The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will conclude its two-year investigation into Tesla Autopilot and could make a public announcement soon, the agency’s acting chief told Reuters. “We will come to a resolution (of the Tesla probe),” acting NHTSA administrator Ann Carlson told Reuters in an interview at the agency’s headquarters.
Speaking broadly about advanced driver assistance systems, she said: “It’s very important that drivers pay attention. It is also very important that driving monitoring systems take into account that people trust technology too much.”
She declined to discuss how the Tesla investigation might be resolved, but added: “Hopefully you hear something relatively soon.” Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agency is investigating Autopilot’s performance after identifying more than a dozen crashes where Tesla vehicles hit stationary emergency vehicles. It is also being investigated whether Tesla vehicles sufficiently ensure that drivers pay attention when using the driver assistance system.
In June 2022, NHTSA upgraded its study to 830,000 Tesla vehicles that it first opened for technical analysis in August 2021 — a necessary step before it could potentially demand a recall. Last month, NHTSA sought updated responses and current data from Tesla in the investigation.
Autopilot is intended to allow cars to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within their lane, while enhanced Autopilot can assist with lane changes on highways.
In addition, since 2016, NHTSA has opened more than three dozen special Tesla crash investigations into cases suspected of using driver systems like Autopilot, with 23 fatalities reported to date.
Carlson noted that the Autopilot investigation is “complicated” given the large number of crashes being investigated. “It’s big numbers and we’re working on that,” said Carlson.
NHTSA has previously said that evidence raises questions about the effectiveness of Tesla’s warning strategy, which tries to get the driver’s attention.
The agency said that by 2022, nine of 11 vehicles in previous collisions showed no driver engagement or visual or audio warnings until the last minute prior to a collision, while four showed no visual or audio alerts at all during the last autopilot use cycle.
NHTSA closed an earlier investigation into Autopilot in 2017 without taking any action. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has criticized Tesla’s lack of system safeguards for Autopilot and NHTSA’s inability to ensure Autopilot’s safety.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has said NHTSA should require automakers to “build in system safeguards that limit the use of automated vehicle control systems to the conditions for which they were designed.”
© Thomson Reuters 2023
