by David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. auto safety regulators said on Friday they had opened an investigation into Tesla’s December recall of more than 2 million vehicles to improve the safety of Autopilot autonomous driving software.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced an investigation into concerning crashes that occurred after the recall update was installed. The investigation is also prompted by the “results of NHTSA’s preliminary testing of the revised vehicles.”
Furthermore, some revisions require the agreement of the owner, who is able to easily cancel them.
The agency said Friday that Tesla had made software updates to address the reported issues, but the automaker had “failed to incorporate them into the vehicle recall or address a defect posing an unreasonable safety risk.” .”
The new investigation covers Model Y,
The auto safety agency noted that during its investigation into Autopilot software, launched in August 2021, it identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more deaths and numerous others involving serious injuries in which “predictable misuse of the system by the driver played an apparent role.”
NHTSA also raised concerns Friday about the Autopilot software name, which “may lead drivers to believe that automation has greater capabilities than in reality and cause them to place too much trust in automation.” .
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The aim of the recall of 2 million vehicles was to improve the readability of visual alerts and to deactivate automated steering (Autosteer) if drivers do not respond to inattention warnings and additional checks. Tesla said it would limit Autopilot use for a week if major improper use is detected.
(Reporting David Shepardson, French version Alban Kacher, editing by Kate Entringer)
©2024 Thomson Reuters, all rights reserved. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. “Reuters” and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies.