After a Tesla Cybertruck recall earlier this month warned of wheels potentially falling off vehicles, the latest recall to hit the electric vehicle maker is fairly inconsequential by comparison.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently released a recall notice potentially impacting 14,575 Tesla Model Y vehicles that might be missing a sticker. Some of those vehicles, model years 2025 and 2026, may not have received a certification label with weight specifications, which the agency warned may lead customers overloading the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash.
The problem arose in April when Tesla discovered a vehicle with a missing certification label during a routine internal audit of its Fremont factory in California. The company figured out that its automated vision-scanning tool that verifies the presence of a “properly affixed” certification label wasn’t doing its job very well.
The Fremont factory team fixed the automated scanning tool and implemented additional manual checks, secondary measures that were also adopted at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Texas.
As of earlier this month, Tesla said it has identified zero warranty claims and zero field reports that may be related to the condition. It also said it’s not aware of any related collisions, fatalities or injuries.
At the end of the day, Tesla won’t have to do much at all since all affected vehicles are either covered under the new vehicle or extended service warranty, or no vehicle owner incurred costs for a pre-notification remedy. So, it’s all good, but it just goes to show how fast the paperwork can pile up for simply missing a sticker.
It’s not the first time in recent years that an automaker has issued a recall over a certification sticker. Toyota had a similar issue in 2024, but in that case the sticker featured incorrect carrying capacity.
