Overview
- NHTSA advanced its Tesla Full Self-Driving investigation to an engineering analysis covering about 3.2 million vehicles, including Models S, 3, X, Y and Cybertruck.
- The inquiry focuses on whether FSD fails to recognize degraded camera visibility from glare, dust or fog and to provide drivers enough time to take control.
- Regulators linked nine crashes to the issue, including one fatal and two with injuries, and reported alerts arriving only moments before impact or the system losing a lead vehicle.
- Tesla’s post-incident analyses suggested a later software update may have affected outcomes in three of the nine crashes, which NHTSA plans to assess.
- Contested crash footage and expert critiques of supervised autonomy have heightened legal and regulatory pressure, with the analysis potentially leading to a recall if a defect is found.