Software issues increasingly cause vehicle safety recalls

The personal computer and mobile phone industries have mastered the art of painless recall: a quick click on a software update and a few minutes later, electronic devices are bug-free.

Could the same be true for your car and truck safety issues? Yes and no.

Each year, dozens of passenger cars and light trucks are reported for safety problems so serious that they require immediate repair to correct a known defect. The number of recall campaigns as well as the number of affected vehicles have generally increased over the past decades. More than 30 million vehicles have been recalled in 2023 alone.

Increasingly, safety recalls reveal the need to fix an electronic problem, according to federal statistics. Software-related malfunctions are now responsible for more than one in five automobile recalls, according to a study released earlier this year of a decade of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall data by law firm DeMayo Law.

A separate estimate from Envorso, a consultancy specializing in software strategy for the automotive industry, found an even more dramatic impact: the total number of vehicles affected by software-related recalls increased from nearly 15 % of all vehicles recalled in 2023 to almost 42. % of all vehicles recalled so far this year. In other words, more than 12 million vehicles were recalled due to software issues through the end of October.

The bad news: Like your computer, when these problems arise, they need to be repaired, leading to inconvenience. But the good news is that a software fix can be a much quicker solution than a problem requiring new parts, experts say. Sometimes the root of the problem is software related. But often, updated software is applied to fix a separate mechanical problem.

For automakers and their suppliers, the challenge remains enormous, especially as the industry moves toward more electric cars and trucks, as well as advanced vehicles with more autonomous driving features using hundreds of millions of lines of code. Cars and trucks are increasingly connected to each other and the rest of the world electronically, which only raises the stakes when something goes wrong.

Stellantis recalled more than 1 million vehicles in the United States earlier this year over a software issue that could prevent backup cameras from working properly. Meanwhile, Ford has recalled 456,000 Bronco Sport and Maverick vehicles due to a battery detection issue that could lead to a loss of engine power.

Older recalled cars and trucks are at serious risk. A Detroit Free Press investigation published earlier this year found that millions of aging used passenger cars and trucks on U.S. roads today are going unrepaired despite dangerous defects identified by manufacturers automobiles and the federal government.

The investigation concluded that automakers are making little progress in repairing their older models with safety problems, exposing a growing and vulnerable group of drivers to unnecessary risk. Another critical gap: Used car retailers continue to sell potentially defective cars and trucks with open recalls in most locations, while new car dealers legally cannot.

In an interview with the Free Press as part of his investigation, Jeffrey Wu described how he had part of his leg amputated after his Jeep ran over him at a gas station, crushing his leg. Wu said he thought he had parked his 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee — which was the subject of an unrepaired safety recall for its problematic shifter — but instead it rolled toward him on March 4 2022. The security recall patch involved a software fix, but Wu said he was never aware of the recall.

So how about remote repair to save the time and money of a trip to the dealership?

Experts say the promise of so-called “live remedies” for safety-recalled cars and trucks is significant. In 2019, only 22,000 recalled vehicles were fixed through over-the-air updates. That number skyrocketed to 5.2 million cars and trucks in 2022, according to a review of federal data.

The cost savings could be enormous. ABI Research predicts that by 2028, U.S. automakers will adopt over-the-air recall measures to save $1.5 billion annually. According to the global technology monitoring company, performing in-person software updates now costs automakers $500 million each year.

In 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk questioned whether over-the-air software updates for his company’s electric cars and trucks should even be called a recall.

“The word ‘recall’ for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and simply wrong,” Musk tweeted on the social media site X in 2023. Earlier this year, Tesla released an update to comply to a recall of nearly every vehicle it sold in the United States because the font size on some of its dashboard warning lights was too small to meet federal safety standards.

But other software-related recalls were arguably more serious, including the failure of Tesla’s software to detect an unlocked hood and Stellantis’ defects related to its rear cameras and electronic stability control.

“Part of the problem is that NHTSA has been very slow to change and update the recall system,” Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said in an interview. “There’s starting to be a lot of grumbling.”

A software update may not constitute a recall if it does not involve a critical security issue, according to Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who also advises the U.S. Department of Commerce. Transportation. However, “if an automaker updates its vehicle’s software to address a security issue, then it issues a recall,” Smith wrote earlier this year for Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.

Despite technological advances in an over-the-air recall fix that could have a near 100% completion rate, experts say the majority of software-related recalls today still require a visit to an authorized auto dealership. Recall repairs are almost always free, except for very old cars and trucks.

“The customer has to bring their car to the dealership and the dealer puts it in a bay, and they plug in tools to update the software,” said Todd Warren, senior advisor at Envorso, which specializes in automotive electronics. He estimates that today only 13% of all software-related recalls could be resolved with an over-the-air update.

Warren, who also teaches computer science at Northwestern University, says that in the future, traditional automakers can no longer think about software updates as an afterthought. Instead, he said it must be an essential element from the earliest stages of automotive development so that the software is effective throughout the vehicle’s life cycle.

While customers, for example, might keep their cell phones for just a few years before trading them in for new models, car and truck owners keep their vehicles for many years. And this length of ownership is increasing as the average age of a vehicle on the road reaches a new record of more than 12 years.

Overall, the trend toward more recalls involving software fixes could improve the chances of these cars and trucks getting the fixes they need. The repair completion rate for all software-related recalls is generally higher than for other types of recalls, according to Envorso.

Warren added that features critical to a vehicle’s safety – powertrain control, brakes, steering, among others – “are often difficult to update.”

Some vehicles are hampered by limited computer memory. A personal computer or cell phone, for example, can download updated software while running its current version. But Warren said that’s not necessarily possible on some vehicles when it comes to updating software for some steering and braking systems.

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @matthewsdolan