News
Tesla’s software fixes, the NHTSA’s status quo, and an impending need for updated recall terminologies
It is no secret that Tesla is a popular topic, so much so that the coverage around the company is immense. Couple this with CEO Elon Musk’s rockstar persona and you get a company whose vehicles are looked at under a microscope constantly. It might feel unfair for some, but it’s just the way it is. Tesla — by simply being Tesla — is newsworthy.
Tesla’s newsworthiness is a double-edged sword. A look at the coverage for the company’s vehicle recalls from the NHTSA would prove this point. So notable is Tesla’s news coverage that a mainstream newsreader would likely get the impression that Teslas get recalls frequently. The opposite is true. As evidenced by Reuters in the graphic below, data from January 1, 2020, through February 17, 2022, shows that Tesla actually recalls its vehicles less frequently than some of the market’s leading automakers. Tesla is also the only carmaker performing a large share of its vehicle recalls through over-the-air software updates.
Tesla currently handles the majority of the industry’s remote software recalls, but it would soon not be the only one. New electric vehicle makers have used the idea of software updates as a means to promote their EVs’ capabilities. Rivian has performed OTA updates to its R1 vehicles, and those cars are only starting customer deliveries. Lucid is the same with its Air sedan, with the company rolling out features like Automatic Emergency Braking, Cross-Traffic Protection, Lane Departure Protection, Traffic Drive-Off Alert, and other features earlier this month through a software update. Ford has been rolling out updates called “Power-Ups” to the Mustang Mach-E as well.
Considering that software-based fixes are only bound to get more widespread over the coming years, one must then ask the question: Should software-based over-the-air fixes be dubbed and classified with the same terminologies as physical recalls, which typically involve the replacement of vehicle hardware?
A Vastly Different “Recall” Experience
Any car owner has likely experienced a recall for their vehicle at some point in their driving life. And more likely than not, one’s experience is probably not that pleasant. I certainly count myself among drivers who look at vehicle recalls with trepidation. My current vehicle, a Japanese-made van, was part of a minor fuel pump recall a couple of years ago, and even addressing that took a whole day out of my weekend. The dealer was overwhelmed with the number of cars it was fixing that day, and tempers among owners were flaring by the hour — all for a simple fuel pump replacement. I’ve been told that my experiences with vehicle recalls are not that unique.
In comparison, a software-based fix, such as the disabling of FSD Beta’s “rolling stops” feature, only required affected vehicles to be connected to the internet. There was no dealer visit, no forms to fill out, and no staff to argue with. The car was connected to the internet, a software fix was implemented, and the issue was resolved. One can argue that Tesla’s software fix to disable FSD Beta’s “rolling stops” feature was safety-related, and that’s true. But one could also argue that at least from a driver’s point of view, the experience related to software and hardware-based recalls is vastly different.
The Status Quo
Despite the different experiences involved when software and hardware-based vehicle recalls are addressed, it appears that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will, at least for now, keep the status quo. Teslarati reached out to the NHTSA to inquire if it was considering the adoption of updated terminologies for cars whose fixes are completed through OTA software updates, but the agency suggested that this would likely not be the case, at least for now. According to the NHTSA, vehicle manufacturers must initiate a recall for any repair that remedies a safety risk, regardless of whether the issue is fixed by software update or by hardware replacement.
“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is committed to ensuring the highest safety standards on the nation’s roadways. NHTSA is empowered with robust tools and authorities to protect the public, to investigate potential safety issues, and to compel recalls when it finds evidence of noncompliance or an unreasonable risk to safety. Manufacturers are required to initiate a recall for any repair, including a software update, that remedies an unreasonable risk to safety. NHTSA recalls can include any required repair, which includes a software update, to remedy a potential safety risk. Manufacturers are also required to submit any communications to owners, dealers, and others about any software updates that address a defect, whether it is safety-related or not,” the NHTSA stated.
Product recall specialist and associate professor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Professor George Ball told Teslarati that while the NHTSA’s use of similar terminologies for software and hardware-based recalls is “definitely an example of regulators and industry moving at a different pace on technology,” the agency’s hesitation in adopting new terminologies for OTA fixes is understandable. Professor Ball further explained that using terms such as “soft recall” to refer to software-based vehicle fixes might imply a reduced level of risk, and this is something that the NHTSA would likely be unwilling to do.
