WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tesla will recall just over two million vehicles in the United States to install new devices to prevent misuse of its Autopilot driver assistance system, after the U.S. safety agency road safety said the system was open to “foreseeable misuse”.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating for more than two years whether the automaker’s vehicles adequately ensure that drivers are paying attention when using the driver assistance system.
Tesla said in the recall filing that Autopilot’s controls “may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse” and could increase the risk of a crash.
One of the components of Autopilot is “Autosteer,” which maintains a set speed or following distance and works to keep vehicles in their lane of travel.
The group added that it disagrees with NHTSA’s analysis, but that it will deploy an over-the-air software update that “will incorporate additional controls and alerts to those that already exist on affected vehicles in order to “further encourage the driver to adhere to their continued driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is activated.”
Tesla did not respond to a question about whether the recall would also be implemented outside the United States.
(Reporting Mrinmay Dey and Aditya Soni in Bangalore, David Shepardson in Washington; French version Augustin Turpin, editing by Kate Entringer)
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