Federal investigators expand probe into Tesla Autopilot crashes
By Gregory Wallace
Federal investigators are expanding their probe of Teslas that have slammed into parked first responders’ vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday its investigation now encompasses 830,000 vehicles with similar driver assist technology. Investigators have reviewed approximately 200 Tesla crashes and are focusing on 16 crashes involving emergency or road work vehicles.
The probe, officially known as an engineering analysis, could lead to a safety recall.
NHTSA’s work is specifically reviewing whether Tesla’s automated technologies make driving less safe, leaving drivers unprepared to take control and prevent a collision.
Tesla says its automated driver assist technology, called Autopilot, is “designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving,” combining elements of automated cruise control and lane keeping assist to keep the vehicle in position on the highway. It still requires an actively engaged driver.
The system is separate from Tesla’s Full Self Driving Beta, a test program rolled out to approximately 100,000 Tesla drivers that aims to one day remove any need for a driver at all. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly pushed back estimates of when that system will function as promised. In today’s disclosure, NHTSA says it has asked Tesla for information on FSD crashes and non-disclosure agreements, although it is unclear if any FSD crashes are part of the active investigation.
NHTSA said in many of the 16 crashes, the drivers’ hands were on the steering wheel, but the drivers did not take “evasive action between 2-5 seconds prior to impact.”
“NHTSA reminds the public that no commercially available motor vehicles today are capable of driving themselves,” the agency said in a statement.
Tesla did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Federal documents say investigators began their work in 2021 after observing “an accumulation of crashes in which Tesla vehicles, operating with Autopilot engaged, struck stationary in-road or roadside first responder vehicles tending to pre-existing collision scenes.” The 16 crashes include on fatality and 15 injuries.
By upgrading its investigation NHTSA says it will be able to “extend its existing crash analysis, evaluate additional data sets, and perform vehicle evaluations.”
A NHTSA document shared with CNN in May showed the agency had more than 30 open investigations involving Tesla vehicles.
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