“I believe NHTSA would resist ‘soft recall’ terminology because it implies a reduced level of customer hazard and allows the firm to be under less scrutiny by the press and public for quality corrections. While some updates are minor, some of the Tesla software upgrades are actually quite serious, and if not done, can allow a harmful defect to persist,” the recall specialist said.
But while the NHTSA’s stance on recall terminologies is completely understandable, one cannot deny the fact that the issues covered by vehicle recalls have a very wide range of risks. Take Tesla’s recall for 817,143 vehicles, which was announced earlier this month, for example. The recall was initiated since a software error may prevent a warning chime from activating even if drivers do not have their seat belts on. From a layman’s perspective, this recall seems grave as it affects over 800,000 Teslas on the road today. However, the issue was simply addressed through firmware release 2021.43.101.1 and later, which included a remedy for the seat belt chime error.
Compare this with General Motors’ recall last year of 400,000 pickup trucks in the US. Granted, it only affected about half as many vehicles as Tesla’s seat belt chime recall, but its hardware-based nature suggested that the risk presented by the issue was great. The recall covered certain 2015 and 2016 Chevrolet and GMC Sierra 1500, 2500, and 3500 trucks, and it involved a faulty airbag inflator that may rupture without warning. To fix the issue, owners of the affected trucks were required to head to a dealer so that they could get their airbag modules replaced. Since parts were in short supply last year, however, owners were notified with a letter to inform them when their trucks’ replacement parts were available.
What Can Be Done
While the NHTSA will likely continue to maintain the status quo with its recall terminologies for the foreseeable future, Professor Ball told Teslarati that the agency can actually implement some adjustments now that can make distinguishing safety fixes and issues clearer. This would likely be extremely important in the near future as more connected cars are rolled out and software updates become the norm.
“If I were to provide advice to the NHTSA, I would recommend that they get out ahead of this issue before every car maker starts updating cars like Tesla. One way to do it is to require the automaker to send all auto updates to NHTSA when pushed out, and to classify updates as ‘minor’ or ‘major.’ Any major update that impacts customer safety would be classified as a recall. Automakers won’t like this, but it will help keep the safety fixes transparent for all, especially consumers. By sending all updates to NHSTA, the agency could assign qualified people to audit the classifications assigned by the manufacturer, to ensure they are making good decisions there.
“I think any language that de-emphasizes the importance of a safety recall is not likely to be supported by NHTSA, and it doesn’t likely help customer safety. A clear distinction needs to be made between minor updates and major updates that influence safety. Those major updates should be classified as a recall, and NHTSA needs to get their arms around these updates and keep on top of them soon, or they will fall way behind the industry,” the recall specialist said.
Recalls can affect the perception of a company to the public. Software fixes should be one of the factors that are considered an edge for automakers like Tesla, not the other way around. Gary Black, Managing Partner of The Future Fund LLC, explained this from the point of view of a Tesla investor. “Since every NHTSA recall so far has been quickly solvable via Tesla OTA updates, ‘recalls’ are noise to most investors. Tesla’s huge software edge highlights one of the key advantages of owning Tesla over every other EV manufacturer,” the Wall Street veteran told Teslarati.
OTA updates, including those related to vehicle safety, are coming. With automakers like Ford joining the group of carmakers embracing OTA updates, software-based fixes are inevitable. Ultimately, I am inclined to agree with the recall specialist. By refusing to adapt to the advent of software-based vehicle fixes, the NHTSA may risk being left behind by the automotive industry. And that’s a scenario that I believe no automaker — or government agency for that matter — would prefer.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
SpaceX caught Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday.
SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday, bringing Ship 42 back to Starbase after roughly 22 and a half hours in orbit on Flight 15. No company has ever returned the upper stage of an orbital rocket to its launch site and caught it.
Ship 42 lifted off Friday evening on top of Booster 22, reached orbit and deployed all 26 of its Starlink V3 satellites. Three of those satellites carried cameras to photograph the ship’s heat shield, and SpaceX said the imagery showed it was in good shape for reentry, allowing controllers to pass on a backup splashdown option overnight. By Saturday morning, SpaceX posted on X that “Pad and tower systems are go for catch.” After about 14 orbits, the ship fired its engines to leave orbit, came back through the atmosphere and was caught by the tower’s chopstick arms.
