broken car. Tesla later replaced the car for free.
In addition to this issue, NHTSA is also investigating whether Tesla’s Autopilot can detect and avoid motorcycles, why Autopilot keeps hitting ambulances, and whether the removal of radar sensors on Tesla vehicles caused hundreds of phantom braking incidents.
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