The federal government has opened an investigation into Tesla’s new driver-assistance software, “Full Self-Driving (Supervised).” This move follows a spate of crashes linked to the technology. The probe affects some 2.88 million vehicles — almost all Teslas equipped with this controversial feature. Safety concerns were raised after several dangerous incidents occurred. One of these incidents tragically involved a pedestrian and occurred in conditions of very low visibility such as fog.
Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” is a Level 2 driver-assistance system. This designation requires that drivers be constantly on the lookout and focused while operating on it. Drivers are still expected to be 100% focused on the road, even when the vehicle is doing some portion of the driving task. This new requirement has prompted many to wonder whether this technology is safe, reliable, and effective, particularly in the wake of the recent incidents.
In 2022, the investigation began in earnest. It has now expanded to a mind-boggling 2,882,566 vehicles that use Full Self-Driving technology. Tesla is under a microscope like never before. CEO Elon Musk will have to show that the new progress on Full Self-Driving (FSD) has fixed old bugs and safety issues.
Elon Musk has set a consistently unrealistic pitch for Tesla’s autonomous driving future. He plans to release a version of FSD that will not require any driver intervention. This is a vision he’s taken on the national road show and more deeply promoted for the last several years. Currently, Tesla continues to test this advanced version of the technology, aiming for a transformative shift in how vehicles operate on the roads.
In recent statements, Musk expressed confidence in the imminent deployment of hundreds of thousands of self-driving Tesla cars and robotaxis by the end of next year. He wants to prove FSD to be unimaginably safe before it is released. People won’t even have to look out the window when the vehicle is moving.
Nonetheless, despite these lofty advancements and ambitions, the probe does prove to point out some serious issues on the safety of Tesla’s existing FSD features. The crashes the team investigated involved situations where visibility was limited, sounding the alarm on how the system might perform in less-than-ideal scenarios.
As the investigation continues, Tesla has some serious hurdles ahead. It still needs to put public safety first and do the heavy lifting needed to restore consumer and regulatory confidence in its autonomous driving technology. This probe may have serious implications for Tesla. It could affect the auto industry as a whole, as it moves further down the path of automation in vehicles.
