The ongoing investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in crashes involving Tesla vehicles while using Full Self-Driving is being escalated due to additional reports.
NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) just opened an “Engineering Analysis” to closely examine Tesla’s Full Self Driving Beta and Full Self Driving (Supervised) degradation detection system.
“The focus of this investigation will be to assess the system’s ability, when encountering reduced roadway visibility conditions, to detect degradation and alert the driver with sufficient time to respond,” NHTSA officials wrote in the report released March 18.
New data, according to NHTSA, raises concerns that the latest version of Tesla’s degradation detection software isn’t working properly, or in at least in a manner that makes a difference when it comes to avoiding collisions. By upgrading the investigation to an Engineering Analysis, the agency’s investigators will expand its testing of existing vehicles and systems.
The agency already investigated problems with FSD in diminished conditions, such as night driving or difficult weather. During that October 2024 query, Tesla claimed to install an improved version of “Tesla Vision,” it’s camera-only-based system and software for its FSD program — specifically an updated version of its degradation detection system.
“On June 28, 2024, the day after Tesla submitted the SGO report of the November 28, 2023 fatal crash listed in this document, Tesla began developing an update to the degradation detection system. At this time, ODI does not have information on when the update was deployed and which vehicles have the updated system,” the agency wrote in the March 18 report.
Tesla’s been battling issues with its semi-autonomous (Autopilot) and fully autonomous (by Tesla’s estimation) FSD program for years. The company’s been involved in a slew of crashes of vehicles sitting on the side of the road, a great number of them emergency vehicles rendering assistance.
The company’s maintained the system is safe, but Tesla’s goal is for a zero-crash society so it continues to work in refining FSD. As is often the case, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk took to social media, specifically X (formerly Twitter), to encourage people to try Full Self-Driving, making claims that it’s perfect safe.
“Try Tesla self-driving! It’s awesome,” Musk posted late on March 18 in a reply to a compliment about the system by another poster. Prior to that, Tesla issued a post on X featuring a bar graph showing that Tesla’s driven with FSD Supervised are far safer than any other vehicles on the road.
[Images: Tesla]
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