IT HAPPENED https://t.co/KHITqHUWOf — TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 14, 2026
The catch salvages a flight that started with a setback. Super Heavy did not make it back to the tower on Friday. “We were initially go for a catch, but in the later stages of the coast, the booster aborted itself for a GNC issue that it detected and that put it into its landing offshore,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said. The booster hovered over the Gulf of Mexico before its flight termination system triggered and it came down in the water.
Elon Musk said Saturday that the booster ran short on propellant because its engines slightly underperformed. The fix, he wrote, is better engine consistency with Raptor V3.2 and a flight software change to cut the engines “about one second earlier” so enough fuel is left for the return. “This booster loss does not change our timeline to reach high volume, fully reusable Starship flights,” Musk added.
The ship is the harder half of that goal, and the one SpaceX had never recovered. Super Heavy has now been caught three times, most recently in March 2025, while every previous ship ended in the ocean or was lost. Falcon 9 lands its boosters routinely but throws its upper stage away on every launch. Musk described a full Starship recovery on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call as a “profound technology milestone,” and Saturday’s catch shows the hardest piece of it can work.
That piece matters for nearly everything SpaceX is planning. Reusable ships are what make the economics of launching Starlink V3 satellites at scale work, along with the Starmind orbital compute constellation. NASA’s Artemis lunar lander also depends on refilling Starships in orbit with repeated tanker flights, which requires vehicles that can fly again quickly. Musk has said he expects Starship to reach a weekly launch cadence in the first half of 2027.
Flight 15 also improved on the last Starship mission in September, which reached orbit but ended after about three hours with a Pacific splashdown when some engines shut down. Before this flight, SpaceX had shown an animation of the ship catch during its earnings webcast, and Musk put the odds of pulling it off on the first try at “more likely than not,” as Teslarati reported.
Tesla’s long-promised Cybercab is finally available for personal purchase, at least for a select few in the Austin area. But it’s far from a straightforward ownership experience.
The $29,990 price tag comes with a stack of restrictions that redefine what “owning” the vehicle actually means. The two-seat, steering-wheel-free Robotaxi, previously limited to Tesla’s own fleet, now carries contractual terms that limit where it can go, how it can be used, and whether it can even move without an active paid subscription.
Opening Night of Orders
Late on November 13, Tesla announced that select customers were being invited to order a Cybercab for personal use.
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
The estimated purchase price is $29,990 before taxes, paired with a non-refundable $1,000 deposit and an estimated December 2026 delivery in Austin, Texas. The first month of the required :Autonomy Subscription,” priced at $299 per month is included.
After that, the vehicle needs an active subscription to operate at all. The announcement confirmed that customer sales had begun, albeit on an invite-only basis rather than a public order page.
The Fine Print for Buyers
BREAKING: Tesla’s Cybercab Autonomy Subscription terms are now live. A paid monthly subscription is required.
1/12 Tesla: “Your Cybercab will not operate without an active Autonomy Subscription. 🧵 https://t.co/umVk6DJE2x— Spencer (@scotsrule08) November 13, 2026
For those invited to order, the agreements (Cybercab Order Agreement, Terms of Use, and Autonomy Subscription Agreement) impose significant constraints. Major points include:
- A mandatory Autonomy Subscription (currently listed at $299 per month on the order screen, first month included) is required; without it, the Cybercab will not operate.
- Personal, non-commercial use only; ride-hailing, Robotaxi network participation, delivery, or rental requires separate written authorization or product enablement from Tesla.
- Operation restricted to Tesla-enabled Robotaxi geofences and supported service areas, which the company can expand, shrink, or alter; the vehicle may be technologically prevented from operating outside them.
- No unauthorized modifications (including wraps, window tint, or wheel changes) without Tesla or an authorized provider.
- Restricted resale and transfer: written permission required, with contractual damages of at least $50,000 (or full transaction value if higher) for unauthorized sales; Tesla also reserves repurchase rights at a company-determined fair market value, with the owner covering return costs.
- Safety or improper-use “strikeouts” (three or more) can trigger a one-week suspension of autonomous features without prorated refund.
- Owners remain responsible for insurance, registration, charging, parking, and general cleaning; the subscription covers certain maintenance items such as tires, windshields, filters, and camera cleaning, plus limited towing.
