NHTSA launches another investigation into Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ after 58 crashes

NHTSA has launched a broad investigation into Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving Supervised’, better known as ‘FSD’, after it connected 58 incidents to the system.

Tesla is facing increasing legal pressure over its driver assistance systems (ADAS), including Autopilot and ‘Full Self-Driving’ (FSD).

Over the last year, Tesla faced and lost its first wrongful death trial related to a crash involving its driver assistance systems.

It was significant as Tesla had previously managed to avoid responsibility for crashes involving its Autopilot and FSD, and settled a lawsuit that resulted in a death.

As a result of the first trial, Tesla was found partially liable for the accident for the first time.

In the few months since the trial, Tesla has settled two more wrongful death lawsuits involving its driver assistance systems.

On the regulatory side, Tesla is facing pressure from the California DMV for misleading customers with the name of its systems. A judge is expected to decide on this case within the next few months.

NTHSA also has several ongoing investigations related to Tesla’s driver assistance systems, including crashes associated with Full Self-Driving.

Today, NHTSA has announced that it is opening another investigation into ‘FSD (Supervised)’

The Office of Defects Investigation (“ODI”) is opening this Preliminary Evaluation (PE) to assess the scope, frequency, and potential safety consequences of FSD executing driving maneuvers that constitute traffic safety violations. This investigation concerns versions of FSD that Tesla has labeled as “FSD (Supervised)” and “FSD (Beta).”

The investigation is going to focus on two specific types of traffic violations that happen when using FSD:

• A vehicle operating with FSD proceeding into an intersection in violation of a red traffic signal.
• FSD commanding a lane change into an opposing lane of traffic.

NHTSA has identified 58 such incidents, which resulted in 14 fires and 23 injuries.

The regulator released more details about the first scenario under investigation:

With respect to the first type of scenario, ODI has identified 18 complaints and 1 media report alleging that a Tesla vehicle, operating at an intersection with FSD engaged, failed to remain stopped for the duration of a red traffic signal, failed to stop fully, or failed to accurately detect and display the correct traffic signal state in the vehicle interface. Some complainants also alleged that FSD did not provide warnings of the system’s intended behavior as the vehicle was approaching a red traffic signal.

The agency mentioned that several incidents had happened at the same intersection in Joppa, Maryland. Local law enforcement got involved and Tesla reportedly pushed an update to fix the problem with the specific intersection.

It’s unclear whether Tesla notified NHTSA about the problem when it occurred, as the agency mentioned discovering it during its pre-investigation work.

Here’s what NHTSA wrote about the second scenario in its investigation notice:

With respect to the second type of scenario, ODI has identified 2 SGO reports, 18 complaints, and 2 media reports alleging that a Tesla vehicle, operating with FSD engaged, entered opposing lanes of travel during or following a turn, crossed double-yellow lane markings while proceeding straight, or attempted to turn onto a road in the wrong direction despite the presence of wrongway road signs. Likewise, ODI has identified 4 SGO reports, 6 complaints, and 1 media report alleging that a Tesla vehicle, operating with FSD engaged, proceeded straight through an intersection in a turn-only lane or executed a turn at an intersection in a through lane despite the presence of lane markings or signals. Complaints also alleged that FSD did not provide warnings of the system’s intended behavior. Some complaints alleged that more than one of these failures occurred and, as such, the numbers are not cumulative. Some of the reported incidents appeared to involve FSD executing a lane change into an opposing lane of travel with little notice to a driver or opportunity to intervene.

NHTSA is particularly interested in figuring out if drivers were warned by the behavior and had sufficient time to intervene before the traffic violations.

While the focus is on these specific scenarios, NHTSA says that it will also investigate “any other types of situations in which this behavior may arise, such as when traveling adjacent to a lane of opposing traffic or when approaching railroad crossings.”

The mention of “railroad crossings” is particularly interesting as it comes after several media reports highlighted problems with FSD not stopping for railroad crossings. Several politicians have reached out to NHTSA to ask them to investigate the situation.

This new probe covers “all Tesla vehicles that have been equipped with FSD (Supervised) or FSD
(Beta)”, with an estimated population of 2,882,566 vehicles.