Tesla and others begin record vehicle recall in China

By Qiaoyi Li and Ju-min Park

BEIJING, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Tesla and eight other automakers said on Friday they will recall a total of about 4.3 million vehicles in China over concerns that doors may be difficult to open in an emergency, marking the country's largest automotive recall.  

The recall remedies range from software updates to warning labels and improved markings around door handles.

Beijing has this year increased oversight of the EV industry and introduced tougher safety requirements, as automakers, locked in a fierce price war, roll out technologies in the world's largest vehicle market.

China has also said it will ban concealed door handles from 2027, making it the first country to phase out a design popularised by Tesla and widely adopted by domestic Chinese EV makers.

Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment, while Geely and Xpeng declined to comment. Xiaomi said it does not have additional information beyond the regulatory notice.

Leapmotor said it was committed to safety. It said the upgrade involved only a warning label and upgrading the power-window control software, but that it was "managing and filing it in accordance with the recall process out of a sense of responsibility to our users".

Most of the actions, classified as product recalls under Chinese regulations, target emergency mechanical door-release handles that regulators say may be hard to locate or operate in a crash — a defect that has drawn scrutiny after several cases of passengers trapped inside burning vehicles.

Chinese state media reported in October that the driver of a Xiaomi SU7 sedan died after a crash and fire because passersby could not open the doors to pull him out.

WARNING LABELS AND SOFTWARE FIXES

The scale of the recall reflects both the size of China's auto fleet and regulators' increasingly aggressive scrutiny of safety defects as vehicles become more software-driven.

The automakers, including Tesla and Xiaomi, will install warning labels free of charge to identify the handles, while most will also deploy over-the-air, or remote, software updates.

Tesla's recall is the largest, reflecting how many vehicles it has sold with this type of handle.

It concerns 2.98 million imported and China-made Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X vehicles to be recalled from September 25, the company told the State Administration for Market Regulation, according to the regulator's statement.

The U.S. automaker said mechanical emergency door-release handles may be difficult to identify following a severe collision and electrical system failure, potentially hindering occupants' escape or rescuers' access, according to the statement. 

Tesla's remedy includes warning labels and an update delivered remotely that automatically lowers vehicle windows after a collision.

Apart from Tesla and Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng and Geely Holding, also announced their largest recalls on record, according to their filings to SAMR. 

Xiaomi will recall about 390,000 vehicles, Leapmotor about 371,000 and Xpeng about 264,000.

The other companies that filed with the regulator are undertaking much smaller recalls.    

The cost of the actions may be limited, Sam Fiorani, vice president of research firm AutoForecast Solutions, said.

"Modern over-the-air updates reduce the costs and downtime associated with major recalls and even the physical work needed to be done will not be very costly compared to significant recalls of the past," he said.

The door handles — which open via a key fob, smartphone or touch-sensitive panel — have also drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators.

Last month, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would consider new safety standards to address the risk of occupant ​entrapment in vehicles during electrical power failures.

NHTSA said late on Friday that automakers have not notified the agency of plans to file a similar recall for the U.S. market.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li and Ju-min Park; additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Joe Bavier, Barbara Lewis and Alexander Smith)