WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday it was upgrading its probe to 830,000 Tesla vehicles (TSLA.O) with its advanced Autopilot driver assistance system, a necessary step. before he can search I remember.
The car safety agency in August opened a preliminary estimate to assess the system’s performance in 765,000 vehicles after about a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles collided, stopped emergency vehicles – and said on Thursday it had identified six additional crashes .
NHTSA is upgrading its probe to an engineering analysis, which it must do before requesting a withdrawal if it deems it necessary.
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The car safety regulator checks that Tesla vehicles guarantee adequate attention to drivers. The agency added evidence that drivers in most of the crashes considered complied with Tesla’s warning strategy, which seeks to attract the driver’s attention by raising questions about its effectiveness.
In 2020, the National Transportation Safety Board criticized Tesla’s “ineffective monitoring of driver involvement” following a fatal autopilot crash in 2018 and said NHTSA had provided “scarce oversight.”
NHTSA said the upgrade was “to expand existing crash analysis, evaluate additional datasets, perform vehicle assessments, and explore the extent to which Tesla’s autopilot and related systems could worsen the human factor or safety risks. behavior by undermining the effectiveness of driver supervision. “
Tesla, which disbanded its press centers, did not respond to a request for comment.
NHTSA said it had reports of 16 crashes, including seven incidents of injuries and one death involving Tesla vehicles on autopilot that collided with stationary vehicles for first response and road maintenance.
Democrat Sen. Ed Markie praised NHTSA’s improvement. “Every day, when Tesla ignores safety rules and misleads the public about its Autopilot system, our roads become more and more dangerous,” he wrote on Twitter.
NHTSA said its analysis showed that frontal collision warnings were activated in most incidents just before the impact and that the subsequent automatic emergency stop was involved in approximately half of the crashes.
“On average, in these crashes, the autopilot cut off the vehicle less than a second before the first crash,” the agency added.
NHTSA noted that “where video of the incident is available, the approach to the scene of the first responder would be visible to the driver for an average of 8 seconds leading to the impact.”
The agency also reviewed 106 reported crashes on autopilot and said about half of them “there are indications that the driver is not responding enough to the needs of the dynamic driving task.”
“The use or misuse of vehicle components by the driver, or the unintentional operation of a vehicle, does not necessarily rule out a systemic defect,” the agency said.
NHTSA also found that in about a quarter of the 106 crashes, the main factor in the crash appears to be related to system performance, where Tesla says restrictions may exist in places such as roads other than restricted highways, or while in a visibility environment involving factors such as rain, snow or ice.
Tesla says autopilot allows vehicles to stop and steer automatically within their lanes, but does not make them able to drive alone.
An NHTSA spokesman said sophisticated driving assistance features could promote safety, “by helping drivers avoid accidents and mitigate the severity of accidents that occur, but as with all motor vehicle technology and equipment, drivers must to use them correctly and responsibly. “
Last week, NHTSA said it had asked Tesla to answer questions by June 20, after receiving 758 reports of unexpected activation of autopilot brakes in its separate investigation of 416,000 newer vehicles.
Separately, NHTSA has launched 35 special investigations into crashes into Tesla vehicle accidents suspected of using autopilot or other advanced systems, including 14 reported deaths since 2016, including a crash that killed three people last month. California.
NHTSA has asked a dozen other carmakers, including General Motors (GM.N) Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), to answer questions about “driver engagement and attention strategies” using support systems. of the driver ”during the Tesla survey, but did not publish his answers.
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Report by David Shepardson; Edited by Bill Bercrot, Bernadette Baum and Chizu Nomiyama
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