Tesla announced it will recall more than 360,000 of its fully automated vehicles in the United States to address issues with the way its fully automated driving system behaves around intersections and adheres to posted speed limits.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tesla filed a recall of 362,758 U.S. vehicles, all of which are electric vehicles with the fully automated driving feature. The recalled vehicles are specific 2016-2023 Model S and Model X models, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y, all with Fully Automated Driving (FSD) Beta software installed or pending installation of the software.
Tesla shares turned lower after the news, closing down 5.7 percent at $202.04, and the company’s shares continued their late-afternoon decline after the bell.
NHTSA believes that the FSD Beta system may allow vehicles to engage in unsafe behavior around intersections, such as going straight through an intersection in a turn-only lane, entering an intersection controlled by a stop sign without coming to a full stop, or inappropriately Entering the intersection without due attention to the yellow traffic lights. In addition, the system may not respond adequately to changes in the speed limit, or may not sufficiently take into account the driver’s adjustments to the vehicle’s speed to the point of exceeding the speed limit. The above-mentioned various deficiencies may cause traffic accidents.
Some media pointed out that only Tesla owners who have installed advanced FSD driver assistance systems in their cars can join the FSD Beta program. To get the FSD Beta, you need to pay $15,000 in the US or $199 a month for a subscription. Additionally, owners must earn a high Driver Safety Score, as determined by Tesla software that monitors their driving habits, and maintain that score to gain FSD Beta access.
NHTSA said it expects Tesla to fix the issue by April 15 via an over-the-air software update for free.
Musk responded on Twitter, saying that NHTSA used the word “recall” to describe Tesla’s updated data as “grotesquely wrong.”
Tesla has never disclosed how many people have purchased or subscribed to the premium FSD option. During the company’s last earnings call, Musk said: To date, we have deployed the Fully Automated Driving Beta to approximately 400,000 customers in North America for driving on city streets. This is a huge milestone for Autopilot because FSD Beta is the only way for any consumer to actually test the autonomy of the latest artificial intelligence.
The NHTSA issued a safety recall stating that the driver is responsible for operating the vehicle whenever the feature is enabled and must continually monitor the feature and intervene as needed (e.g., steering, braking or accelerating) to keep the vehicle operating safely.
