The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ended a long-running investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system after looking at hundreds of crashes where it was used incorrectly. Thirteen of these crashes were fatal, and “many more” involved major injuries.
At the same time, the NHTSA is starting a new review to see if the fix Tesla made to the Autopilot recall in December works well enough.
In papers made public on Friday, the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation said it had finished “an extensive body of work” that showed “Tesla’s weak driver engagement system was not appropriate for Autopilot’s permissive operating capabilities.”
According to the agency, “this mismatch created a critical safety gap between what drivers thought Autopilot could do and what it actually could do.” “This gap allowed misuse to happen and crashes that could have been avoided.”
The first investigation, which began in 2021, has come to an end. It was one of the most public attempts by the government to look into Tesla’s Autopilot software. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has accused Tesla of falsely promoting the features of Autopilot and the more advanced Full Self-Driving beta software. The Department of Justice is also looking into the company’s claims about the technology. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, says the company is now “going balls to the wall for autonomy.”
The NHTSA said that its probe looked at 953 crashes that were reported up until August 30, 2023. That’s about half (489 of them) that the agency said there “was not enough data to make an assessment,” the other car was at blame, Autopilot was not being used, or the crash had nothing to do with the investigation.
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The NHTSA said that the other 467 crashes could be put into three groups. In 211 accidents, “the frontal plane of the Tesla struck another vehicle or an obstacle with enough time for an alert driver to respond to avoid or lessen the crash.” It said that 145 crashes happened when drivers “departed from the road in low-traction conditions, such as when the road was wet.” It also said that 111 of the accidents happened when the driver “inadvertently disengaged Autosteer,” which meant the car left the road.
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