Tesla is recalling over 360,000 vehicles and is warning that its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) technology, which is currently in testing, “may cause collisions.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ordered the recall today, requiring the EV manufacturer to release an over-the-air software upgrade to impacted vehicles.
Tesla’s misleadingly named Full Self-Driving software, a $15,000 add-on that can assist drivers in a variety of ways but does not, contrary to its name, take over driving entirely, has already been involved in a number of near misses and erratic behavior on public roads, drawing regulators’ attention.
A recent version of the Tesla’s FSD beta may cause vehicles to “act unsafely 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 without due caution,” according to a notice posted on the NHTSA’s website. Vehicles that are affected may also react incorrectly to “changes in posted speed restrictions.”
It’s a significant blow for the corporation, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse moment. Musk has set an investor day for March 1, which is only two weeks away. The NHTSA is already looking into the company’s Autopilot driving system, which has been involved in scores of collisions with parked emergency vehicles.
While this is far from the first recall for Elon Musk’s firm, it is a big setback for the company’s attempts to build software that allows a vehicle to entirely drive itself.
Reference- Tesla website, NHTSA website, CNBC, Yahoo, Inside EVs