Safety regulators in the U.S. have opened a formal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system following a run of serious accidents where the EVs have crashed into emergency vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration claims it identified 11 crashes involving Tesla cars and emergency vehicles parked at existing incidents. According to the NHTSA, those 11 crashes have resulted in 17 injuries and one death since January 2018.
As a result, the NHTSA says it has opened a preliminary evaluation of the Autopilot driver assistance system in Model 3, S, X and Y cars built between 2014 and 2021. According to Reuters, that means around 765,000 Tesla vehicles are covered by the investigation.
“The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes,” the NHTSA said, announcing the investigation.
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Contrary to what its name implies, Autopilot isn’t a fully autonomous driving system, but an adaptive cruise control system with some self-steering capability. The driver is expected, and needs to, remain ready to take control of the car.
According to the agency’s data, most of the 11 accidents took place at night when the Teslas involved would have come across first responder vehicle lights, flares, illuminated arrow boards, and road cones.
To understand why those accidents occurred the NHTSA says it will “assess the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist, and enforce the driver’s engagement with the dynamic driving task during Autopilot operation.”
This isn’t the first time the NHTSA has opened an investigation into Teslas following fatal accidents. In June the NHTSA announced it had sent investigators to look into 30 Tesla crashes since 2016 that have resulted in 10 deaths, and where it was suspected the cars’ driver assistance features were operating.
