US asks Tesla for information on how it developed and verified whether Autopilot recall worked

DETROIT (AP) — Federal highway safety investigators want Tesla to tell them how and why it developed the fix during the recall of more than 2 million vehicles equipped with the company’s Autopilot partially automated driving system.

Investigators with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are concerned about the recall’s effectiveness because Tesla has reported 20 crashes since the remedy was sent out as an online software update in December.

The recall patch also addressed whether Autopilot should be allowed to operate on roads other than limited-access highways. The solution to this problem was increased warnings to the driver on roads with intersections.

But in a letter to Tesla posted Tuesday on the agency’s website, investigators wrote that they found no difference between warnings to the driver to take care before the recall and after the recall was issued. new software. The agency said it will evaluate whether warnings to drivers are adequate, particularly when a driver monitoring camera is covered.

The agency requested extensive information about how Tesla developed the fix and focused on how it used human behavior to test the recall’s effectiveness.

The 18-page letter asks how Tesla used the science of human behavior in the design of Autopilot and the company’s assessment of the importance of evaluating human factors.

He also wants Tesla to identify every job involved in evaluating human behavior and worker qualifications. And he asks Tesla to say if the positions still exist.

A message was left Tuesday by The Associated Press seeking Tesla’s comment on the NHTSA letter.

Tesla is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or about 14,000 people, in a bid to cut costs to cope with falling global sales. CEO Elon Musk told Wall Street that the company is more of an artificial intelligence and robotics company than an automaker.

Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies automated driving safety, said the letter shows that the recall did not help resolve the Autopilot problems and that it was a attempt to pacify the NHTSA, which demanded the recall after more than two years of investigation.

“It’s pretty clear to anyone watching that Tesla tried to do as little remedy as possible to see what they could do,” Koopman said. “And NHTSA must respond forcefully, or other automakers will start offering inadequate solutions.”

In the letter, NHTSA also asks Tesla for information on how the recall addresses driver confusion about whether Autopilot has been disabled if force is applied to the steering wheel. Previously, if Autopilot was turned off, drivers might not quickly realize they needed to resume driving.

The recall added a feature that gives a “deeper slowdown” to alert drivers when Autopilot has been disabled. But using the reminder does not activate the system automatically: drivers must do it. Investigators asked how many drivers took this step.

NHTSA asks Telsa: “What do you mean you have a cure and it’s not actually activated?” » said Koopman.

The letter, he said, shows that NHTSA is verifying whether Tesla has conducted testing to ensure the fixes actually work. “Looking at the remedy, I found it hard to believe that there is a lot of analysis proving that this would improve safety,” Koopman said.

The agency said it would evaluate the “significance and scope” of Autopilot’s controls to combat abuse, confusion and use in areas for which the system is not designed.

Safety advocates have long worried that Autopilot, which can keep a vehicle in its lane and away from objects in front of it, was not designed to work on roads other than dual-access highways. limit.

Tesla tells owners that the system cannot operate on its own despite its name and that drivers must be ready to intervene at any time.

The agency also says Tesla made safety updates after sending out the recall patch, including an attempt to reduce crashes caused by hydroplaning and reduce collisions in high-speed turning lanes. NHTSA said it would “evaluate the timing and drivers of these updates, their impacts on the affected vehicle’s performance, and Tesla’s reasons for not including them” in the initial recall.

NHTSA began its investigation into Autopilot crashes in 2021, after receiving 11 reports that Teslas using Autopilot struck parked emergency vehicles. In documents explaining why the investigation ended because of the recall, NHTSA said it ultimately found 467 crashes involving Autopilot, resulting in 54 injuries and 14 deaths.