Over 10,000 Tesla car owners have requested the company change their MCU as the new system gets an alarming 30% failure rate. This has prompted the NHTSA to launch an investigation into the issue.
NHTSA is said to still be considering a recall even though Tesla on the other hand has gotten its own issues fixed. According to the reports, those who have owned Tesla cars such as the Model S and Model X have been reporting some issues with their MCUs.
With the update, the touchscreen displays became less responsive to input while the power-up time now takes longer and even the screen freezes which usually require car owners to reboot the system or sometimes there could be an entire system failure.
Some owners believe that it is a problem with the embedded Multi-Media-Card memory (eMMC) in the MCU and that it is being overwritten to the point of failure.
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It has known as the “eMMC failure” problem. Tesla on the other hand introduced the MCU back in the year 2018 but those who own older vehicles are said to still be experiencing the problem.
The NHTSA or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated it has launched an official investigation to look into the matter. And Tesla acknowledged the problem officially and offered an extended warranty.
Some Tesla owners are said to not be happy with the idea as this is thought to not go as far as addressing the primary problem they’re having with their cars.
Considering there are many important functions that can only be accessed through the touchscreen/MCU in Tesla vehicles, NHTSA is looking into the matter as a potential safety issue, and despite Tesla’s warranty change last week, the agency is still considering a recall.
In an update to their investigation, they released information this week showing that Tesla received over 10,000 claims to replace the MCU in Model S and Model X vehicles:
In response to ODI’s Information Request (IR) for PE20-010, Tesla provided ODI with 2,399 complaints and field reports, 7,777 warranty claims, and 4,746 non-warranty claims related to MCU replacements. The data show failure rates over 30% in certain build months and accelerating failure trends after 3 to 4 years-in-service.
In the investigation being conducted, NHTSA is now looking into some 159,000 2012 to 2018 Tesla Model S cars as well as 2016 to 2018 Model X cars.
