Mercedes-Benz has issued two voluntary recall notices that affect certain EQE, EQS, and EQS SUV all-electric vehicles sold in the United States, with a total of 8,281 units appearing on one of the recall reports published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
This particular recall has been issued because the electric drivetrain may deactivate because of a fault in the software management response logic, which could lead to a loss of propulsion and an increased risk of a crash.
As per the official NHTSA report, the issue is described as follows:
Under specific conditions, the fault management response logic may deactivate the electric drivetrain. A loss of propulsion cannot be ruled out, which could increase the risk of a crash.
The driver will not get any warning before the issue occurs, but when it does occur, “multiple warning messages are displayed in the instrument cluster.”
The 2022-2023 Mercedes-Benz EQS 450 sedan is the most affected, with 5,051 units with the faulty Electric Drivetrain software, followed by the 2022 EQS 580, with 2,736 units, and 2022-2023 Mercedes-AMG EQS, with 492 vehicles.
The 2023 EQS 580 SUV and 2023 AMG EQE are also part of this recall, but only one unit of each is affected.
The German automaker discovered the problem in October 2022 after it received a field report indicating a malfunction of the electrical drivetrain possibly referring to a loss of propulsion. No injuries, deaths, or third-party damages have been reported.
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To fix the issue, owners will need to schedule an appointment with an authorized dealer, where the cars will get a software update for the electric drivetrain system.
Another recall that has to do with a possible fault in the monitoring software of the Electronic Stability Program (ESP) has been issued for a different batch of Mercedes-Benz models, including the EQS 450 and EQS 580 EVs.
According to the NHTSA, “Under certain conditions, the ESP monitoring software could erroneously determine a fault condition. In that event, the ESP fault response would limit the functionality of the vehicle’s dynamics control systems (ABS, ASR, ESP, and EBD) and the speedometer would indicate a speed of 0 mph (0 km/h), regardless of the actual vehicle speed. These might increase the risk of a crash.”
A total of 7,558 vehicles are affected by this recall, with 4,285 units of the 2022 EQS 450 and 2,522 units of the 2022 EQS 580 included. The other vehicles are the S580e plug-in hybrid, as well as the gas-powered Mercedes-Maybach S580 and S680.
A software update that needs to be performed by an authorized dealer will fix this issue, as per the official notice.
