Tesla Inc. will make a software fix to more than 285,000 cars in China, or most of the vehicles it delivered there in recent years, to address a safety issue identified by the country’s regulator.

In many cases the recall is expected to be done remotely with an online update to the cars’ active cruise control feature. Tesla will upgrade the software for free.

"This is a black eye for Tesla in a key China region which will be a headwind in the near term to overcome,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. "It’s a lingering issue but clearly China put its foot down and Tesla needs to do a wide-scale recall.”