Manufacturer of electric vehicles, Tesla Inc has asked the owners of its SUV Model X to turn in their cars for a checkup of their rear seats, which might be having a faulty locking mechanism. The company’s inspection team has found that the SUVs made between October 28, 2016 and August 16, 2017, may have this defect and Tesla claims it will be only in about 3% of the vehicles.
The company’s technical team will make the necessary adjustments to some cables in the seats in the rear row and return the vehicles back to the owners. The fault in the cables could trigger the seats falling forward in case of a crash. This is the reason the vehicles are being recalled. The number of SUVs in Model X being recalled is around 11, 000.
It may be pertinent to point out here that Tesla has had many recalls of its vehicles in the past also. Some 2700 of the same Model X were recalled in 2016 to repair a faulty locking hinge in the third row of seats. In 2015, 90, 000 Model S sedans had to be brought back to the Tesla service centers worldwide, to check if the front seat belt assembly was working perfectly or not. And then there were 29, 222 cars in Model S recalled due to reports of a charging defect that could pose a fire hazard.
Interestingly, this incident comes at a time when the company has fired 400 employees at different levels. The company claims that these employees were seen as underperforming during the appraisal process and have been asked to leave.
There are some reports, however, which claim this is not the exact picture. Tesla has fallen behind in its delivery the Model 3, expected to capture the mass market and priced at around $35, 000. It could deliver only 220 cars in this model in the third quarter of the year. Are these sackings connected to this poor production level? It is not clear so far.