Written by Reananda Hidayat PermonoCompleted Master of Science - MS, Petroleum Geology from Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
According to some tweets from Prerak Patel’s account, on January 29, his Tesla Model Y’s steering wheel fell off while he was driving.
Interestingly, it occurred just five days after he received his brand-new car.
Luckily, no one was hurt in that accident.
Unluckily, it wasn’t an isolated accident.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the identical issue has happened to another Tesla Model Y.
It was enough for them to start looking into the problem, which could impact more than 120,000 cars.
According to the NHTSA document, a manufacturing defect is the cause of the issue.
The retaining bolt is missing, so the steering wheel couldn’t be kept in place.
The report says both cars got repairs before being delivered, which involved removing the steering wheel.
The steering wheels were previously held in place until they eventually experienced “complete detachment.”
In Patel’s case, that happened when he and his family were on the highway.
Luckily, Patel could stop safely since there was no car behind him.
Later, he started a Twitter thread asking Elon Musk and Tesla’s customer support for help.
This investigation isn’t the first mistake of Tesla.
In 2018 and 2019, Tesla owners sent videos of poor quality on their newly delivered vehicles.
According to the Consumer Reports reliability survey, Tesla ranked 19th out of 24 brands in 2022.