Tesla Is Under NHTSA Investigation Again, Two Complaints Triggered This One

Two years ago, Elon Musk said a controversial thing regarding seat belts. While some of his statements may be considered as such by only a couple of people at a time, this one took nearly everyone by surprise. The executive said he doesn’t want Tesla to focus on improving seat belts. Instead, it wanted the automaker to divert its attention onto airbags, which he said are “actually much safer” than safety belts.

In the context of a global Takata airbag recall that led to the bankruptcy of the company in 2017, this might not have looked too bad at the time. However, it still made no sense to people who knew that other brands were trying to find all sorts of upgrades that can improve the three-point seat belt, which was given to the world for free by Volvo. Nonetheless, Tesla pursued this goal and came up with a new far-side airbag that was first put on Chinese-made Model Ys. It spurted out the back of the driver’s seat to better protect passengers from side collisions.

But Tesla may have spent too much time on putting better airbags in its vehicles. It looks like it has forgotten about one of the best ways to protect drivers and passengers – the good ol’ seat belt. That's, of course, according to a couple of disgruntled owners who chose to involve the authorities.

The NHTSA received two complaints from Model X owners who said that their vehicles’ front seat belts were not properly connected at the factory. These customers also said that the linkage and pretensioner separated from the frame when “force was exerted.”

After looking into it, the federal probe was extended to 50,000 units made in the last two years. When the investigation ends, a recall might happen. Until then, the NHTSA will look at the manufacturing process and verify how often this happens or just how deep the rabbit hole is.

This is not Tesla’s first (or last, for that matter) dance with the automotive oversight arm of the U.S. The automaker is currently being investigated for steering wheels falling off and just went through a recall (which, in reality, is an over-the-air software update) for 360,000 EVs.

But unlike the FSD Beta-related recall, fixing the seat belt issue won’t be as easy. If the NHTSA decides it must happen, customers might have to deal with visiting a service center or calling Tesla to visit them at home.

The EV maker will also have to deal with a federal investigation into the “phantom brake” phenomenon and whatever may follow after the other complaints about failing suspension parts will be analyzed.

Curiously enough, the Administration published an image of a seat belt with a latch plate having a little heart shape on its Twitter account almost a day ago. We'll let you decide if that was a friendly warning or just a random social media post.

Finally, it's worth noting the NHTSA underlines that airbags are never enough. The Administration even claims that the force of an airbag "can seriously injure or even kill you if you’re not buckled up.” So, next time you get inside a vehicle – no matter if you’re a driver or a passenger – you may want to put on your seat belt before doing anything else.