A federal report released today shows Tesla’s autopilot system participated in at least 13 Deadly accident in which drivers abused the system in ways that automakers should have foreseen — and done more to prevent. Not only that, the report also calls Tesla an “industry outlier” because its driver assistance features lack some basic precautions that competitors have taken. Now regulators are questioning whether one Update Tesla’s autopilot system designed to overcome these basic design problems and prevent serious failure has gone far enough.
According to statistics, these fatal accidents left 14 people dead and 49 injured. Data is collected and published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal road safety regulatory agency in the United States.
At least half of the 109 “head-on” crashes examined closely by government engineers – those in which the Tesla hit a vehicle or obstacle directly in its path – involves hazards that are visible 5 seconds or more before impact. Government engineers concluded that that was enough time for an attentive driver to prevent or at least avoid the worst of the impact.
IN such an accident, a March 2023 incident in North Carolina, a Model Y traveling at highway speed struck a teenager as he was getting off a school bus. The teenager was airlifted to the hospital for treatment of serious injuries. NHTSA concluded that “both the bus and the pedestrian would have been visible to the driver and would have allowed the driver to avoid or minimize the severity of this collision.”
Government engineers wrote that, throughout the investigation, they “observed a trend in avoidable crashes involving hazards that drivers who pay attention can see”.
Tesla, which disbanded its public relations department in 2021, did not respond to a request for comment.
Incredibly, the report called Tesla an “industry outlier” in its approach to autonomous driving. Unlike other auto companies, the report said, Tesla lets Autopilot operate in situations for which it was not designed and cannot be paired with a driver interaction system that requires the user to pay attention to the road.
Regulators concluded that even the product name Autopilot was problematic, encouraging drivers to rely on the system rather than cooperate with it. Automobile competitors often use the language of “assist,” “sense” or “team,” the report said, especially because these systems are not designed for full self-driving.
Last year, California state regulators accused Tesla of false advertising their autopilot and fully self-driving systems, alleges that Tesla misled consumers into believing the cars could drive themselves. In a profileTesla said the state’s lack of opposition to the Autopilot trademark over the years constituted tacit approval of the automaker’s advertising strategy.
NHTSA’s investigation also concluded that, compared to competitor products, Autopilot is more resilient when drivers attempt to steer their vehicles—a design, the regulator said. Written in a summary of the nearly two-year investigation into Autopilot, it prevented drivers from engaging in driving.
A new autopilot probe
These problems occurred before Tesla recalled and updated the Autopilot software via an over-the-air update earlier this year. But with the conclusion of this investigation, the regulator has also opened a new investigation Will Tesla’s updates, rolled out in February, be enough to prevent drivers from misusing Autopilot, misunderstanding when the feature is actually being used, or using it in places where it is not designed? to operate or not.
The review comes after a Washington State driver last week said his Tesla Model S was in Autopilot mode — while he was on his phone — when it struck and killed a motorcyclist.
