“Terminology outdated:” Elon Musk takes aim at safety body over Tesla “recall”

A Tesla “recall” that will see the EV maker roll out a software update to millions of vehicles across its range of electric cars has drawn the ire of the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.

In typical Musk fashion, the Tesla boss took to Twitter on Sunday evening (US time) to weigh in on news of the recall, which amongst other channels appeared in LinkedIn’s “top news” feed.

“Tesla is recalling some 1.1 million vehicles over fears that the cars’ automatic windows could pinch occupants while closing,” says the post.

“Tesla issued a similar update earlier this year after recalling more than 800,000 vehicles for a problem with a seat-belt alert. No injuries linked to the window issue have been reported, Tesla says.”

The “recall” is listed on the US-based National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website, and states that the issue may affect 1,096762 vehicles including 2017-2022 Model 3, 2020-2022 Model Y, and 2021-2022 Model S and Model X vehicles.

It is not currently listed on the Australian Vehicle Recalls website.

An account called “Stock Talk Weekly” called out certain news pieces calling them “NHTSA FUD,” an acronym that refers to “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” and is often used to take aim at negative Tesla news pieces shared by so-called “$TSLAQ” short-sellers.

The account notes that the window pinching issue does not require the vehicle to be brought in for service to be corrected, and will in fact be corrected via an over-the-air software update.

“Tesla said it will perform an over-the-air software update to solve the issue with the automatic window reversal system. This is *not* a physical recall,” it said, sharing a graph that underlines Tesla’s ability to correct issues quickly via software updates over that of other carmakers.

Musk replied: “The terminology is outdated & inaccurate. This is a tiny over-the-air software update. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no injuries.”