A driver uses the map navigation feature on a touchscreen control panel with the Tesla Motors Inc. 8.0 software update inside a Tesla Model S P90D vehicle.
Christopher Goodney | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A significant Tesla recall in the United States has now extended to China, according to a new regulatory process by the State Administration of China for Market Regulation.
The lawsuit says Elon Musk’s electric car company will recall 36,126 Model S and Model X vehicles in China due to touch screen failures. The cars were manufactured between 2013 and 2018 by Tesla in Fremont, California, and exported to China.
Gasgoo, a Chinese automotive trade news site, was the first to report the documents.
Tesla electric vehicles feature a media control unit (also known as “MCU”) that powers a touchscreen where drivers see and control their entertainment, navigation, air conditioning, defrost and other vehicle features.
The MCU contains several processors, memory devices and other technical components. The memory devices on some Tesla MCUs have a limited “write cycle”, which means that they do not work well, or work at all, after reaching 3,000 program erase cycles.
When their memory devices fail, owners can experience unnerving touchscreen blackouts while driving and lose access to the controls they need to feel safe on the road or when parking. Sometimes drivers can reboot their systems, but others completely lose access to the screen and touchscreen controls.
Tesla initiated a “warranty expansion” in the US to reimburse customers who paid unsecured and out of pocket to replace their media control units or to replace the eMMC memory devices inside them. Later, Tesla implemented a voluntary recall in the U.S. after pressure from the federal vehicle safety authority, NHTSA.
The Federal Automobile Transport Authority of Germany (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt or KBA) is currently investigating Tesla vehicles with the same touchscreen flaws.
In the fall of 2020, Tesla also recalled 48,442 Model S and X vehicles in China for suspension problems and about 870 vehicles with potentially defective roofs.
The Tesla touchscreen recall in the United States affects about 135,000 vehicles. In both China and the United States, Tesla has agreed to replace the 8 GB eMMC memory devices in the media control units with a 64 GB version.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China is a lucrative market for Tesla and electric vehicle manufacturers in general. The company started production at its relatively new plant in Shanghai, the first outside the United States, in January last year.
According to JL Warren Capital, Tesla’s market share in the “new energy vehicles” category in China was around 12% last year – meaning that its cars are incredibly popular, especially considering that buyers of China’s automobiles are more price sensitive than those of the United States. (In 2020 and 2019, the Chinese government spent 11.3 billion and 14.4 billion RMB subsidizing the electric vehicle industry, and Tesla collected about 25% of total subsidies.)