The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Thursday it has opened an investigation into 2.88 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system after receiving more than 50 reports of traffic-safety violations and a series of crashes.
The auto safety regulator said the FSD driver-assistance system — which still requires drivers to remain attentive and ready to intervene — has at times “induced vehicle behavior that violated traffic safety laws.” Reported incidents include vehicles running red lights and traveling against traffic flow during lane changes.
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In total, NHTSA said it is reviewing 58 reports of traffic safety issues involving FSD, including 14 crashes and 23 injuries. The agency noted six incidents in which Tesla vehicles, with FSD engaged, “approached an intersection with a red traffic signal, continued to travel into the intersection against the red light and was subsequently involved in a crash.” Four of those crashes resulted in injuries.
A driver in Houston told NHTSA in a 2024 complaint that FSD “is not recognizing traffic signals. This results in the vehicle proceeding through red lights, and stopping at green lights,” adding that “Tesla doesn’t want to fix it, or even acknowledge the problem, even though they’ve done a test drive with me and seen the issue with their own eyes.”
The investigation is a preliminary evaluation, the first step before NHTSA could pursue a recall if it determines the system poses an unreasonable risk to safety. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company recently issued a software update to its FSD system.
The probe comes amid renewed scrutiny of Tesla’s driver-assistance technology following the appointment of a new NHTSA administrator and calls from lawmakers for tighter oversight. Last month, Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal urged the agency to investigate after reports of near-collisions at railroad crossings.
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Tesla’s FSD — a more advanced version of its Autopilot system — has been under federal investigation for over a year. In October 2024, NHTSA began a separate inquiry into 2.4 million vehicles equipped with FSD after four collisions in low-visibility conditions, including a fatal crash in 2023.
Tesla says FSD “will drive you almost anywhere with your active supervision, requiring minimal intervention,” but maintains that the feature does not make the vehicles autonomous.
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Oliver Carsten, a professor of transport safety at the University of Leeds, said the NHTSA’s action “should serve as a wake-up call for Europe. We are seeing an increasing number of systems on the market that blur the line between assistance and automation.”
NHTSA is also conducting investigations into other Tesla automated features, including a function that allows users to move vehicles remotely and the company’s self-driving robotaxi program launched in Austin, Texas, earlier this year.
Source: Reuters