In the US Tesla “self-driving” Autopilot is being investigated by the Federal agency in charge of road safety.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is said to be looking into 11 Tesla crashes, which have occurred since 2018 and involving emergency vehicles.
Some of these crashes involved, Tesla vehicles “crashed directly into the vehicles of first responders”,
The investigation will cover the entire range of Tesla models dating back to 2014.
One of the key concerns for the agency is the supposed inability of the Tesla Autopilot to cope with vehicles stopped in the road.
This is the predominant scenario where crashes into first responders came, as they had stopped at an incident and were then crashed into by a Tesla.
The agency are particularly concerned with the manner in which Tesla engages the driver of the vehicle while the car is set to Autopilot.
Tesla Autopilot has been over the news a lot in the past few weeks with the recent release of the Self-driving beta.
This allows the car to basically do everything for the driver, for a fee. However, the agency has said that no vehicle is lawfully allowed to be self-controlling a driver “human” must always be behind the wheel.
However, a lot of social media followers out there will of course have seen recent incidents where Tesla drivers have been seen to be dancing around in the back seat while the car continues to drive.
Supporting documents from the investigation do note that the crashes were in challenging circumstances.
“Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones,” it reads.
