NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison told a Washington summit on November 5 that over-the-air recall fixes generally deliver high completion rates because owners can skip a dealer visit.
Image: Tesla
Morrison opened NHTSA’s “Recalls Next” public meeting by framing the real scoreboard as vehicles repaired, not mailers sent. In 2025, the agency oversaw nearly 900 vehicle safety recalls affecting more than 29 million vehicles, and completion still drops sharply as cars age.
A new recall on a three-year-old vehicle averages about 68% completion. The same kind of campaign on a 15-year-old vehicle averages about 18%. Surveys say roughly four in 10 owners name inconvenience as a main reason they never finish the work, even when the repair itself is free.
That inconvenience problem is why Morrison highlighted software remedies. Over-the-air recall fixes remove the need to book a shop day or lose a work truck. NHTSA says it oversees those OTA campaigns the same way it oversees physical ones, and it is exploring more flexible owner notices beyond first-class mail alone.
For Tesla owners, this lands as policy catching up to practice. Tesla already remediates the large majority of its U.S. recall population with software updates owners install at home, rather than sending every car to a service bay. That playbook matches the completion advantage Morrison described for OTA remedies.
Recent Tesla campaigns show the pattern in plain view. A Cybertruck lighting-software recall was framed as a software fix, while other Tesla campaigns still need a shop visit when the defect cannot be patched remotely.
Morrison also announced $1.5 million in new state DMV grants so more agencies can put recall notices with registration mail. Earlier grants in Maryland, California, Texas, and Ohio reached owners of about 9.5 million vehicles with open recalls, and nearly 2 million of those were repaired during the short grant windows.
NHTSA also launched a bulk VIN lookup tool that checks up to 100 VINs at once for open safety recalls. The agency opened a public docket for the meeting and is taking comments through December 5. The agenda also covers how recall rules apply to automated vehicles and software fixes, a longer-term issue for FSD and Cybercab, but today’s remarks stay focused on getting more recalled cars fixed.
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