147 EV recalls: only 20 were fixed without a workshop visit

By Muhammet Çay, editor · Updated 23 September 2026 · How we work out these numbers

Across 14 electric cars and 147 recall campaigns on the US NHTSA record, only 20 could be fixed without taking the car anywhere — and 17 of those 20 were Teslas. Every other manufacturer here fixed 3 of 104 campaigns remotely. The recall count on a spec sheet tells you almost nothing; whether you have to give up a morning tells you a great deal.

The number everyone quotes is the wrong number

A recall is a manufacturer and a regulator finding a fault and committing to fix it. Counting them rewards the cars nobody looked at closely and punishes the ones sold in volume for longest — the Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD leads this table with 26 campaigns, and it is also one of the highest-volume electric cars in the United States. Read the count as a measure of scrutiny and time on sale, not of quality.

What does vary meaningfully is the remedy. 14 per cent of the campaigns here are software fixes delivered over the air; the other 86 per cent need an appointment. That difference is a design decision made years before the fault appeared, and it is the part of a recall you actually experience.

Every model, and what each recall costs you in time

Campaigns covering 2023 to 2026 model years, read from NHTSA on 2026-09-08. Where one campaign covers two cars in this table — several Hyundai and Kia battery campaigns do — it is counted once against each, so the rows add to 147 against 128 distinct campaign numbers.

The spread is wide at both ends: Volvo EX30 Single Motor Extended Range carries 3, the Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD 26. But the Volvo EX30 Single Motor Extended Range has been on sale for a fraction of the time, which is most of the explanation, and none of its campaigns could be resolved remotely.

The 10 that mean something more

NHTSA marks a small number of campaigns with an instruction rather than a remedy: park the car outside and away from buildings, or in the most serious cases stop driving it. 7 of the 10 here are traction-battery fire risks, and they are the entries worth reading in full — the rest of a recall list is paperwork by comparison.

Two of those campaign numbers appear twice because Hyundai and Kia share a battery platform, so one investigation covers cars from both brands. This is also why battery recalls tend to arrive in clusters across an alliance rather than one model at a time — the chemistry and the cell supplier are shared long before the badge is fitted. The chemistry itself is covered in how EV battery types differ.

Look up your own car

Every campaign on record for each model, with NHTSA’s own description of the consequence, and a filter for the distinction that matters.

What this list does not tell you

Whether your specific car is affected, and whether the fix has already been done. A recall campaign covers a production range, not every car of that model, and most are remedied long before a used buyer ever sees them. The only authoritative answer is a VIN lookup at nhtsa.gov/recalls, which is free and takes a minute.

It also covers the United States only. The same car sold in Europe is recalled through national authorities and the RAPEX system, with different campaign numbers and sometimes a different scope, so a clean US record is not a clean record everywhere.

Frequently asked questions

Do electric cars get recalled more than petrol cars?

This table cannot answer that — it contains only electric cars. What it does show is that the composition differs: 22 per cent of these campaigns concern the battery or the drive system, categories that do not exist on a petrol car, while 14 per cent were fixed by a software update, which until recently was not possible on any car.

Which electric car has the fewest recalls?

Of the 14 here, the Volvo EX30 Single Motor Extended Range with 3. That figure is heavily shaped by how recently it went on sale, so it is a weak signal on its own — a car with two years on the market and few recalls has been tested by fewer owners, not necessarily built better.

What does “park outside” mean on a recall?

That the fault can cause a fire while the car is parked and switched off, so NHTSA advises keeping it away from structures until the remedy is applied. 7 of the 10 such campaigns here involve the traction battery. It is the strongest signal in the recall system short of a do-not-drive order.

Can a recall be fixed over the air?

Sometimes. 20 of the 147 campaigns here were, and 17 of those were on a Tesla — the rest of the industry managed 3 between them. Anything mechanical, and anything requiring a part to be replaced, still needs a workshop.

Does a recall affect the car’s value?

An open, unremedied recall does; a completed one generally does not, because it means a known fault has been fixed at the manufacturer’s expense. This is why the VIN check matters more than the campaign count when buying used.

Sources

Recall campaigns: US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, retrieved through its public recalls-by-vehicle service on 2026-09-08 for 2023-2026 model years. The over-the-air, park-outside and do-not-drive flags, the component classification and the consequence text are NHTSA’s own; the grouping by car and the counts are ours. Vehicle names and links are the model pages on this site, each with its own sourced specifications.