In January, five days after it was delivered, the steering wheel of Prerak Patel’s new Tesla Model fell off while he was driving down a major road in New Jersey.
That same month, the battery of a Model S caught fire on a California motorway, requiring 6000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze (and in March, a Model X caught fire on Auckland’s Harbour Bridge).
The two events followed similar incidents, with another driver reporting a detached steering wheel in 2020 and spectacular battery fires cropping up in social media posts.
Other reports of misbehaving Teslas include complaints of sudden acceleration, which US regulator the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says were probably down to user error.
These come on top of the well-documented legal battle over Tesla marketing its optional self-driving software as “Full Self Driving”.
At least 16 people have died while using the firm’s driver-assist software.
@elonmusk @TeslaOwnersWW @BLKMDL3 Family was excited to receive Tesla Y delivery on 1/24/2023. Was driving on highway and all the sudden steering wheel fall off, was lucky enough there was no car behind and I was able to pull on devider #SafetyFirst #Fixit #TeslaModelY #help pic.twitter.com/4UMokFA2cv
— Prerak & Neha Patel (@preneh24) January 30, 2023
UK regulators have also recalled some Model 3 cars over concerns that brake calliper bolts, which ensure brakes work as intended, may not have been secured according to regulation.
After his encounter, Patel has asked for a refund and wants to drive a different car, he told the Insider website.
Yet Tesla is not the only electric car maker to suffer embarrassing structural problems. Last year, Toyota recalled one of its first electric cars, the bZ4X, over fears the wheels would come off.
In the world of combustion cars, drivers have been told to return cars for more pressing reasons.
In 2011, US manufacturer General Motors recalled more than 4,000 Chevrolet Sonic cars to inspect them for missing brake pads.
More seriously, a fault affecting 1.6m BMW 3 Series, 4 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series X3, X4, X5 and X6 models made between December 2014 and August 2016 caused flammable coolant to leak onto hot exhaust pipes, triggering fires.
BMW was criticised for dragging its feet over recalling the cars as several were set ablaze, burning them to cinders. The company insisted that it acted swiftly after the cause became apparent.
Car recalls globally are surprisingly common.
Late last year, Ford brought in 634,000 sport utility vehicles around the world over fears that cracked fuel injectors would cause fires, amid 54 reports of blazes, albeit none of which were fatal.
The most famous case is also tied to Ford: the fuel tank of its 1970s Pinto had a tendency to explode when involved in rear-end collisions, leading to half a million recalls and a number of lawsuits.
As Tesla’s billionaire owner Elon Musk himself has pointed out, combustion cars filled with petrol are easy to ignite.
He claims that only 0.01pc of his firm’s cars catch fire, compared to an annual rate of 0.08pc for road-going vehicles in general, according to official US statistics.
“Are they safe? Yes, is the answer,” says Prof David Bailey, a car industry expert at Birmingham University who also drives a Tesla Model S.
He adds that Teslas have suffered quality problems – especially in the early days of the brand, with customers including himself experiencing loose tailgates, stuck mirrors and trouble with yellowing screens – but not safety issues.
The brand also experiences what he calls the “Tesla paradox” – owners like their stylish cars, and enjoy an operating system with new features every few months and access to an exclusive charging network.
Though new electric brands like Tesla and Polestar have made advances in developing cars that are exciting to drive, the fast pace of change has led to teething issues.
Last year, US data company JD Power said a measure of new vehicle quality fell 11pc in 2022, led by Polestar, while Tesla was seventh from the bottom regarding problems per 100 vehicles.
Musk’s firm will have to up its game with these small errors as its customer base expands beyond tech-focused neophiles, Bailey says.
But aside from steering wheels and battery fires, a more dependable source of bad news is the company’s relationship with automated driving.
In a case being heard in California this week, a judge ordered Musk to attend a three-hour deposition over comments he had made about the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot software.
The family of Walter Huang, who was killed in a Tesla car crash in 2018, allege Musk said that the company’s cars can drive themselves more safely than human motorists.
Tesla’s lawyers questioned whether Musk made the remarks, suggesting that the company could have been the victim of “deepfake” technology that mimics his voice.
The judge called the argument “deeply troubling” and indicated that the claims would allow public figures to “avoid taking ownership of what they did actually say and do”.
Tesla and Musk have always trumpeted the company’s safety ratings in traditional tests involving crash dummies, crumple zones and collision avoidance systems.
Last year the Model Y, its bestselling vehicle, received the highest-ever score recorded by the European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), which rates the safety of vehicles in the continent.
“[Tesla cars] have the lowest probability of injury of any cars ever tested by the US government,” Musk told a podcast in 2019.
“People still sue us. They’ll have some accident at 60 miles an hour where they’d, like, twisted an ankle and they slipped. They’d be dead in another car. They still sue us.”
But the company’s status as a pioneer, particularly when it comes to self-driving software, means it gets extra attention.
A website, tesladeaths.com, tracks the number of Tesla accidents that led to a fatality: the current total is 373. No such website exists for rival manufacturers.
Tesla’s embrace of technology, such as touch-screen car control panels, has also attracted scrutiny.
In recent months, the NHTSA has announced a string of recall notices and probes into the manufacturer.
In 2021 it launched an investigation after an update allowed Tesla drivers to play video games while the car was in motion.
The regulator has also examined claims of cars “phantom braking” at high speeds and seatbelts that may not work properly in crashes.
Matthew Avery, the director of research at Thatcham Research, which carries out testing as part of the European ratings system, points out that while Tesla cars generally score highly, they fare less well on assisted driving safety ratings.
In 2020 the Model 3 Autopilot system received a “moderate” score, the second of four grades.
The agency said that the Autopilot moniker was “inappropriate as it suggests automation” and that it is designed to encourage “overreliance” on the system.
“We don’t give them good scores because we don’t like the fact that the system is not cooperative,” Avery says.
“And that is why you’re seeing, we think, crashes with their autopilot systems. Because drivers think the car can drive itself. Drivers are maybe backing off and letting the car do the driving when they shouldn’t be, they should be working with it.”
In the end, however, drivers are voting with their wallets.
In the UK, Tesla claimed the top two most popular electric cars last year, with the Model Y and the Model 3. Even compared with combustion models, Tesla ranked in third place, beating the Ford Puma and Mini.
Driver
At least 16 deaths relate to driver assist software. Tesla has marketed its optional self-driving software as ‘Full Self-Driving’ though Musk has said drivers should be alert when using it
Wheels
2020: 232 complaints of ‘sudden acceleration’ – but regulator says they are pressing wrong pedal
Brakes
In 2021, 5947 Model 3 and Model Y cars recalled over concerns that the brake calliper bolts may not have been secured to regulation demands.
Battery
In January 2023, a Model S battery caught fire, with 6000 gallons of water required to extinguish blaze
5 Steering wheel
Jan 2023: Two Tesla Model Y owners’ steering wheels fall off while driving
Untimely deaths of 3 respected NZ journalists; NZME set to take on Trade Me for car sales.