The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has ramped up its investigation into Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) systems. This move comes after concerns that the system might not be safe for drivers in challenging conditions like fog, bright sunlight, or other situations where it’s hard to see the road clearly.
This investigation, which started last year, now covers a massive 3.2 million Tesla vehicles. It includes popular models like the Model S, X, 3, Y, and even the new Cybertruck, all of which can use Tesla’s FSD driver assistance features.
NHTSA specifically pointed out that Tesla’s FSD system might sometimes fail to properly spot potential hazards or warn the driver when visibility is poor, for example, due to sun glare or airborne particles like dust or heavy rain.
Regulators looked at several crashes and found a concerning pattern. Tesla’s system often didn’t detect common road conditions that blocked the car’s camera view. Even worse, it didn’t give drivers alerts about poor camera performance until right before a crash happened.
The probe has now moved to a more serious stage called an “engineering analysis.” This upgrade follows a series of complaints about accidents where FSD was active within 30 seconds of the collision. One particularly tragic incident involved a Tesla driver using FSD who hit and killed a pedestrian.
This increased scrutiny from NHTSA shows they are taking these safety concerns very seriously. They want to understand exactly why Tesla’s FSD system struggles in certain visibility conditions and what risks this poses to drivers and others on the road. The agency will now dig deeper into the system’s design and performance to determine if there are significant safety defects that need addressing.
