The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a rash of power steering failures affecting 2023 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y EVs. Thousands of owners are reporting a loss of steering assistance, resulting in dozens of vehicles being towed as a result, and there has been at least one crash associated with the failure.
Some drivers reported the steering effort became so high that they could not turn the steering wheel at all. Many owners with this issue have responded to regulators that power steering returned with by restarting the vehicle, but that the problem kept plaguing the car until the rack was replaced altogether.
NHTSA has reported that its investigation has uncovered 2,388 complaints for power steering issues with Tesla’s two midsizemodels. Many steering failures have resulted in cars blocking intersections, stuck mid-turn without the ability to finish the corner. The Office of Defects Investigation has received more than 50 reports of vehicles being flat-bedded away due to this alleged issue. There doesn’t appear to be any correlation between failure and the speed of the car when failure occurred, with around a third happening below five miles per hour, half between five and 35, and the remainder above 35 mph. Some power steering failures were reported at highway speeds.
This initial inquiry has been upgraded to a full-on engineering analysis effort, affecting up to the full model year of 3 and Y production, some 334,000 cars. This analysis will investigate the conditions that lead to the failure, and what that failure mode becomes. If the agency determines there is danger to drivers as a result of the failure, it may push Tesla to initiate a recall campaign.
Considering Tesla has been having a pretty rough go of it lately in regard to recall campaigns, resulting in nearly every Tesla ever built being recalled, this could add just a bit more fuel to the fire.