The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a “recall” notice to Tesla over its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software, over fears that it could lead to accidents.
Tesla has agreed to the “recall”, which affects 362,758 vehicles that currently have the software version installed. While it is technically a “recall” the problem will be remedied with an over-the-air software update so the vehicles aren’t required to go to service centres for the fix.
In the recall notice NHTSA said:
“The FSD Beta system may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution. In addition, the system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver’s adjustment of the vehicle’s speed to exceed posted speed limits.”
In it’s “Description of Remedy” NHTSA says:
“Tesla will deploy an over-the-air (“OTA”) software update at no cost to the customer. The OTA update, which we expect to deploy in the coming weeks, will improve how FSD Beta negotiates certain driving maneuvers during the conditions described above.”
The report’s chronology shows that the issue was first raised with Tesla on January 25 and that while Tesla had not concurred with NHTSA’s analysis, the company agreed to a voluntary recall “out of an abundance of caution”.
The report also says that “Tesla is not aware of any injuries or deaths that may be related to such conditions”.
The recall comes despite the Tesla Model Y recently winning What Car? 2023 Car of the Year Safety Award after it received Euro NCAP’s highest ever safety score including a 98% score on “active safety” driver assist testing thanks to Tesla’s AI driving software.
Daniel Bleakley is a clean technology researcher and advocate with a background in engineering and business. He has a strong interest in electric vehicles, renewable energy, manufacturing and public policy.