Tesla filed two separate recall plans in China on Friday, and the one that travelled is not the bigger one

The number that travelled was 2,975,910.

That is the emergency door release recall, and it is the smaller of the two things Tesla filed in China on Friday.

Tesla Shanghai and Tesla Beijing filed recall plans with the State Administration for Market Regulation under China's regulations on the recall of defective automotive products. The notice went up at 17:42 Beijing time and carries three recall numbers across two entirely different defects.

The door releases

S2026M0098V and S2026M0099V cover the interior emergency mechanical release, the manual handle that opens a door when the car has no power.

The regulator's stated defect is that the handle is close in colour to the surrounding interior trim and is therefore not easy to identify or operate, and that in extreme situations such as a severe collision disabling the vehicle's low-voltage system this may affect how quickly occupants open a door to get out and how quickly people outside can reach them.

Domestic Model 3, built between 4 March 2019 and 29 April 2026: 973,156 cars. Domestic Model Y, built between 16 November 2020 and 30 April 2026: 1,956,713. Imported Model 3: 35,590. Imported Model X: 8,328. Imported Model S: 2,123. They add to 2,975,910, and the recall starts on 25 September.

The remedy is a warning label at the handle and an over-the-air update to the window control software adding a strategy for lowering the windows after a crash. Cars that already carry the label do not get a second one.

The other one

S2026M0039I covers 2,740,642 domestic Model 3 and Model Y built between 4 March 2019 and 7 December 2025. It takes effect immediately rather than in September.

The defect is different in kind. With assisted steering enabled and the car in its combined driving assistance state, the notice says the existing attention monitoring mechanism is not sufficient to prompt a driver whose line of sight has left the road, and a driver who does not intervene in time may face increased collision risk. Tesla will push a free software update adding in-cabin camera monitoring on top of the steering wheel torque monitoring it already runs. No visit to a service centre is needed. Cars that cannot take the update over the air get contacted.

Nothing physical changes on either recall. Both remedies are a label, a setting, or a camera that was already fitted being asked to do a new job.

The wording is not only Tesla's

Xiaomi filed its own plan two minutes later, at 17:44 on the same evening. Recall numbers S2026M0096V and S2026M0097V cover 339,069 and 51,366 SU7 cars, and the paragraph describing the defect is the same sentence as Tesla's, character for character, down to the low-voltage clause. Xiaomi's remedy adds a change to the centre-console unlocking logic alongside the window strategy, and it starts at once rather than in September.

Neither notice says who raised the issue first. What can be said is that two manufacturers described an identical defect in identical words and filed within two minutes of each other.