US agency raises concerns about Tesla Full Self-Driving social media posts By Reuters

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration raised issues about Tesla (NASDAQ:) social media posts that steered its Full Self-Driving software program can be utilized as a robotaxi and doesn’t want driver consideration.

NHTSA in October opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla autos with FSD software program after 4 reported collisions, together with a 2023 deadly crash, throughout situations together with solar glare, fog, and airborne mud.

In a Might 14 electronic mail made public on Friday, NHTSA informed Tesla its social media postings may encourage folks to see FSD as a robotaxi “reasonably than a partial automation/driver help system that requires persistent consideration and intermittent intervention by the motive force.”

NHTSA cited Tesla postings on X together with reposting the story of a person who opted to make use of FSD to drive him 13 miles (21 km) from his residence to the emergency room throughout a coronary heart assault, together with one other depicting a 50-minute drive residence utilizing FSD from a sporting occasion.

“We imagine that Tesla’s postings battle with

its acknowledged messaging that the motive force is to take care of continued management over the dynamic driving job,” NHTSA wrote, asking Tesla to revisit its communications.

Tesla, which met with the company in Might concerning the social media posts, informed NHTSA that its proprietor’s handbook and in different places tells drivers that the car just isn’t autonomous and that they have to stay vigilant.

Tesla didn’t instantly touch upon Friday. Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla and owns X, the social media web site previously often called Twitter.

NHTSA on Friday launched a letter dated Monday (NASDAQ:) to Tesla looking for solutions to questions in its investigation by Dec. 18, together with the motive force help system’s “potential failure to carry out, together with detecting and responding appropriately in particular conditions the place there may be lowered roadway visibility which will restrict FSD’s means to soundly function.”

NHTSA added that its “investigation will take into account the adequacy of suggestions or info the system supplies to drivers to allow them to decide in actual time when the potential of the system has been exceeded.”

A 71-year-old girl who exited a car following a rear-end collision with two different autos was killed in Rimrock, Arizona when she was struck by a Tesla in FSD mode with a driver battling solar glare who was not charged.

In December 2023, Tesla agreed to recall over 2 million autos within the U.S. to put in new safeguards in its Autopilot superior driver-assistance system underneath stress from NHTSA, which continues to be contemplating the adequacy of the safeguards.