Tesla Inc is recalling hundreds of thousands of vehicles after US authorities said that its automated-driving technology could increase the risk of a crash.
The automaker’s so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta system “may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections,” including traveling straight through from a turn lane and proceeding through steady-yellow traffic lights, a filing on Thursday with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said.
The system’s errors “increase the risk of a collision if the driver does not intervene,” the filing said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The recall affects 362,758 vehicles, including some Model 3, Model X, Model Y and Model S units manufactured since 2016.
Tesla is expected to fix the issue through an over-the-air software update by April 15, the traffic agency said.
The agency’s concerns raise new questions about a system that Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk sees as critical to the company’s long-term prospects.
“The overwhelming focus is on solving full self-driving,” Musk said in an interview in June last year with Tesla fans on YouTube. “That’s essential. It’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”
While Musk did not address the specifics of the filing, he wrote on Twitter on Thursday that the term “recall” was “flat wrong,” as the issues can be fixed with a software update.
The company’s automated-driving technology is already under scrutiny from Washington.
The NHTSA has been looking into how it handles crash scenes since 2021 after a dozen collisions with first responders and other vehicles. It also opened an investigation last year into complaints of Tesla vehicles with Autopilot driver-assist that suddenly brake at high speeds.
The agency said in a separate statement on Thursday that its investigations of Tesla’s Autopilot are still active.
The company has also been accused of exaggerating the capabilities of its technology.
“The main problems for Tesla’s system include the misleading names of ‘Full Self-Driving’ and ‘Autopilot,’” said David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Tesla “does not have adequate safeguards to ensure drivers will pay full attention to the road,” Harkey said.
The company’s Web site says that its autonomous features like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving “require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
Tesla shares turned negative after the recall notice, falling 5.7 percent by market close on Thursday.
The agency said it first notified Tesla on Jan. 25 that it had identified “potential concerns related to certain operational characteristics of FSD Beta in four specific roadway environments” and requested that the automaker file a recall.
Tesla met with the agency multiple times in the following days.
It did not concur with the agency’s analysis, but on Feb. 7 moved forward with the recall “out of an abundance of caution,” the NHTSA said.
Representatives of Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tesla identified 18 warranty claims between May 2019 and September last year that “may be related” to the conditions the agency was concerned about, but said it is not aware of any injuries or deaths related to the defect.
“It’s encouraging that Tesla is not trying to fight this and is working with NHTSA,” said Missy Cummings, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in autonomous systems and spent a year at the agency. “It’s a good sign that the company is maturing.”
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