Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimate that around 27.7 million vehicles were subject to one kind of recall or another over the course of 2024. That's a whole lot of potentially-hazardous hardware rolling around on the road, but that number by itself is just one part of a bigger story—and not exactly a happy one. Let's look at the greater context of 2024's recalls.
United States Vehicle Recalls Fall in 2024
Believe it or not, 27.7 million recalls is actually a drop from recent years. In 2023 an estimated 33.6 million recalls went on the books, while in 2022 there were 29 million. In fact, in some ways 2024 had a lower recall rate than any year since 2013. What happened back then? Well, early in 2014 both the Takata airbag and the GM ignition switch recalls began in earnest, causing recall numbers to skyrocket to roughly 50 million a year between 2014 and 2016. The aftershocks of those recalls are still being felt today, but nothing so devastating has been announced since then.
Since we're talking about good news, I should add that most of the recalls from 2024 weren't considered dire by the NHTSA. The agency puts those recalls in two categories depending on nature and urgency: Park Outside recalls are mostly about potential property damage from spontaneous fires, while Do Not Drive recalls indicate a serious safety issue that could lead to an accident or physical harm.
Over the past decade Do Not Drive recalls have climbed significantly, possibly due to the rise of new electric and hybrid vehicles that have complex electrical elements and software. Park Outside recalls also increased more than tenfold over the past few years due to many of the same issues. Despite how that may sound, estimates say fewer than 10% of all cars recalled in the U.S. have either of these serious labels.
Twenty seven million questionable machines out on the road isn't exactly great, obviously, but at least it seemingly represents a downward trend. On top of that, the majority of those recalls don't make the threshold to be deemed urgent. Good as all that may sound, things are more complex than they first appear.
Declining Vehicle Recalls Show There's More Work to Be Done
The main problem with viewing recall numbers as simply a raw yearly total is that there are many other factors to consider. Probably the best example of that is the millions upon millions of outstanding recalls from previous years, where people never got the suggested maintenance on their vehicles. Add in the huge unaddressed backlog of vehicles included in the 2022 and 2023 totals, and estimates currently say that as many as 72.7 million vehicles traveling on U.S. roads have at least one open recall. That's about 25%, a full quarter, of the approximately 291 million registered vehicles across the nation. Some of the listed defects are worse than others, but any way you slice it that's way too many potentially-faulty vehicles hitting the road.
Moreover, experts have noted a trend of increasing recalls related to electrical and electronic systems. Industry-wide, those seem to be the most common recalls in modern vehicles. In a way that's good because many such faults can be fixed via OTA, or "Over the Air," updates. Those are typically electronic downloads and involve reprogramming buggy software, adding security updates, and otherwise ensuring that the car's "brain" is controlling its systems as intended. Still, the sheer volume of necessary OTA fixes suggests that manufacturers are including systems and features that should have been thought through and tested more carefully.
That's not to say that "physical defects" like faulty brakes or unsafe drivetrain components aren't rearing their ugly heads too. For example, Ford, Honda, and Chrysler reportedly had many 2024 recalls involving physical malfunctions that needed maintenance at a dealership or garage. Those are easily as dangerous as most software bugs, and often more so.
Altogether it seems like things are more nuanced than just glancing at numbers, seeing one is lower than another, and saying things are better.
How Concerned Should the Public Be about Vehicle Recalls?
Obviously, vehicle defects are a complex topic that most people don't give much thought to. I'm open to arguments from people saying that the standards for issuing recalls have changed over the years, and that authorities are more likely to err on the side of caution than they were 30 or 40 years ago when it comes to whether or not to issue a recall. In fact, putting out recalls for seemingly trivial matters might give people a false sense of security when they happen to have a vehicle with a life-threatening defect.
That being said, when there are nearly 30 million recalls a year the math says that they realistically won't all be minor. It's pretty well documented that some number of defects lead to deaths and serious injuries every year. The number is likely an undercount, because determining whether a vehicle defect caused an injury or death is a complex process that requires properly equipped experts in labs. I often think about how many fatal single-vehicle crashes were caused by a defect that will go undetected, because in those types of crashes, it's unusual for anyone to take the time to examine the vehicle.
At the end of the day, defective vehicles are a persistent, deadly problem that the public should probably pay more attention to than it does.