- Manual controls on the touchscreen allow only short-distance movement up to about 2 mph and require a valid driver’s license; they are not for public-road driving.
Why These Terms Might Exist
Tesla’s approach prioritizes control over a vehicle designed without traditional human controls and intended primarily as transport-as-a-service, something that Musk has hinted toward for some time now. Restricting commercial use and modifications could be as much of a software integrity, safety, and data collection effort as it is a safety effort.
Fleet consistency could also be in regulatory scrutiny early on in the Cybercab’s days of public operation.
The subscription model generates ongoing revenue beyond the low vehicle price and ensures the car remains connected and updatable, something that will keep the Cybercab as safe as possible as new updates roll out.
Buyback and resale limits reduce the risk of vehicles circulating outside Tesla’s operational and service ecosystem.
It apperas that personal ownership is secondary to the broader Robotaxi network strategy, as Musk has previously stated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned.
Pickup Locations and Musk’s Pricing View
Initial deliveries are estimated for Austin, but personal vehicles are able to operate in any of Tesla’s Robotaxi geofences:
It’ll work unsupervised inside all the same geo locations as @robotaxi, just serving the owners’ needs.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) November 14, 2026
Those who have been invited to order can also have their personal Cybercab delivered to numerous locations in Texas, including:
- Austin
- Dallas
- Houston
- San Antonio
- Fort Worth
Interesting that you can choose a delivery city https://t.co/SknDz9rFzo
— Whole Mars Catalog (@wholemars) November 14, 2026
As far as the monthly “Autonomy Subscription,” it appears Musk already wants it to be low. He acknowledged last night on X that the subscription price is too high. Along with detailing that the Cybercab will be available nationwide as regulatory approval is received, Musk said the monthly fee should match the cost of FSD and Premium Connectivity, which is about $115 per month.
The launch marks a milestone for unsupervised personal autonomous vehicles, but the fine print makes clear that buyers are purchasing a highly constrained asset whose usefulness is tightly bound to Tesla’s software, service network, and geographic approvals.
Tesla has officially put the Cybercab up for sale, revealing a bargain price and a $299 per month “Autonomy Subscription” that could hit customer hands as soon as December.
The offer requires a $299 monthly Autonomy Subscription, with the first month included in the purchase price, along with a $1,000 non-refundable order deposit. Tesla’s ordering interface shows deliveries targeted for Austin, Texas.
Tesla says that the Cybercab is making transportation more efficient, affordable and accessible than ever before, and that buyers can order their own Cybercab for personal use.
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: Tesla Cybercab is officially on sale for $29,990 with a $299/mo “Autonomy Subscription”
Delivery slotted for December! HUGE!
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated robotaxi, a gold-finished, two-passenger vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, designed from the outset for unsupervised autonomous operation. It has been in limited Robotaxi service in Austin since September 2026, operating alongside Tesla’s larger fleet of Model Y vehicles.
Production takes place at Gigafactory Texas, which launched earlier this year. Tesla has stated for some time that it planned to put Cybercabs on sale by the end of the year, and it looks like they will come through on that promise if everything goes according to plan.
The Autonomy Subscription is mandatory for the vehicle to operate because it is void of a steering wheel and pedals. Tesla notes that the subscription and regular vehicle maintenance are required, indicating that personal owners will depend on the company’s software and service infrastructure rather than traditional ownership models.
One month of the subscription is included with purchase and subsequent months are billed separately until canceled.
This limited personal-sales opening marks a shift from Tesla’s earlier emphasis on fleet and transport-as-a-service operations. During the Q3 2026 Earnings Call, executives indicated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned and used for rideshare service, while still aiming to place some vehicles with customers by year-end.
Elon Musk has previously targeted a price below $30,000, which was a huge point of emphasis for the Cybercab being the central point of Tesla’s “transportation-as-a-service” model.
Availability remains restricted to invited customers rather than a public order page, and the initial deliveries are expected only in the Austin area where unsupervised Robotaxi operations are already active. Buyers will need to accept the geographic and operational constraints of current autonomous deployment, as the vehicle cannot be driven manually outside supported zones.
The move gives a small number of early buyers the chance to own Tesla’s dedicated autonomous vehicle at the long-discussed sub-$30,000 price point, while the bulk of production continues to support the company’s expanding Robotaxi network.
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
Tesla Cybercab ownership will come with plenty of strings attached
