The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has formally closed its long-running investigation into power-steering loss on Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, ending the engineering analysis on 27 June 2026 without requiring any further action.
What NHTSA closed
The probe, filed as engineering analysis EA24001, covered roughly 376,241 Model 3 and Model Y cars from the 2023 model year. Regulators concluded that Tesla's earlier over-the-air software fix and the recall that followed had addressed the underlying problem, and pointed to a measurable decline in owner complaints afterwards as evidence the remedy worked. With the defect remedied and the data trending down, the agency saw no reason to press for additional steps.
The defect, and the fix
At the heart of the case was an overvoltage condition that could overstress components on the circuit board of the steering control unit. When it occurred, drivers could experience a sudden loss of power steering or a sharp jump in the effort needed to turn the wheel — alarming at low speed and potentially dangerous in traffic.
The timeline stretches back nearly three years. NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a preliminary evaluation on 28 July 2023 after a dozen owners reported steering problems, initially covering around 280,000 cars. The agency upgraded it to a full engineering analysis on 1 February 2024. Tesla, for its part, began pushing out over-the-air update 2023.38.4 from 19 October 2023 to stop the overvoltage condition from arising, and formally filed a recall — NHTSA notice 25V092 — for the 376,241 affected vehicles on 19 February 2025.
A different probe from April's
This is not the same case NHTSA wrapped up earlier in the year. In April the agency closed a separate three-year probe into Model Y steering-wheel detachment, which covered about 120,089 cars and was traced to two early-production vehicles missing a retaining bolt. That investigation concerned the wheel physically separating from the column; this one concerned the loss of power assistance. Both ended without a fresh recall, but they addressed entirely different mechanical issues.
What it means for European owners
The Model 3 and Model Y sold across Europe share the same steering hardware as the US cars, and the over-the-air remedy was deployed fleet-wide rather than market-by-market. European owners of 2023-model cars therefore received the same protective software update, and the closure of the US probe is a reasonable signal that the issue is considered resolved.
It is also a useful reminder of how Tesla's over-the-air model changes the recall picture. A conventional recall on this scale would have meant hundreds of thousands of workshop visits; here, the corrective software reached most cars in the background, and the regulator's later finding of fewer complaints is the kind of evidence that lets an investigation be closed cleanly. European safety authorities do not always mirror NHTSA's conclusions, but with the same fix already on European cars there is little reason to expect a separate action here. As ever, owners who still notice unusually heavy steering or a warning about reduced power assistance should have their car checked, but the regulatory file on this particular defect is now shut.