NHTSA questions Tesla over Musk driving tweet

Safety experts raise alarms about post on disabling Autopilot alert function

DETROIT — A tweet from Elon Musk indicating that Tesla might allow some owners who are testing a “Full Self-driving” system to disable an alert that reminds them to keep their hands on the steering wheel has drawn attention from U.S. safety regulators.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it asked Tesla for more information about the tweet. Last week, the agency said the issue is now part of a broader investigation into at least 14 Teslas that have crashed into emergency vehicles while using the Autopilot driver assist system.

Since 2021, Tesla has been beta-testing “Full Self-driving” using owners who haven’t been trained on the system but are actively monitored by the company. Earlier this year, Tesla said 160,000, roughly 15% of Teslas now on U.S. roads, were participating. A wider distribution of the software was to be rolled out late in 2022.

Despite the name, Tesla still says on its website that the cars can’t drive themselves. Teslas using “Full Self-driving” can navigate roads themselves in many cases, but experts say the system can make mistakes.

“We’re not saying it’s quite ready to have no one behind the wheel,” CEO Musk said in October.

On New Year’s Eve, one of Musk’s most ardent fans posted on Twitter that drivers with more than 10,000 miles of “Full Self-driving” testing should have the option to turn off the “steering wheel nag,” an alert that tells drivers to keep hands on the wheel.

Musk replied: “Agreed, update coming in Jan.”

It’s not clear from the tweets what Tesla will do. But disabling a driver monitoring system on any vehicle that automates speed and steering would pose a danger to other drivers on the road, said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing for Consumer Reports.

“Using FSD beta, you’re kind of part of an experiment,” Fisher said. “The problem is the other road users adjacent to you haven’t signed up to be part of that experiment.”

Tesla didn’t respond to a message seeking comment about the tweet or its driver monitoring.

Auto safety advocates and government investigators have long criticized Tesla’s monitoring system as inadequate.

Three years ago the National Transportation Safety Board listed poor monitoring as a contributing factor in a 2018 fatal Tesla crash in California. The board recommended a better system, but said Tesla has not responded.

Philip Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, argued that Tesla is contradicting itself in a way that could confuse drivers. “They’re trying to make customers happy by taking their hands off the wheel, even while the (owners) manual says ‘don’t do that.’ ”

The NHTSA has noted in documents that numerous Tesla crashes have occurred in which drivers had their hands on the wheel but still weren’t paying attention.