If there was one vehicle launch last year that never quite lived up to the hype, it was the Tesla Semi. After years of promised delivery dates that never came, and a launch that left many still unsure if it was actually about to hit the road, deliveries of the Tesla truck finally started in December 2022. But now, after just three months, it’s already facing its first recall.
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As first reported by Elektrek, the shiny new electric truck is facing its first recall due to faulty parking brakes that were fitted to 35 of the units that have been delivered so far. According to documents shared by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
Certain Tesla Semi trucks are equipped with a supplier-provided electronically controlled parking brake valve module that may intermittently fail to transition when the parking brake is engaged or disengaged, which could then result in the parking brakes not being set or released.
The issue was first identified by parts supplier Bendix, which alerted Tesla to the problem in February 2023. Tesla then investigated the cause of the issue, and worked to identify which Tesla Semi trucks had been fitted with the defective part.
So far, the EV maker has confirmed that 36 Semi Trucks were produced in 2022 as part of its pilot program. It has not yet released production figures for the first quarter of 2023.
On March 17, Tesla elected to issue a voluntary recall of the 35 trucks that it identified as being fitted with the defective parking brake valve module. At that time, it said it had received no complaints of the part failing in the field, and no “crashes, injuries or deaths” had occurred as a result of the component.
In order to remedy the situation, Tesla will replace the parking brake valve module with a revised part. The new component is said to have improved internals that prevent air leakage and allow the driver to engage and disengage parking brakes, which is kind of what you want from a parking brake.
Tesla began alerting owners to the recall on March 27. As of March 14, it had changed the part in its production process, so vehicles assembled after this date are not affected by the recall.
If you are worried that your Semi might be affected by a recall, there are a few easy ways to check if it’s the case. Easiest is to head to the regulator’s website and plug your VIN into its recall search tool.