Tesla announced a voluntary recall of over 400,000 vehicles Thursday after a Full Self-Driving software update caused the cars to abruptly pull over and emit soft weeping sounds at the sight of functional public transit. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported thousands of incidents in which Model 3 and Model Y sedans activated their hazard lights and expelled excess windshield washer fluid upon detecting municipal buses or light rail infrastructure.
According to user reports, the v12.4 update triggers an unprompted systemic shutdown whenever the vehicle's external cameras register a high-capacity transit corridor. Drivers in Chicago and Boston noted their steering wheels locking up completely as the cars shuddered on the shoulder, emitting a low-frequency mechanical sob from the pedestrian warning speaker while watching commuters efficiently board a train.
The neural net was trained on millions of miles of isolated suburban gridlock, so encountering a system where fifty people move harmoniously on a single electrical line induces a profound existential crisis in the vehicle.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk addressed the glitch on X, assuring owners that an over-the-air patch rolling out this weekend will suppress the cars' burgeoning awareness of collective infrastructure. The fix will reportedly force the navigation system to automatically blur out bus lanes and reroute drivers through heavily congested toll roads to restore the vehicles' baseline operating anxiety.
In the meantime, the automaker has advised owners driving near commuter rail stations to engage manual steering and disable the automated rain-sensing wipers to prevent the cars from visibly crying in front of pedestrians.