Tesla recalls around 5.79 lakh cars in the US over pedestrian warning risk sound

Electric car major Tesla on Thursday has recalled nearly 578,607 cars in the US over a faulty pedestrian warning risk sound system. The affected vehicles come with a faulty system that doesn't warn the pedestrians with warning risk sound, said US road safety agency National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This might result in a serious accident.

This comes as the latest vehicle recall by the US electric car major after the NHTSA has increased its scrutiny over the Tesla EVs and their functionalities. Tesla has issued 10 recalls in the US over the last four months for various reasons ranging from faulty seat belt alerts to heat pump failures. The majority of these recalls are due to software issues.

The affected Tesla electric cars due to the latest recall have affected some 2020-2022 Model S, Model X and Model Y. Also, the recall covers Tesla Model 3 electric cars between 2017 and 2022.

Tesla cars being pure electric are silent and hence produces no sound while running. To ensure the pedestrians and other vehicle drivers be alerted, the Tesla cars come equipped with a system called Boombox function. This allows sounds to be played through an external speaker while the vehicle is in motion.

The system uses a Pedestrian Warning System (PWS) speaker and users can customise the sound that is to be used. This feature was introduced in December 2020. NHTSA issued an information request in January 2021. In September last year, the US federal road safety agency upgraded an investigation into the issue.

The Boombox function in these affected cars fail to comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard on minimum sound requirements for electric vehicles, said NHTSA. The automaker will fix these issues with an over-the-air (OTA) software update, which will disable the Boombox functionality when the vehicle is in Drive, Neutral and reverse modes.