Tesla reportedly cuts extra steering control unit due to chip shortage

Tesla has reportedly decided to remove one of the two electronic control units included in the steering racks of some Chinese-made Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

The news was reported by American news outlet CNBC on Monday, who referenced comments from “two employees and internal correspondence seen by CNBC.”

Tesla is said to have excluded one of two electronic control units in the steering racks of some Model 3 and Model Y cars which were built at the company’s Giga Shanghai manufacturing plant.

The reason for excluding the control units was due to the all-encompassing global chip shortage.

The anonymous sources also said that tens of thousands of vehicles affected by the excluded control unit had already been shipping to customers in China, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other parts of Europe.

Whether or not Tesla will make the same change for models made in and for the United States is as yet unclear.

According to the sources and documents revealed to CNBC, Tesla debated whether to inform customers of the change, but concluded it was unnecessary given that the part is considered a redundant backup and is not needed for level 2 driver-assistance features.

However, the leak does show that, as against Tesla’s own claims during the final weeks of 2021, the company was forced to modify manufacturing so as to ensure its factories kept pumping out cars and its sales continued apace.

Further, it shows that Tesla, in contrast to appearances, has been affected by the global chip shortage which has plagued numerous industries, including the automotive sector, the world over, since the beginning of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The missing second control unit also means that Tesla cannot turn all its existing vehicles into driverless vehicles with an over-the-air software update, undercutting recent comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a recent earnings call:

“My personal guess is that we’ll achieve Full Self-Driving this year at a safety level significantly greater than a person,” Musk said. “So the cars in the fleet essentially becoming self-driving via software update, I think, might end up being the biggest increase in asset value of any asset class in history. We shall see.”

According to the sources speaking to CNBC, internal Tesla discussions concluded that adding ‘level 3’ autonomous driving functionality would in fact need the dual electronic control unit system and would therefore require a hands-on retrofit at a service visit.

Worth noting, though, is that the exclusion of the second control unit is not expected to cause safety issues, as the removed part was deemed a redundant secondary electronic control unit, used primarily as a backup.