Why Tesla’s Autopilot ends up under investigation in the US
NHTSA, the US federal road safety agency, has opened an investigation into Tesla's driver assistance system. Spotlights on 11 accidents between brand cars and rescue vehicles
Tesla is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US federal agency that deals with road safety. The investigation focuses on Autopilot, the driving assistance system (ADAS) which – despite its pompous name – is limited to assisting the driver while driving, keeping the roadway and adjusting the speed according to the traffic.
A necessary clarification, given that the name could induce some motorists to over-trust the system by distracting themselves from driving. Behavior that has already occurred despite the Californian manufacturer's invitations to keep an eye on the road and supervise the conduct of Autopilot.
The NHTSA's attention was drawn to a number of accidents – 11 currently cited – in which Tesla models crashed into rescue vehicles engaged in previous accidents while Autopilot was active. The government agency now wants to understand if the assisted driving system is at the root of accidents.
AUTOPILOT, NOT AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
Tesla is a pioneer brand in the field of innovation: the choice to focus exclusively on the electric car is coupled with the development of advanced on-board technology. Among the solutions brought to the debut in the automotive sector is the connectivity that allows you to update the software and solve bugs remotely, without bringing the vehicle to the workshop.
Autopilot is – or at least it should be intended – the flagship of Tesla technology. A couple of years ago Elon Musk, during an interview with ARK Invest, had announced fully autonomous driving by 2020: “I think that by that date we will have the full functionality of complete autonomous driving, which means that the car will be in able to find parking, pick you up and take you to your destination without any intervention from the driver. I am sure of it, there is no doubt ”.
In reality, things did not go quite like this. On the contrary: to date, the Autopilot does not allow the vehicle to move on its own, it remains a level 2 ADAS as specified by Tesla in a letter to the California Department of Motor Vehicles at the end of 2020. The car is able to accelerate, brake and steer alone, but the driver must never let go of the steering wheel completely. There are two assistance packages, offered by Tesla as optional on its models: the “Advanced Autopilot” and the “Autonomous driving at maximum potential”, with prices respectively of 3,800 euros and 7,500 euros. The first includes: Navigation function with Autopilot (automatic management of motorway junctions, intersections and overtaking of slower cars); Automatic lane change (when driving on the motorway); Autopark (in parallel and perpendicular parking); Summon (parking and automatic vehicle recovery). The most complete package also includes: Recognition and reaction to traffic lights and stop signs; Automatic driving on city streets (next).
ACCIDENTS WITH FIRST AID VEHICLES
Despite the manufacturer's warnings – and perhaps also due to the confusion generated by rash statements like Musk's – the Autopilot has been misused several times by Tesla drivers, some of them caught driving while playing with their smartphone, they slept or even sat in the back seat. But it is a sequence of eleven incidents that occurred in the period 2018 – 2021 between Tesla models and first aid vehicles engaged in previous events that was attention by the NHTSA, with the consequent opening of the investigation.
As electrek.com reports, the federal agency found that Autopilot was active in the aforementioned accidents, that most of the incidents occurred after sunset, and that the scenario included rescue vehicles with flashing lights, signal lights, road cones and signs normally used to signal obstacles.
The survey covers all Tesla models equipped with any version of Autopilot, therefore Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y produced from 2014 to today. The agency will evaluate the technologies and methods used by Autopilot to monitor and assist the driver while driving. In addition, the agency says it will also evaluate the OEDR – the ability to detect objects and implement appropriate maneuvers to avoid them – of vehicles in Autopilot mode.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/tesla-autopilot-nhtsa-indagine/ on Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:35:35 +0000.