The US Highway Traffic Safety Authority is currently investigating a seat belt assembly issue affecting recent Tesla Model Xs.
The Model X, Tesla’s all-electric SUV, is once again in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Several motorists have filed complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US agency responsible for road safety. Their seatbelts came off while they were driving..
Federal authorities have taken up the case, and according to their conclusions, the automaker is at fault: the assembly of the seat belts of the Model X would indeed be defective. Motorists found that their seat belts not only came off their buckles, but also that it was impossible to re-insert them into the pretensioner afterwards. The two plaintiffs drive two different vintages of the Tesla Model X (2022 and 2023); it is therefore Tesla’s production process that is in question. The investigators even believe that “the two vehicles were delivered with anchoring links that were not sufficiently secured”.
2022 and 2023 Tesla Model X seat belts improperly assembled, recall seems imminent
Observers estimate that about 50,000 Model X are affected by this defect. If the NHTSA’s conclusions are validated by the courts, Tesla will have to organize yet another campaign to recall its cars. Lately, the NHTSA has been piling up cases against the world leader in electric car sales. In October 2022 alone, the latter had to recall 24,000 Model 3s for an identical assembly problem. Beyond these “physical” incidents, Tesla frequently recalls its cars to the factory for incidents relating to software updates.
This does not prevent the automaker from continuing to develop a ever more aggressive commercial policy. The rumor of the imminent arrival of an electric car offered under the 25,000 € mark is more and more insistent and the company also claims that it will do everything to reduce the prices of its electric cars in the coming months.
Source: NBC News