Tesla announced a recall for vehicles impacted by a faulty seatbelt alert as required by law — 817,000 cars are expected to be updated with an over-the-air fix. The electric vehicle giant also faces scrutiny on phantom breaking, or unsolicited breaking, issues. Brian Moody, executive editor at Autotrader, joined Cheddar to explain further. "I think what this points out is that recalls aren't necessarily anything to be afraid of," Moody noted. "This is kind of the system working as its design. A problem was noted, and now the problem will be addressed."

Closing Bell

Behind the Tesla Over-the-Air Recall for Faulty Seatbelt Alerts

Welcome back to cheddar is closing bell. Everyone every giant Tesla facing some new challenges. More than 800,000 Tesla vehicles are being recalled in the U. S. Due to a faulty seatbelt reminder alert. The company says the audible alert may not activate when a vehicle starts and the driver has not buckled the seatbelt. Meanwhile, federal officials also reviewing complaints from Tesla drivers about sudden and unexplained breaking an issue known as phantom braking here to discuss more. The executive editor, editor of auto trader, brian, moody brian, thanks so much for joining us. Starting with Tesla announcing it is recalling those vehicles here in the US. Walk us through that issue we kind of highlighted there that led to the company making this decision right? So this is a seatbelt reminder that comes on as soon as you start the car. I think it's important to point out that this isn't the only seatbelt reminder. So as the car moves forward and many cars are like this, The chime that would sound in the alert that would alert the driver to their seatbelt not being buckled once the car is moving above say 13 mph, that isn't affected here. This is just the initial chime. The initial warning when you first start your car and your seatbelt isn't connected. So it really isn't that big of a deal, although it certainly is important and I think what this points out is that recalls aren't necessarily anything to be afraid of. This is kind of the system working as its design. A problem was noted and now the problem will be addressed. I'm glad that you said that. We should also note Tesla plans to perform an over the air software update to address this issue. What does that entail? And what does this recall mean for customers? Those who own Tesla vehicles? Well, the great thing about owning a Tesla and the truth is many other cars are like this too. And over the air update means that some software issues or even some signals to hardware in a car. Okay, mm hmm. Okay. The software update can happen automatically. Gm has done that for years. Tesla, that's one of their big selling points. You can just have certain features updated or improved over the air meaning it comes, you know, into the car from headquarters and they update it that way and it was a little inconvenience to you? Yeah, that sounds great. One of the things I think here that would be an inconvenience though, this breaking issue, phantom braking, it comes after the N H T. S. A revealed Tesla agreed to disable a feature in its driver assistance system allowing cars to slowly roll through stop signs when no other vehicles are present. This is one of those cases we've been talking about all week kind of a head scratcher for Tesla and really showing I think it's D N. A more in Silicon Valley than as maybe a legacy automaker would when it comes to its approach to safety. Can you offer more details about the complaints and also this issue? What it might resolve? Like looking forward for consumers? Well, for one thing and I don't know this for certain, but it certainly does point out what might be an issue when you go for data related solutions. So let's say that you only take data for your solutions and you look at thousands of drivers and all of them seem to roll through stop signs, then you adopt that as sort of machine learning or ai in the car, that kind of thing. Um really it shouldn't have been in the car in the first place. But I think from Tesla's point of view, that might say, well this is what customers want or this is what we feel confident in assessing that risk. Do you want to assessing the risk or a person assessing that risk? I think that's one of the big debates that's going to be going forward with, you know, self driving cars and um, you know, autonomous as they say. Yeah. And you can see how this might be valuable in a real world application if you're driving in the middle of nowhere, maybe a rural community where there really aren't any risks, but just on a regular application kind of broad based this really doesn't make sense from a safety standpoint and you would think the company would kind of air on the side of caution. So that was definitely interesting and we know the agency says it's reviewing the complaints through risk based evaluation. Do you know what this means? Yes. A risk based evaluation from the government would be several steps. The first thing would be data collection. So they will collect data that might be a communication with the manufacturer. They might look at some public records that kind of stuff and then there would be a data analysis portion of that and they would analyze the data that's available And they may even look at some peer cars meaning look at other cars and see how they work. And they will document all those things, all of that data review and they will use that data to determine whether or not an investigation is warranted. Now the investigation, even if it is warranted still doesn't result in a recall. The investigation is there to decide if a recall does need to happen or if it could just be closed. So during the investigation do a little bit more in depth um investigation with the car hands on, that kind of stuff. Look at any accidents that have happened or not. And then from there they'll determine whether or not a recall is warranted. I appreciate you breaking all this down for us. That's brian moody. Executive editor at autotrader. Thanks again