After more crashes, US regulator upgrades Tesla Autopilot safety investigation

A probe into 830,000 Tesla vehicles with advanced driver assistance system Autopilot has been upgraded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Thursday, the regulator said. The move seems to be the required step before it orders a recall. After a dozen crashes where Tesla vehicles struck stationary emergency vehicles, a preliminary evaluation to assess the performance of the system was started by the auto safety agency in 765,000 vehicles.

On Thursday, the agency identified six more crashes and upgraded its probe to an engineering analysis. The regulator is trying to ascertain that whether Tesla vehicles are ensuring that drivers are paying attention. The evidence suggested that drivers in most crashes had complied with the alert strategy of Tesla, which seeks to compel the attention of the driver, the agency added. It raises questions about the effectiveness of the ‘Autopilot’.

The upgrade is "to extend the existing crash analysis, evaluate additional data sets, perform vehicle evaluations, and to explore the degree to which Autopilot and associated Tesla systems may exacerbate human factors or behavioral safety risks by undermining the effectiveness of the driver’s supervision," NHTSA said. "On average in these crashes, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact," the agency added.

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"Every day that Tesla disregards safety rules and misleads the public about its 'Autopilot' system, our roads become more dangerous," Democratic Senator Ed Markey said on Twitter, while praising NHTSA's upgrade.

(With inputs from agencies)