Thread by @maxrdlb

#teslafiles #autopilot - Chapter 5: Authorities Target Tesla's Autopilot

"When my wife was out with our baby today, the car suddenly accelerated out of nowhere."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is the American counterpart to the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Among other things, the agency is responsible for road safety.

The NHTSA only approved Tesla's Autopilot on the condition that the driver constantly monitors the road conditions to be able to intervene in an emergency.

The agency has been watching Musk's company for years. Recently, its zeal seems to be growing. Handelsblatt has a copy of a questionnaire from the NHTSA to Tesla dated August 18, 2022.

In it, the agency demands precise data for all vehicles produced for the USA and their software versions. It also asks to be informed about all lawsuits related to the Autopilot.

One of them made headlines in January 2023. The reason was Ashok Elluswamy's statement about a fatal Tesla accident. Elluswamy, the head of software development for Tesla's Autopilot, was asked about a commercial from 2016.

The clip showed a Model X driving seemingly autonomously through California. At the beginning, Tesla displayed in white letters on a black background: "The person in the driver's seat is there for legal reasons only. He is doing nothing; the car is driving itself."

During his questioning, Elluswamy stated that, at Musk's request, Tesla's Autopilot team had designed and recorded a "demonstration of the system's capabilities." However, there had been problems.

During tests, the driver had to intervene multiple times to avoid accidents. Tesla decided to take precautions. The car ended up driving on a predetermined route, Elluswamy said. Additionally, a parking scene was cut in which the car drove into a fence.

Despite this, the manager thought it was legitimate for Tesla to post the video on its website. "The intention of the video was not to accurately represent what was available to customers in 2016," said Elluswamy. "It was about showing what could be built into the system."

Elon Musk had a different take on this. The CEO commented on the video on Twitter on October 20, 2016: "Tesla drives autonomously (without any human inputs)."

His followers reacted euphorically. "Wow, absolutely fantastic," was one comment. Some users thanked Musk effusively, calling him a "genius" or "one of the greatest thinkers and revolutionaries of our time."

Musk's tweet was liked more than 17,000 times and retweeted more than 11,000 times. Seven years later, the world learned from Elluswamy that the matter of autonomous driving was not meant that way.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demanded on February 16, 2023, that Tesla apply an update to 362,000 cars with the FSD software. The agency communicated that problems with the system "increase the risk of an accident".

It might be possible that the cars exceed the speed limit on their own and drive in an "illegal or unpredictable way" – for instance, "across an intersection".

Tesla stated that the company did not share the concerns of the agency. However, the automaker had decided to implement a voluntary update "out of caution".

The NHTSA plans to continue its focus on the autopilot, emphasizing that the recall does not address everything that the NHTSA is currently investigating.

In China too, Tesla has to make improvements. The local market regulation authority demanded the company perform a software update due to a possible safety risk on about 1.1 million vehicles. This accounts for about 97 percent of all vehicles that Tesla has sold in China.

According to Chinese reports, the problem is related to a brake defect. This could lead to a Tesla unintentionally accelerating when the driver actually wants to slow down. This would increase the probability of a collision.

In the USA, investigators are now also interested in Tesla's driving assistance systems. The Department of Justice is investigating whether Tesla or company executives made misleading statements about the capabilities of the Autopilot.

Tesla confirmed these investigations in January. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is examining whether Elon Musk made statements that suggested something that was not true.

Tesla did not answer questions about this. In the past, the company repeatedly stated that it was not aware of any ongoing government investigations that had proven any misconduct.

The Handelsblatt newspaper has obtained a purported internal presentation from May 2018. It is part of the Tesla files and apparently shows how an engineer listed problem areas for his colleagues as part of a fault analysis. According to this, there were ten categories.

The most sensitive included the unintentional braking and acceleration of vehicles. This affects "the safe operation of the vehicle," the presentation says. Next to it is the note: "Dangerous - direct risk to customer safety without warning."

Tesla did not answer questions about the presentation and instead asked Handelsblatt to delete it and all other data.

More Tesla cars with advanced driver assistance systems are driving on American roads than from any other manufacturer. The NHTSA has been investigating the autopilot systems in 830,000 Teslas since June, according to its own statements.

The agency is aware of 367 accidents involving a car with an activated autopilot between July 2021 and May 2022. Nearly 70 percent of these involved a Tesla vehicle.

Thus, Elon Musk's company led the accident statistics with 273 cases. They were followed by Japanese manufacturers Honda with 90 and Subaru with ten vehicles.

The NHTSA points out that its figures are not complete because reports from vehicle owners are missing. In addition, the obligation to report for companies is relatively new.

The manufacturers provided information on the consequences in 98 accidents. There were a total of five seriously injured and six fatalities in eleven accidents. Tesla was involved in five of the six fatal accidents.