Saar: The units manufactured before April 2016 will be retrofitted with a set of new power steering bolts

Tesla hasn’t had the best of starts to a year. With a fatal accident involving a Model X last week being under the radar of the US authorities, the California-based automaker has now issued a voluntary recall of its Model S sedan. Tesla said 1.23 lakh units of the Model S, which were produced before April 2016, will be recalled to change a set of bolts in the power steering mechanism.

The company said that it had observed excessive corrosion in them but the problem was most prevalent in colder climates where road salt is used.  In an email, to customers, Tesla explained, “If the bolts fail, the driver is still able to steer the car, but increased force is required due to loss or reduction of power assist. This primarily makes the car harder to drive at low speeds and for parallel parking, but does not materially affect control at high speed, where only small steering wheel force is needed.”

Tesla cleared the air by mentioning that customers don’t have to stop driving their Model S’ if they haven’t faced any problems. That’s easy to say Tesla but it is hard to psychologically overpower the potential threat that can come true anytime. The company said that it will inform the customers of affected vehicles when the replacement bolts are ready in their area. The whole operation per car should take around an hour to complete.

This isn’t the first time that Tesla has issued a recall for its vehicles. In 2015, 90,000 units of Model S were recalled to change a faulty seat belt. Last year, 53,000 Model S and Model X units were recalled for a faulty parking brake. This section of the report card doesn’t really help Tesla’s case as a manufacturer of electric vehicles. Things will only get tougher for this American automaker as other, more established, game players are not far behind in releasing their own set of emission-free, autonomous vehicles.