Tesla Motors announced this morning it is issuing a voluntary recall for every Model S ever made to inspect the front seat belts after a customer’s seat belt came apart. No one was hurt or injured, but the automaker is still asking customers to bring their cars in to check out a bolt in the seat belt assembly.
The issue was discovered earlier this month after a customer in Europe sitting in the front passenger seat of her Model S turned to talk to people in the back seat, and the seatbelt became disconnected, according to a Tesla spokesperson on a call announcing the recall this morning to reporters. A bolt that connects the outboard lap pretensioner, which pulls the seatbelt tight in the event of an accident, wasn’t assembled properly, the spokesperson said.
No one was injured or hurt in the incident.
The plan now for owners of the roughly 90,000 vehicles on the road is to bring their cars into a Tesla service center, where a technician will check the car out for a few minutes. If you’re extraordinarily concerned, you can actually test the belt out yourself by yanking on it with at least 80 pounds of force, which is a lot of force, but a tech is still going to need to check it out.
Oddly enough, Tesla’s saying that its recalling the cars out of “an abundance of caution,” as it hasn’t actually been able to find or replicate the issue either on its assembly line, or in any cars in its possession. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its global counterparts have already been notified, the spokesperson said.
But while we’re on the topic of recalls like this, I have to say that it’s commendable that Tesla’s going this far, and has acted this quickly, and with this much disclosure, over a single incident. Unlike some other companies, which I will not name as I am a very polite person, but which I will very gratuitously link to stories about and which you should all read because what the hell.
You all know what you did, other car companies.
Contact the author at ballaban@jalopnik.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 0D03 F37B 4C96 021E 4292 7B12 E080 0D0B 5968 F14E