US safety regulator wants more recalls fixed over the air, and fewer letters in the mail

America’s road-safety agency has a blunt new yardstick for recalls, and it favours cars that can be fixed while parked in the driveway. Speaking at NHTSA’s Recalls Next meeting in Washington on November 5, Administrator Jonathan Morrison set out the priority in one line.

What ultimately matters is not the number of mailers sent – what matters is the number of vehicles repaired.

Jonathan Morrison, Administrator, NHTSA

The scale explains the urgency. In 2025 the agency handled nearly 900 recalls covering more than 29 million vehicles, according to its own meeting notice, and millions of those cars are still driving around unrepaired. Morrison said about four in 10 owners name inconvenience as a main reason: a free fix still means a dealer visit, time off work or a lift home.

Over-the-air updates remove that step, which is why, in Morrison’s words, they “generally result in high completion rates”. NHTSA treats a software recall exactly like a physical one today, but he said the agency is “exploring ways to provide additional flexibility in the manner of notification”. For owners, that could eventually mean no paper letter weeks after the car has already patched itself. Tesla drivers know the oddity well: in 2024 the company fixed a tire-pressure warning issue on about 700,000 vehicles by software before the recall was even published, and the letters still arrived later, as Not a Tesla App points out.

The agency announced practical steps too. It is offering $1.5 million in grants so more states can add open-recall information to registration renewals, since letters from state motor-vehicle offices have sometimes produced two to three times more repairs than manufacturer notices alone. Dealers and fleet operators also get a bulk lookup tool that checks up to 100 VINs at once.

Nothing changes for drivers yet. The meeting’s public docket stays open for comments until December 5, and any new notification rules would come after that.

Reported by Not a Tesla App, NHTSA notice in the Federal Register. Compiled with AI tools.