No Tesla recall in Norway after investigation, because it just wasn’t a big enough deal

Norway won’t be issuing a recall of Tesla Model S and X vehicles in the country after a government investigation into suspension safety issues – the same one Reuters wrote about in its investigation, targeting Tesla for blaming customers for faulty parts, which Tesla then fired back at on X.

Norway’s traffic safety regulator found no basis for ordering a recall over the issue, which was flagged by more than a dozen customer complaints to the agency in 2022 over problems such as the rear lower control arm breaking, Automotive News Europe reports. 

“The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) believes that a break in the rear lower control arm does not constitute an unacceptable risk, and that there is no basis for demanding a recall of the vehicles,” according to a statement from the regulator in the report.

Looks like the decision to not recall was based on the fact that most cases happened when the car was traveling at low speeds, and often reversing, which they said lowered the risk of serious accidents. And compared to how many Model S and X vehicles are driven in Norway, one of Tesla’s highest saturated markets, the reported complaints were very few, regulators said. 

Back in December, Reuters published a scathing investigation from four journalists over what they said were tens of thousands of complaints against Tesla over premature failures of suspension or steering parts, including those of control arm failures in Norway. The report claimed that Tesla blamed drivers for these failures over “driver abuse” and refused to pay for repairs, while all along knowing they were defective. This launched investigations in Norway and Sweden, as well as sparking US Senators to write to Elon Musk personally to call for a recall in the US.

As Electrek’s editor in chief Fred Lambert reported, Tesla posted on X – which it rarely does in response to the media – that the article was “riddled with incomplete and demonstrably incorrect information.”

Electrek’s Take

I suppose it’s not surprising that Tesla hasn’t responded to the latest round of news on the investigation – since they have no PR department. After the Reuters article was published in December, Norway immediately launched its investigation, and two US senators wrote to Elon Musk calling for a recall in the US. Sweden’s Transport Agency is also undergoing its own investigation, so we’ll see if anything comes of it. Tesla, too, has its hands full with the recent recall of 1.6 million Model S, X, 3, and Y EVs exported to China over problems with their automated assisted steering and door latch controls – but of course Tesla can fix most of these problems remotely, so drivers won’t even need to visit a Tesla service center.

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