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Totally agree. I've seen people argue before that "recall" means something very specific as defined by the NHTSA, and that may be all well and good, but that language came into existence before OTA updates existed. The very word "recall" implies taking something back, and the consequences of needing an OTA update vs. physically taking it in are so vastly different that I don't think it makes sense to conflate the two.

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If it was just an OTA you probably wouldn’t hear about it, missing the fact that the hood might unlatch with Tesla just showing an error

This is why I think it makes sense to have explicit, defined categories for "physical recalls" compared to "OTA recalls", e.g. if something is defined as an OTA recall then you would get a specific kind of alert in the dash that says that an update contains a recall fix, along with detailed info. Most drivers would be more likely to see a warning if it came directly in the car's dash compared to a piece of physical mail that looks kinda like junk mail.

I think an additional Recall message in the dash would be a good idea. I wouldn't change the name, it's an established name and everybody knows its significance. Wether the car needs to be returned physically is up to the car manufacturer. I think most of the people complaining about the semantics are shareholders, they are just fine with "hanging up" their phone etc.

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