Regulators have had questions in the past about the reliability of Tesla’s electric suspension systems. The company is now forced to recall about 30,000 Model S and X electric vehicles imported into China between 2013 and 2017. Tesla had a choice: either to sue the representatives of the Chinese authorities or to silently replace the said cars. The company chose a replacement and notified the relevant US regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The letter to the NHTSA is an important step, as a similar investigation could begin in the US to look for similar defects in cars used by American drivers. NHTSA raised questions about suspension reliability in 2016, but the regulator found no manufacturing defects, and Tesla had no problems. The company equated the demand of the Chinese regulators SAMR and DPAC with unfair nagging but decided to settle the issue amicably.

According to a Tesla investigation, problems with suspension among the electric vehicles of these models sold to China appeared in the case of 0.1% of cars, while outside China, the same defects were detected in 0.05% of cars. Based on this, Tesla experts and lawyers argue that in China the suspensions are under greater stress either due to worse roads or due to careless actions of drivers.

At the same time, it must be said that the Tesla Model S and X electric vehicles imported into China after 2017 did not find any suspension defects during operation. This leads to the suspicion that the company has nevertheless changed something in their design and, perhaps, there could be some flaw in these car units in the indicated years.