Tesla To Voluntarily Recall Every Model S Because One Seat Belt Came Apart (jalopnik.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this month, a passenger in a Tesla Model S turned to talk to people in the back seat, and her seat belt somehow disconnected itself from the front seat. According to a Tesla spokesperson, "The seat belt is anchored to the outboard lap pretensioner through two anchor plates that are bolted together. The bolt that was supposed to tie the two anchors together wasn't properly assembled." Though the company hasn't been able to replicate the issue on any other cars, Tesla is issuing a recall for roughly 90,000 Model S vehicles so they can test that bolt.

Comments

Smart move.

[Radical Moderate]

Assuming it costs $20 to check each car (about a half hour of mechanic time) that's less than $2 million. They're getting a ton of good publicity, good will from their customers--we like to buy stuff from companies that don't want to kill us--and if one of these belts fails and leads to a death they could easily lose that much in just one lawsuit.

It's as if Musk is asking himself "How would GM handle this?", then doing the opposite.

Re: Introduction

[tlhIngan]

I think you're underestimating the marketing opportunity of a recall. They're just going to put a wrench on the bolt, that costs nothing. Yeah, some minimal labor costs. BUT...who goes through the pain of taking their car to a dealership without getting everything else it needs serviced? Or just buying a whole new car, which isn't uncommon, especially if someone can afford the 80+k to buy one in the first place.

Something tells me Tesla will come ahead on this one.

Well, Tesla is quite different - you can buy an annual $600/year service plan that covers everything except tires, and for a bit more, you can have it that Tesla will come to you to service it.

The thing is, an ICE takes a lot of maintenance - between stuff like engine oil and other fluids, there's a bit of tuning to keep things in shape. An EV is different - there's actually very little in the power train that requires regular servicing - so much so that users may go for years between tune-ups (Tesla recommends users come in at least once a year to get service and replace consumables like brakes). Most ICE service schedules range from every 3 months to every 6 months.

And yes, Tesla will probably come out ahead - I mean, look at the other recalls out there - between Toyota's sudden acceleration, GM's ignition switch and many others, either the company didn't act until forced to, or they still don't act, even when there are multiple deaths attributed to the flaw.

So they get a lot of PR over it - "we're recalling every Tesla S to make sure the seatbelts are bolted on correctly, even though there was only one failure and everyone lived, and the government isn't making us do it, but we will because it's the right thing to do."