‘A very big deal’: Federal safety regulator takes aim at Tesla Autopilot
After four years of laissez-faire treatment under the Trump administration, the nation’s top auto safety regulator is making it clear to Elon Musk and Tesla that there’s a new sheriff in town.
In June, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration ordered automakers to cough up data on every crash that involves automated driving systems, such as Tesla’s Autopilot. Last month, it launched an investigation into a dozen crashes in which Teslas on Autopilot plowed into parked emergency vehicles.
Then, on Aug. 31, NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation sent an 11-page letter instructing Tesla to provide the agency with an enormous volume of detailed data on each Tesla vehicle sold or leased in the United States from 2014 to 2021.
“This could be a very big deal,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a professor at the University of South Carolina, one of the legal field’s foremost experts in automated motor vehicle law.
Back in 2016, when automated driving systems first drew broad public attention, the agency published enforcement guidelines making clear that it could enforce safety regulations governing software systems, not just traditional components such as carburetors, air bags or ignition switches.
Subsequently, however, the Trump administration took a lax approach to NHTSA enforcement.
The agency’s new activism is bad news for Tesla, whose electric car revenues have been boosted in part by the popularity of its Autopilot driver assist system, and by the $10,000 it receives from buyers of its Full Self-Driving system (which in fact is not a full self-driving system).