The automaker announces a massive recall of vehicles, due to problems recorded on its autonomous driving system.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US highway traffic regulator, had been investigating Tesla’s self-driving system for some time. His analyzes led to a large movement of repatriation of vehicles.
A system that increases “the risk of crash”
Tesla will not be able to quietly prepare for its “Investor Day”, scheduled for the 1er next March. The NHTSA has just revealed a scathing analysis of the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which is used for autonomous driving. For the American authority, the latter would allow a vehicle to ” exceed speed limits or cross intersections illegally or unpredictably, [ce qui] increases the risk of crashes “.
The NHTSA launched its investigation a year and a half ago after recording 11 accidents since 2018 on Teslas that had activated the autonomous driving software. The firm founded by Elon Musk explained that it disagrees with the regulator’s thoughts, but has initiated a recall of 362,758 of its vehicles, which will benefit from an update to the FSD.
This is not a “reminder”
Despite this announcement, the American electric vehicle giant was under no obligation to remove the FSD from its vehicles, or even to perform a physical recall.
Among the cars concerned, we find Model S and Model X produced between 2016 and 2023, Model 3 left the factory between 2017 and 2023, and finally, Model Y from the period 2020-2023. They will benefit from a free improvement of the software in order to overcome the problem raised by the NHTSA.
Tesla has yet to issue an official statement regarding this decision. The first reaction, as often lately when it comes to an Elon Musk business, came to us from the businessman’s Twitter account, where the latter attacked the term ” reminder “. A word ” anachronistic and totally false “, according to him, to characterize the action of Tesla.
Sources: Reuters, The Verge
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