Overview
- Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sept. 9–10 that cites an NBC News review of 43 videos appearing to show people asleep or disengaged in moving Teslas and gives the DOT a Sept. 30 deadline to respond.
- Krishnamoorthi’s letter asks five specific questions about whether the Department of Transportation and NHTSA are aware of the videos, whether they show a systemic problem, and what data the agencies have collected on driver inattention since Jan. 1, 2024.
- NHTSA has had an engineering analysis of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (EA26002) since March that covers roughly 3.2 million vehicles and has identified nine reduced-visibility incidents, including one fatality and one injury.
- Public posts and owner demonstrations show Tesla’s cabin camera and attention checks can be easily defeated with cheap methods like covering the camera or wearing sunglasses, and the letter highlights in-car prompts such as “Drowsiness detected. Stay focused with FSD” as potentially encouraging misuse.
- If DOT or NHTSA conclude the videos point to a systemic safety gap, the engineering analysis could lead to a recall for vehicles with Autopilot or FSD; regulators have not yet published a substantive response to the letter or the new video evidence.