The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has officially wrapped up a long-running safety probe into 376,241 Tesla vehicles. The federal safety regulator announced on Saturday that it closed the investigation into 2023 model year Model 3 and Model Y vehicles regarding reports of power steering loss. The decision comes on the heels of an over-the-air recall that rolled out last year to address the issue.
This particular regulatory headache started back in July 2023. When NHTSA originally launched the probe, it was just a preliminary evaluation covering roughly 280,000 2023 model year Teslas after 12 owners reported instances of being unable to turn the steering wheel or a sudden increase in the effort required to steer. By early 2024, the safety watchdog expanded the probe to cover more vehicles and upgraded it into an engineering analysis to dig deeper into the alleged hardware behavior.
The Software Fix That Closed the Case
According to a report from Reuters, NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation decided to close the engineering analysis because Tesla already deployed a fix. Early last year, a recall was issued for roughly 376,000 vehicles in the U.S. to address a potential failure in the power steering assist feature. The defect could make affected vehicles harder to steer at low speeds, which increased the risk of a crash.
Interestingly, Tesla noted that the recall was not a direct response to the ongoing government investigation, which was still open when the recall rolled out. The fix did not require a trip to a service center. Instead, in usual Tesla fashion, an over-the-air software update started hitting affected vehicles, designed to prevent overvoltage breakdown and overstress of motor drive components on the printed circuit board.
A String of Regulatory Wins and Ongoing Scrutiny
This is the latest in what has become a string of regulatory greenlights for Tesla in longstanding reviews at NHTSA. Earlier this spring, the safety agency closed a separate investigation into 2023 Model Y steering wheels detaching from the steering column while driving. Around the same time, federal regulators also officially cleared Tesla's Actually Smart Summon (ASS) feature, a parking lot tool that just received a big boost in speed and performance with the latest Full Self-Driving software updates.
Even with these cases closed, Tesla is no stranger to regulatory scrutiny. NHTSA is currently running an active investigation into the low-vision performance of FSD (Supervised). That probe was recently upgraded to an engineering analysis after questions arose regarding how the autonomous driving software handles foggy or low-visibility conditions. For now, 2023 Model 3 and Model Y owners can rest easy knowing the power steering concerns have been officially put to rest.
