Autonomous Vehicle News
"The resulting relaxation of controls...could lead to greater driver inattention and failure of the driver to properly supervise Autopilot," NHTSA said in its letter to Tesla. The agency is investigating the performance of Autopilot after identifying more than a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles hit stationary emergency vehicles. It is also investigating whether Tesla vehicles adequately ensure drivers are paying attention when using the driver assistance system. In June 2022, NHTSA upgraded an earlier probe of 830,000 Tesla vehicles into an engineering analysis — a required step before it could potentially demand a recall. In April, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla is gradually reducing alerts aimed at making sure drivers using Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) system keep their hands on the wheel.