Safety Agency Expands Tesla Autopilot Investigation

The scope of the NHTSA investigation covers about 830,000 electric cars that might have an increased crash risk

Jeff S. Bartlett, Consumer Reports Managing Editor, Autos.

By Jeff S. Bartlett
Managing Editor, Autos

June 9, 2022

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has upgraded its investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot active driver assistance system from a preliminary evaluation to an engineering analysis. This means the safety agency will extend its crash analysis of incidents involving Autopilot by looking at additional data and performing vehicle evaluations. Plus, NHTSA will explore how Autopilot’s design might increase the risk of a crash that happens after a driver stops paying attention to the road.

NHTSA’s look into Autopilot began in August 2021 after an increasing number of crashes with Autopilot engaged were reported, including collisions with parked and emergency vehicles. The scope of the ongoing investigation covers about 830,000 Teslas from the 2014 to 2022 model years, including the four current vehicles: Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X.

In August and September, NHTSA sent letters to Tesla and 12 other automakers requesting data on crashes and information about their active driving assistance systems.

The safety agency found that there were 16 crashes involving a Tesla striking first responder and road maintenance vehicles. Many of these incidents had some form of intervention from the forward collision warning and/or automatic emergency braking systems, but on average, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than 1 second prior to impact. Of those crashes, NHTSA found that driver attention warnings were issued in just two cases.

In addition, NHTSA reviewed 191 other crashes involving Autopilot.

Experts, including those at the National Transportation Safety Board, have warned that as systems like Autopilot get better at automating some braking, acceleration, and steering tasks, drivers may start to rely on them too much, even though they are designed to work while there is an attentive driver behind the wheel. A driver using Autopilot, for example, might stop paying attention to the task of driving—even to the point that they might not notice a stopped emergency vehicle with its lights flashing.

Federal lawmakers, safety advocates, and other automakers have long called for better safeguards against driver inattention in vehicles that automate some driving tasks.

“NHTSA is right to step up its safety investigation into Tesla’s driver-assist systems,” says William Wallace, associate director of safety policy at Consumer Reports. “If it’s foreseeable that some part of a car’s design increases the risk of a crash, then the manufacturer needs to fix the car right away. The company can rework how a feature operates, or add safeguards like an effective driver monitoring system, or do some combination of both—but it must take action. And if the company doesn’t address the problem voluntarily, NHTSA should force them to do so.”

Read: “Tesla’s Camera-Based Driver Monitoring Fails to Keep Driver Attention on the Road, CR Tests Show.”

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Jeff S. Bartlett

Jeff S. Bartlett is the managing editor for the autos team at Consumer Reports. He has been with CR since 2005. Previously, Jeff served as the online editorial director of Motor Trend for 11 years. Throughout his career, Jeff has driven thousands of cars, many on racetracks around the globe. Follow him on X: @JeffSBartlett