Tesla (TSLA) recalls over 2 million cars in China to add driver monitoring

This news is about Tesla, not home energy upgrades, so it has no real bearing on planning insulation, heat pumps, or rebates for your house. Still, here's what happened: Tesla is recalling more than 2.7 million Model 3 and Model Y cars in China, built between March 2019 and December 2025, to fix how the cars watch whether the driver is paying attention while using its assisted-driving system (Autosteer). Chinese regulators found that Tesla's old method — sensing a hand's grip on the steering wheel — wasn't enough to prove someone was actually looking at the road.

The fix is a free over-the-air software update, so no one needs to bring a car into a shop. It adds cabin-camera tracking of the driver's eyes on top of the existing steering-wheel check. Tesla had already been using a camera for this in China, but drivers found they could trick it with cheap plastic doll heads propped near the mirror. This recall extends the stricter camera monitoring across all cars using the system.

This mirrors a similar move the U.S. required back in 2023, when regulators forced Tesla to add stronger driver-attention checks after a recall covering about 2 million American vehicles. Tesla also filed a separate, larger recall in China the same day for an emergency door release that's hard to find after a crash, covering nearly 3 million more cars. None of this involves home electricity use, solar, or EV charging costs.