Tesla Recalls Two Million Cars Due To Inadequate Autopilot Safety Measures

Due to safety concerns raised by a federal safety regulator, Tesla is recalling just over 2 million cars equipped with its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system in order to install additional security measures.

For over two years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been looking into whether Tesla, the electric carmaker owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is doing enough to ensure that drivers pay attention when using Autopilot. Nearly all of Tesla's vehicles on US roads appear to be covered by the largest-ever recall in American history.

Tesla stated that the software system controls on Autopilot "may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse" and could raise the chance of a collision in a recall filing.

Tesla was commended by Acting NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson on Wednesday during a U.S. House hearing for consenting to the Autopilot recall. "One of the things we determined is that drivers are not always paying attention when that system is on," she explained.

Carlson continued, saying that the agency launched a safety investigation in August 2021 after she continued to hear about deadly collisions involving the use of Autopilot. "My immediate response was, 'We have to do something about this,'" she explained.

At midday on Wednesday, shares of the most valuable carmaker in the world were down roughly 3%, trading at $230.09.

Tesla's Autopilot is designed to help vehicles steer, accelerate, and brake automatically within their lane; enhanced Autopilot can help vehicles change lanes on highways, but it does not turn them into autonomous vehicles.

Autosteer, which keeps a car in its driving lane and maintains a predetermined speed or following distance, is one feature of Autopilot.

While disagreeing with the NHTSA's analysis, Tesla said it would implement an over-the-air software update that will "incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged."

In response to inquiries about whether the recall would take place outside of the US or to provide more specific information about the new safety measures, the company remained silent. China might demand a recall for the same reason, though this is not immediately clear.

Similar measures being taken in Italy were unknown to a spokesman for the Italian Transport Ministry. Authorities in Germany declared that they are investigating the matter.

Predicted Mishandling

After discovering over a dozen incidents in which Tesla cars collided with stationary emergency vehicles, the NHTSA began an investigation into Autopilot in August 2021 and upgraded it in June 2022.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that "Tesla's unique design of its Autopilot system can provide inadequate driver engagement and usage controls that can lead to foreseeable misuse of the system." The NHTSA examined 956 crashes in which Autopilot was first purportedly used, and during its investigation, it concentrated on 322 crashes involving Autopilot.

The University of South Carolina law professor Bryant Walker Smith, who specializes in transportation law, predicted that the software-only remedy would be relatively limited. This recall "really seems to put so much responsibility on human drivers instead of a system that facilitates such misuse," Smith stated.

In addition, the NHTSA has opened over three dozen special crash investigations into Tesla since 2016. In these cases, driver systems like Autopilot were suspected of being used, and 23 crash deaths have been reported to date.

According to the NHTSA, there may be a higher chance of a collision when the system is activated but the driver does not retain control over how the car is driven, is ill-prepared to stop, or is unable to tell when the system has been canceled.

The NHTSA will continue to look into Autopilot while it assesses how well Tesla's fixes are working.

According to the agency, the update will be available for 2.03 million Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles built in the United States starting with the 2012 model year.

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